Friday, January 7, 2011

Build Own Computer – Understanding The Parts Of Motherboard Makes You Smater To Choose Your Specs

Build Own Computer â€" Understanding The Parts Of Motherboard Makes You Smater To Choose Your Specs

Author: Rey Basti

When you are planning to build own computer you need to understand the parts of the motherboard. This is essential for you to know the importance of each part and what makes your system slow or fast. And the good thing here is that you’ll learn how to choose your own computer parts wisely.

The following explains the major parts of motherboard

CPU socket â€" is a part of motherboard that holds the processor in proper place. Sometimes called ZIF socket (zero insertion force) because it allows the processor to be inserted without any resistance or effortless and to be locked in proper place with the lever arm.

Chipset - It comes with two parts the Northbridge and the Southbridge chipset. The Northbridge handles the communications between the processor, RAM, ROM BIOS, PCI-E and AGP it also connects the Southbridge. The Southbridge manages the slower capabilities of motherboard such as the SATA, IDE, USB, Audio and LAN. In short, the Northbridge is a memory controller for fast capabilities and the Southbridge is an I/O controller for slower capabilities. In AMD64 processor the Northbridge was integrated to the processor.

Memory slot - It holds the memory module of your computer. Sometimes it is called memory banks. It has 2 types, the single channel and the dual channel. With the single channel you can install any number of memories while in dual channel you can only install the memories in pair with identical size and speed.

Interface connectors â€" It connects the drives from the motherboard. IDE or ATA (advance technology attachment) It connects the hard drives and optical drives in which you can attach 2 drives on the same cable one for the master and the other is the slave. Newer motherboard uses SATA (serial advance technology attachment) it is much faster than the ATA but it can only support one drive. And the older floppy drives connector which is almost obsolete nowadays. It can only support the floppy drive.

Expansion slots â€" There are 3 types of expansion slots that are most popular in use today. First is the AGP (accelerated graphics ports) slot, this is being used in video card. It comes with 2x, 4x and 8x speed in which the 8x is the fastest. Second is the PCI (peripheral component interconnect) slot, which is the commonly used on almost all cards like, LAN, sound, modem and other I/O controllers. And the latest PCI-Express (or simply PCI-E) slot, PCI-E 16x is mainly used for graphics card which is now the most widely used because it is much faster than the AGP. The PCI-E 1x is being used for common add-in cards such as LAN card, sound card and other peripheral add-in cards.

Back panel connectors â€" This part are connectors at the back of the casing of your CPU. They are used to connect your mouse, keyboard, printer, monitor, audio, mic and other peripherals you may want to connect.

Learn how to choose the perfect computer parts for you to Build Own Computer.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1556338_10.html

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