motherboard : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

Motherboards are designed for a particular brand and range of CPU. Similarly they are usually limited to a small number of types and speeds of RAM (Random Access Memory). Most motherboards hold only one CPU though some have room for a matched pair. For Dual CPU use you need special CPU models designed to be used in pairs. The dual CPU route is expensive. The motherboards are more than twice as expensive, and each CPU is about twice as expensive as the usual type that cannot be used in pairs. A cheaper similar option is hyperthreading where a single fast CPU pretends to be a CPU pair.

One of the most important measures of motherboard speed is the speed of it’s FSB (Front Side Bus), the direct link between CPU and RAM. The other important measure is maximum RAM capacity. RAM prices are always dropping, and adding more RAM is the easiest and cheapest way to improve the speed of your computer in future.

The three main chips on the motherboard are the CPU , the northbridge and the southbridge. Other important parts of the motherboard are the RAM cards and the expansion slot cards such as the video card. The northbridge typically handles communications among the CPU, in some cases RAM, and PCI Express (or AGP) video cards, and the southbridge. Some northbridges also contain integrated video controllers, also known as a Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) in Intel systems. Because different processors and RAM require different signaling, a northbridge will typically work with only one or two classes of CPUs and generally only one type of RAM. Which northbridge and southbridge to use is normally only the concern of the motherboard designer.

Well known motherboard manufacturers include: ASUS (pronounced Ay-SOOS), BioStar. ECS Elite Group, Gigabyte, MSI and Tyan (Thunder, Tiger, Trinity, Tomcat, Toledo). ASUS manuals are well above average. Gigabyte manuals are below average. Happily you can browse the complete documentation on the web before you buy.

Motherboard Sizes

You must make sure your motherboard upgrade fits your case. Originally cases were all large enough to handle any size motherboard. Now the match is much tighter.

I refer to the depth as the distance from the front of the motherboard to the back where the slots and connectors are. I refer to the width as the distance between the two sides of the motherboard. Others may refer to these as the length and width or width and length. To figure out which terminolgy a given vendor is using, the bigger number is the width and the smaller the depth.

Real World Motherboards

The basics I look for in a motherboard are: Am3+ slot, DDR3 RAM. RAM is the bottleneck, so fast RAM (not counting overclocking) is very important. Your CPU may have three levels of cache L1, L2 and L3. The bigger and faster these are the better. Modern software requires at least 8 gigs of RAM. Thankfully the prices have come down considerably. (I am old to enough to remember the first time it was cheaper than $1,000,000 a megabyte.) 16+ gig max RAM, correct form factor for my existing case, SATA-3, or even better, SATA-III aka SATA-6G disk controller, support for a wide range of AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) CPUs so I can upgrade later, AMD/ATI onboard video and an abundance of USB-2 ports and a few USB-3 ports If I can look at the board “in person” I look for precision in the soldering and clean neat traces. Make sure you save some of your budget for a CPU, RAM and possibly a video card. Memory speed is what limits modern computers not the CPU. So go for faster RAM and bigger caches rather that the much more expensive, marginally faster CPUs. If you have only one drive, you don’t need more than one SATA (Serial ATA) port. Only servers with multiple drives (usually with RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks)) can exploit multiple SATA controllers. Motherboard prices don’t make much sense. Older design boards with less capability can sell for more than new ones because when they were first introduced they were the cat’s meow. If you get the latest RAM and socket, you have a chance of upgrading the CPU and RAM without replacing the motherboard. If you get onboard video it won’t be quite as snazzy as a separate video card, but it will be considerably cheaper. Ditto for onboard sound. Onboard Ethernet will be just as good as a separate card. Make sure you have a suitable connector for your existing keyboard.

Real World Motherboards

	recommend Amazon⇒Asus M5A78L-M LX Plus Motherboard
	asin: B005WUUFBW
Low cost motherboard for the ATX form factor. It has an AM3+ socket for CPUs up to 125 watts, e.g. FX-8150 Bulldozer/Zambezi with eight cores. It has in itegrated ATI HD 3000 GPU video. Up to 8 Gig of DDR-3 1866MHz RAM (not counting overclocking). 6 SATA-2 ports, 2 USB-3, 10 USB-2, 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16, 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1, 3 x PCI. No onboard video. The main weaknesses are the lack of SATA-3 and max RAM limit of 8 Gig. Specifications.
amazon.de amazon.co.uk amazon.es amazon.ca amazon.fr amazon.com amazon.it
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

	recommend Amazon⇒Asus M5A88-M Motherboard
	asin: B0053YM6QY
This board packs maximual punch into a small µATX form factor. This is what I bought for my next upgrade. It has an AM3+ socket for CPUs up to 140 watts, e.g. FX-8150 Bulldozer/Zambezi with eight cores. I am using an FX-6100 to keep the power usage/heat down. They recommend a 450+ watt power supply. Up to 16 Gig of DDR-3 1866MHz RAM (not counting overclocking). 4 slots of 4 Gig each (non ECC, dual port). 6 SATA-3 ports, 2 USB-3, 6 USB-2, 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16, 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1, 1 x PCI. The weakness of the board is the integrated ATI Radeon HD 4250 GPU which has no RAM of its own. It uses a gig of your system RAM. Specifications. Download manual. You would probably upgrade if needed with a separate Video card in the PCIe x16 slot. It comes with heat sinks for both the support chips. 2, 4 or 8-channel audio. It has what they call a Q-connector which lets you plug and unplug all the case-mounted LEDs in one fell swoop, even though the case does not directly support the Q-connector. The back panel supports 4 USB-2 ports, 2 USB-3 ports, 1 Ethernet, 1 DVI port, 1 HDMI, 1 SP/DIF port without internal cabling. The software and drivers come in Windows versions only. It comes with 2 SATA-3 internal cables period!. You get have to get internal cabling elsewhere for: 4 SATA-3 ports, 1 serial port, 1 LPT port, 8 USB-2 ports. There are no PATA ports. It is made in China. The workmanship looks first class. I have installed hundreds of motherboards and this one is by far the most complex. Happily most of the options have an intelligent auto setting. However, the manual gives very little explanation of what the options do. They typically have documentation of the form: [enable]=enable the skurtlewax feature, [disable]=disable the skurtlewax feature. You must set the CORE UNLOCKER switch to enable both on the motherboard and in the BIOS to allow use of more than one of the CPU cores.
amazon.de amazon.co.uk amazon.es amazon.ca amazon.fr amazon.com amazon.it
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

	recommend Amazon⇒ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Motherboard
	asin: B00539LU3E
This board is ruggedised ATX form factor. It will handle high heat. It has a 5 year warranty. It has an Am3+ socket for CPUs up to 140 watts, e.g. FX-8150 Bulldozer/Zambezi with eight cores. Up to 32 Gig of DDR-3 1866MHz RAM (not counting overclocking). 6 SATA-3 ports, 4 SATA ports, 2 USB-3, 6 USB-2, 4 x PCIe 2.0 x16, 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1, 1 x PCI. Has no onboard video, but supports up to quad video cards. Specifications.
amazon.de amazon.co.uk amazon.es amazon.ca amazon.fr amazon.com amazon.it
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

	recommend Amazon⇒Asus Crosshair V Formula
	asin: B00539LP34
This is a high performance gaming keyboard. It has an AM3+ socket for CPUs up to 140 watts, e.g. FX-8150 Bulldozer/Zambezi with eight cores. Up to 32 Gig of DDR-3 1600MHz RAM (not counting overclocking). 6 SATA-3 ports, 4 SATA ports, 2 USB-3, 6 USB-2, 4 x PCIe 2.0 x16, 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1, 1 x PCI. Has no onboard video, but supports up to quad video cards. Mainly what you get for the extra cost is ROG features to removetly tweak the overclocking. Specifications.
amazon.de amazon.co.uk amazon.es amazon.ca amazon.fr amazon.com amazon.it
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

Motherboard Descriptor Language

I have found it take hours and hours to collect information about motherboards, and to compare them. I propose that we adopt a standard MDL (Motherboard Descriptor Language) where a motherboard is described in a standard way, using XML (extensible Markup Language). If vendors provided MDL files for all their products, then retailers could generate catalogs and websites with the entire catalog with almost no work. It would also be much easier to compare two different motherboards. A computer program could highlight the differences. We could also put these into a database and search for motherboards fitting any given set of specifications. Eventually there should be similar specifications for disks, RAM, DVD (Digital Video Disk) burners, CPUs, etc. If you have any ideas on improving the MDL language, let me know. Also if you have any motherboard descriptions, please pass them on, and I will work on setting up an online database of them. Here is a sample description of the ASUS M5A88-M motherboard I own.

• If the count is 0, you can leave out the other attributes, or even the entire line.
• "no" attributes may be left out.
• Everything is case sensitive, including the units of measure: GHz, GB, Gb/s, KB, MB, Mhz, cm, in, mm.
• Otherwise all fields and attributes are mandatory.
• Fields should appear in alphabetical order as shown.