The secret to choosing a motherboard

Motherboard is a very important part of PC. If you have a bad quality motherboard, your computer will often encounter problems and be "tired" to find the cause and how to fix the error.

Therefore, selecting a good quality motherboard that is suitable for your pocket, which is highly effective, meeting the requirements for future upgrades is very difficult. Therefore, VietNamNet shares the secret to help you choose a good quality motherboard that is suitable.

First of all, when choosing a motherboard you need to pay attention to the following components:

Chipset

Why should I pay attention to the first chipset when selecting the motherboard? Because the motherboard chipset is very important. Chipsets bring data from the hard disk to the memory and then to the CPU, and make sure the peripherals and expansion cards are able to "talk" to the CPU and other devices. Motherboard manufacturers also add other features to the chipset such as RAID controllers, FireWire ports to each other motherboard series.

Not only that, the chipset not only limits the type and speed of the CPU that the board can "load", the type of memory you can install but also adds other functions such as graphics and audio integration. , USB 2.0 port. Motherboards designed for the same type of chipset generally have similar features and performance. Therefore, chipset is an important factor when you buy a motherboard.

CPU

Which processor does your motherboard support? Currently, Intel's Pentium 4 and AMD's Athlon are two different CPU selection trends. Socket standards for AMD and Intel processors are different, so you can't plug the company's processor into another company's processor-supported motherboard. AMD currently uses slots 939 and 754, while Intel's CPUs use slots 775 and 478. Not only that, but the processors of the same company also use different slots, so in many cases you can't upgrade either. granted. Another factor is the ability to support the maximum CPU speed that the motherboard can meet. You need to ask the vendor carefully, what kind of motherboard supports CPU speed because sometimes motherboard manufacturers often write high-speed CPU support like this but never support get that speed. For example, the motherboard specifies support for CPU speeds up to 2.5 GHz, but the motherboard actually supports up to 2.0 GHz only.

Recently, processor technology is developing a strong trend: 64-bit processor and multi-core processor. These high-end processors are very expensive and especially most of the software on the market are not able to support these features, so the efficiency of these processors is not high. Therefore, if you are not a tech enthusiast, a professional gamer, or a graphic expert, you just need to use Pentium 4 or Athlon as enough.

RAM (Ramdom Access Memory)

Most motherboards now support DDR RAM (Double Data Rate RAM), RDRAM (Rambus RAM) is not commonly used because of its high price. In addition, the market also has high-speed DDR 2 almost like RDRAM but is cheap as DDR. DDR RAM has speeds of 200/266/333/400 and DDR 2 supports 400/533/667 speeds. In addition, DDR also supports dual channels, allowing faster and more efficient memory access.

Graphics card

The graphics field has always been of interest to manufacturers. New motherboards support graphics cards via PCI Express x16, or integrated graphics. The integrated graphics chips do not provide high graphics performance, only suitable for home and office users. However, some integrated graphics chips have very good quality of Nvidia, ATI or Intel 915G / 945G.

In terms of graphics, the AGP interface gave way to PCI Express with twice as high bandwidth as AGP 8x. Not only that, the SLI dual graphics card technology offers "super powerful" graphics processing capabilities. SLI allows you to attach 2 graphics cards to the motherboard, SLI usually delivers 70-80% higher graphics performance than usual. However, these are high-end technologies, the price of the average graphics card pair is also several hundred dollars.

Sound

Integrated audio motherboards can be a better choice. Types of motherboards with integrated six-channel audio chipsets are usually only suitable for games or MP3 playback. However, some high-end motherboards can support 8-channel audio (7.1), while also supporting digital audio (SPDIF) optical / coaxial. If you want great sound quality, you can buy a high quality sound card like 24bit Creative Sounds BlasterLive. At that time, you can turn off this integrated audio with jumpers or just set up in the BIOS.

Storage

Most motherboards now support ATA / 100 or ATA 133 and recently many motherboards support SATA. SATA has a bandwidth of up to 150MB / sec. Not only that, SATA can be hot-plugged, and the reconnection cable is compact, allowing for space savings in the box. Not stopping there, the SATA 2 standard appeared with 300MB / s bandwidth, double that of SATA.

Integrated IDE RAID motherboards can be an attractive option. Personal computer RAID system uses a pair of hard disks of the same type to increase performance (by writing data to both drives) or providing a backup solution in case of hard drive failure (drive mapping) plate). RAID control options are an inexpensive option, with RAID motherboards supporting only about $ 8 more.

Connect

Most motherboards now support Ethernet, USB 2.0 and FireWire ports. The old communication ports like PS / 2, parallel ports also gradually "disappear". Not only that, but also some other extensive communications such as wireless network, Gigabit network, Bluetooth, memory card reader . can also be supported.

Accessories included

The diagnostic LED lights, the system monitoring clock, the Power button, Reset the computer, Reset BIOS, Backup BIOS . In addition, the manufacturer can also provide additional utilities and software. to increase usability, processing, stability and backup, restore the system.

Under certain circumstances, you can't buy a motherboard without buying CPU and RAM. You need to consider the price and performance of the motherboard before making a purchase. Below is the motherboard classification table according to price and features:

Configuration feature

Low (50 USD -80 USD) Medium (80 USD-120 USD) Premium (120 USD or higher) Support Celeron / Sempron CPU Pentium 4 / Athlon Pentium 4 EE / Athlon FX / Athlon FX 64 Consider carefully: You need to consider which CPUs are right for you, choose which CPUs from AMD or Intel. You have to be very careful because later you can hardly upgrade more advanced CPU types, nor can you replace other CPUs of other brands. The type of 266/333 DDR 333/400 DDR memory can support dual channel DDR400 / 533 or DDR2 533/800 supporting dual channel Considerations: The type of RAM you use will determine computer speed and performance. DDR RAM has become popular, buy DDR with the highest speed possible and supported by the motherboard. DDR RAM with higher speeds is not much more expensive than lower-speed DDRs. Connecting USB 2.0 USB 2.0 peripherals, there may be FireWire USB 2.0 and FireWire Considerations: USB 2.0 and FireWire will be a good choice, these interfaces provide a good high-speed connection for the printer. , CD burner, external DVD, or digital camera. Integrated Audio, LAN, Graphics Audio, LAN, supportable Graphics Audio, LAN Considerations: Some motherboards support audio integration, others support audio, LAN, integrated graphics.If you are not a "gamer" then the fully integrated motherboard may be very good.But you should also buy a motherboard that supports AGP or PCIExpress slots to be able to upgrade graphics when needed. Storing ATA / 100 ATA / 133, SATA ATA / 133, RAID, SATA, SATA2 Careful considerations: T is a hard disk interface that determines your hard disk speed. ATA 133 is still popular. However, SATA 150 is also a new trend, but the price is not much more expensive. Some high-end motherboards also support RAID.

Tips when shopping for motherboards

Find out, study the chipset

At any time, motherboard vendors also offer motherboards with several different types of chipsets. Chipset companies such as Intel, Via, Sis and NVidia are major chip makers. Usually, chipsets are divided into two main types, which are AMD processor support, and one that supports Intel's Pentium processor. Other chipset distinctions are memory support, bus speed, built-in devices such as graphics boards and audio. Because there are many motherboard manufacturers that often use the same chipset, you can easily distinguish chipset based motherboards.

Do not buy the fastest processor

You have to spend a lot of money just to buy the fastest processor. But if you buy a processor with a slightly lower speed, the price is much cheaper, not only is the most expensive processor not sure to have a higher speed.

Purchase the highest speed memory that your motherboard supports

However, the performance between these types of memory will not increase much, but one thing is for sure when you need to upgrade memory, the fastest type of memory is always easier to find.

Be careful with the disadvantages of integrated graphics

Chipsets that support the integration of graphics into the motherboard often use system memory to store graphics data, which is what causes the system speed reduction. Some integrated graphics chips from Nvidia and ATI can give good performance, but it's best not to use integrated chips or cheap graphics cards. If you plan to upgrade later, it's best to buy a motherboard with an AGP slot or more recently PCIExpress standard.

Give up some money

You only need to add 20USD when buying a motherboard, you will have new integrated technologies like RAID, LAN, USB 2.0 and possibly FireWire port too. These features may not need you now but they will be necessary for you later. Not only that, you save a PCI slot when upgrading.

Minh Phuc