Question 1

What should you consider when picking a motherboard?

Accepted Answer

Most important is which chipset to buy. Chipsets are essentially variants of motherboards that come with different features. You can only pick a chipset compatible with your CPU, and these are the chipsets available in the quick filters. The quick filters also show an overview of the main difference between chipsets. Most common is to select a chipset in the Mainstream or Performance classes.

In choosing chipset, you also want to consider what other parts you will pick for your PC. Will you attach a lot of hard drives or SSDs? Do you need more than one expansion card (PCI-e slot)? If you want more than one M.2 SSD, you have to make sure that your motherboard supports it. That said, most people only use one PCI-e slot for their graphics card and one M.2 slot for an SSD.

One more thing to consider is the I/O slots on the motherboard, i.e. the ports on the back of your PC. Do you need many USB ports? Some motherboards also have Wi-Fi support in case you don't have an ethernet cable.

Question 2

What is a motherboard?

Accepted Answer

The motherboard is essentially a bunch of wires between different ports packaged in a very neat way. In addition, the motherboard regulates the power it receives from the power supply and makes sure that the different sensitive parts receive the correct voltages. This is done using VRMs on the motherboard (they look like inch size cubes). Enthusiast motherboards tend to have higher quality VRMs, which allows for better overclocking abilities.

The motherboard also handles a lot of signal translations for I/O (input/output). For example, the motherboard has components that can translate signals to/from USB devices (mouse, keyboard), ethernet, audio, into something the CPU can process. Way back, motherboards were simpler and you had to buy extension cards for these things, but nowadays it's included on all motherboards.

Question 3

Are larger motherboards better?

Accepted Answer

No. But larger motherboards have better expansion support. For example, if you want to add more RAM or PCI-e cards, a larger motherboard has extra slots for this. But the performance of smaller motherboards is at least as good as large ones, and sometimes even better since the components are closer to each other! In reality, people rarely need or use the extra slots, so most of us are better off getting a small or mid size motherboard.

Question 4

Is there any difference between motherboard manufacturers?

Accepted Answer

Most people pay no attention to who manufactured their motherboard. But if you want to do more advanced things such as overclock the CPU or RAM, or be able to upgrade parts many times in the future, you might want to look at reviews for different manufacturers.

All motherboard have a BIOS (or UEFI), which is a very basic operating system you can enter before starting your PC. It is through the BIOS you can manage the more advanced settings. Each manufacturer has their own BIOS, and many people prefer a specific manufacturer because of their BIOS. Some manufactures are also better than others at releasing new BIOS versions to unlock future upgrades.

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