Choosing a Motherboard

Choosing a motherboard is the most interesting part of any
building project. The reason it is so interesting is because
there are hundreds of motherboards to choose from and each
has its own advantages and disadvantages.

One easy way to think about motherboards is to break them up
into a few categories. For example:

* Cheap motherboards: Generally in the $50 range, these
are motherboards for older CPUs. They are great for building
inexpensive machines.

* Middle-of-the-road motherboards: Ranging in price from
$50 to $100, these are one step up from the cheap
motherboards. In many cases you can find motherboard and CPU
combos in this price range, which is another great way to
build a cheap machine or an inexpensive home/office computer.

* High-end motherboards: If you are building a powerful
gaming machine or video workstation, these motherboards give
you the speed you need. They range in price from $100 to
$200. They handle the latest CPU chips at their highest
speeds.

* Extreme motherboards: Falling into the over-$200 range,
these motherboards have special features that boost the
price. For example, they might have multiple CPU sockets,
extra memory slots or special cooling features.

You need to decide whether you are building a "cheap
machine," a "high-end machine" or a "tricked-out super
machine" and then choose your motherboard accordingly. Here
are some other decisions that help narrow down your
motherboard choices:

* Do you want to use an Intel or an AMD processor? Making
this choice will cut the number of motherboards in half. AMD
chips are often cheaper, but lots of people are die-hard
Intel fans.

* What size motherboard do you want to use? If you are
trying to build a smaller computer, you may want to look at
micro ATX cases. That means you will need to buy a micro ATX
motherboard. Otherwise you can use a normal ATX motherboard
and case. (There are also smaller motherboard form factors
like mini-ITX and even nano-ITX if you want to go really
small.)

* How many USB ports do you want? If you want several,
make sure the motherboard can handle it.

* Do you need FireWire? It's nice if the motherboard
handles it (although it is also possible to add a card).

* Do you want an AGP or PCI Express graphics card? Or do
you want to use a graphics card on the motherboard to keep
the price and size down? If you want to go the cheapest
route, make sure the motherboard includes a video card
on-board (easiest way to tell is to see if there is a DVI or
VGA connector on the motherboard). PCI Express is the
latest/greatest thing, but if you want to re-use an AGP card
you already own, that might be a reason to go with AGP.

* Do you want to use PATA (aka IDE) or SATA hard disks?
SATA is the latest thing, and the cables are much smaller.

* What pin configuration are you using for the CPU? If
you want to use the latest CPUs, make sure that your
motherboard will accept them.

* Do you want to try things like dual video cards or
special high-speed RAM configurations? If so, make sure the
motherboard supports it.

If you don't care about any of this stuff (or if it all
sounds like gibberish to you), then you're probably
interested in building a cheap machine. In that case, find an
inexpensive motherboard/CPU combo kit and don't worry about
all of these details.