For example, a particular motherboard may support three or four PC modules, but only two PC modules. For a system that will be used for memory-intensive tasks, such as professional graphics, database management, or complex scientific calculations, make sure the motherboard supports at least 2 GB of RAM. Don't assume that you can use all available memory slots. For example, many early Socket Athlon 64 motherboards provided three or even four DIMM slots, but could actually support only two memory modules reliably, regardless of the size or speed of those modules.
Nor do all motherboards necessarily support the full amount of memory that the chipset itself supports, even if there are sufficient memory sockets to do so. Always determine exactly what combinations of memory sizes, types, and speeds are supported by a particular motherboard. Although you may be able to find a new motherboard that allows you to migrate existing memory from your old motherboard, it's usually not a good idea to do so unless that older memory is current i.
Memory is cheap, and it makes little sense to base a new motherboard purchase decision on the ability to salvage a relatively small amount of old, slow, cheap memory. Motherboards differ in the provisions they make for video. Some motherboards provide an embedded video adapter and make no provision for installing a separate video adapter card. Other motherboards provide embedded video, but also provide a special expansion slot that accepts a standalone AGP or PCI Express video adapter card.
Still other motherboards do not provide embedded video, but only an AGP or PCI Express slot that accepts a separate video adapter card. We recommend avoiding the first type of motherboard, even if you think embedded video is sufficient for your needs.
Before you choose a motherboard, check the documentation and support that's available for it, as well as the BIOS and driver updates available. Some people think that a motherboard that has many patches and updates available must be a bad motherboard. Not true.
Frequent patch and update releases indicate that the manufacturer takes support seriously. We recommend to friends and clients that they give great weight to and perhaps even base their buying decisions on the quality of the web site that supports the motherboard. Manufacturers differ greatly in the quality of the motherboards they produce.
Other manufacturers produce motherboards of varying quality; some good and some not so good. Still other manufacturers produce only junk. The preceding issues are always important in choosing a motherboard. But there are many other motherboard characteristics to keep in mind. Some of them may be critical for some users and of little concern to others. These characteristics include:. Any motherboard provides expansion slots, but motherboards differ in how many slots they provide, and of what types:.
PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect slots have been the standard type of expansion slot for more than a decade. PCI slots accept expansion cards such as LAN adapters, sound cards, and so on that add various features to a system.
PCI slots are available in bit and bit versions, although bit PCI slots are commonly found only on server motherboards.
A motherboard may have zero, one, or two dedicated video card slots. The type of video slot determines the type of video card you can install.
AGP video adapters are still popular and widely available, but PCI Express is fast becoming the dominant video adapter slot standard. Otherwise, buy a motherboard, with or without embedded video, that provides a PCI Express x16 video slot. Do not buy any motherboard that provides embedded video but no separate video slot. Many motherboards with a PCI Express x16 video slot also provide one or more PCI Express x1 general-purpose expansion slots, usually in place of one or two of the PCI expansion slots, but sometimes in addition to them.
For the immediate future, PCI Express x1 slots are relatively useless, because there are few expansion cards that fit them. Years ago, many PCs had all or nearly all of their slots occupied. Nowadays, with so many functions integrated on motherboards, it's common to see PCs with at most one or two slots occupied, so the number of slots available is much less important than it used to be.
It's still important to get the types of slots you want, though. The same motherboard is often available as an OEM product and a retail-boxed product. In fact, both forms of packaging are sold in retail channels. The motherboard is identical or closely similar in either case, but there are differences. For example, the OEM version might have only a one-year warranty, while the retail-boxed version of the same motherboard has a three-year warranty.
Also, the retail-boxed version often includes cables, adapters, a case label, a setup CD, and similar small parts that are not included with the OEM product. Otherwise, buy the OEM version. There may be variations in the actual product between OEM and retail-boxed motherboards. For example, Intel often manufactures three to six variants of a motherboard, which may differ in minor ways such as board color and in more significant ways, such as the speed of the embedded network adapter, whether FireWire support is included, and so on.
Some of these variants are available in both OEM and retail-boxed forms, and others in only one form or the other. Some variants aren't available to individual buyers. They're sold only in what Intel calls "bulk packaging," which means that the minimum order is a pallet load. Only large system makers buy bulk Intel motherboards. It may seem strange to minimize the importance of warranty, but the truth is that warranty should not usually be a major consideration.
Motherboards generally work or they don't. If a motherboard is going to fail, it will likely do so right out of the box or within a few days of use. In practical terms, the vendor's return policy is likely to be more important than the manufacturer's warranty policy.
Other than knowing which processor you're going to be fitting, size matters when picking up a motherboard. That doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing performance or key features anymore. The scale will impact pricing, however. We've picked our top two favorite gaming motherboards for each of the main Intel and AMD chipsets to give you the best options around. There are absolutely restrictions in place to stop that, especially on the Intel side. It has opened up memory overclocking across its series chipsets, but still, the Z is your only chance of overclocking the latest Rocket Lake K-series CPUs.
But don't worry, they don't overclock very well. Basically, if you make sure not to go for the cheapest Ryzen board, one with an 'A' at the front of its nomenclature, then you're good to tweak. Though again, there really are limited returns. A connector on the motherboard that allows you to run a cable to the case to add additional USB ports, typically on the front panel though some cases provide top or rear panel slots as well.
They allow you to adjust system-level settings, such as fan speed or RAM frequency. Peripheral Component Interconnect Express slots on the motherboard are designed to accommodate add-in cards like graphics cards, SSD cards, dedicated sound cards, etc. PCIe slots are measured in both length x16, x8, x4, x1 as well as by the number of data transmission lanes they provide x16, x8, x4, x1.
It's possible for an x16 slot to only provide 8 lanes of data, for instance, which means the maximum possible data transfer rate is halved though in many cases, because PCIe provides such a high ceiling for transfer speeds, a lower number of lanes doesn't make a tremendous difference.
The number of total slots contributes to the maximum amount of RAM your system can handle, paired with the chipset and OS. The logic allows the various parts of a motherboard to talk to each other. The chipset determines which processor generations a motherboard is compatible with and what add-in cards can be used. The number of physical ports on your board, combined with ports for NVMe storage, will determine the total number of storage drives you can have connected to your PC at any time.
He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck. Included in this guide: 1. Socket: LGA Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 4.
Video ports: 1x DisplayPort 1. Storage: 3x M. Gigabyte Z Aorus Tachyon. Size: E-ATX. Video ports: 1x HDMI 2. Reasons to avoid - Only really for overclockers - Inevitably expensive. Size: Extended ATX. Expansion slots: 2x PCIe 3. Video ports: 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports on extension card DP1. Storage: 2x M. Reasons to avoid - Money-no-object pricing. Expansion slots: 3x PCIe 3. Network : 1x 2. Reasons to avoid - Runs hot.
Size: Micro ATX. Network: Realtek 2. Reasons to avoid - Only 4 fan headers - B memory limitations. Reasons to avoid - No Wi-Fi - B memory limitations. Gigabyte Z Aorus Ultra. Socket : LGA Video ports: HDMI. Network: Ethernet, 1. Reasons to avoid - Visually 'loud' design. Size: Mini-ITX. Expansion slots: 1x PCIe x Video ports: HDMI 2. Network: Ethernet, Mbps The best X ever created, and the last AM4 board you'll ever need.
Socket: AM4. Expansion slots: 2x PCIe 4. Networking: Reasons to avoid - Expensive. Network: Ethernet, 2. Reasons to avoid - Too few USB ports. However this is usually only suitable for mid-range speakers. Nevertheless they will reduce the need for expansion cards. Furthermore, you might need to consider peripheral connections, for example a USB 3.
Why not take a look at our full range of motherboards here. We use cookies to do things like remember what you've added to your shopping basket and show you content we think you'll be interested in. Some cookies are essential - we can't provide our services without them. Other cookies can be turned off, although our website won't work as well without them.
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