A while ago, I needed more power in my Pentium 90 desktop. They told me that the only two solutions were to buy a new PC, or to use this great thing called OverDrive, which are these replacement processors that you buy separately, and are supposed to magically "boost your machine" as they say. The budget being tight, I opted for the second solution and bought the P150 Intel OverDrive, for US$500. I opened my PC, replaced the Pentium 90 with the OverDrive, powered on and waited for the magical boost they said would come. It didn't come. Nope! It was like I had smoked these US$500 because there was absolutely no speed difference.

Disappointed, I searched the Web and found what they didn't say: a motherboard upgrade! Of course, this type of deal is for hard-core tech guys, people who "know what they are doing", as they say. Well, I didn't know exactly what I was doing but decided anyway to buy a cool new motherboard (the one on the picture) with a speedy Pentium Pro 200Mhz for US$800. And suddenly, everything, from Windows 95 boot-up to my Wing Commander spaceship to my 80 pages Word document, everything was flying...

During this experience, I learned a lot of motherboard and computer hardware and the purpose of these pages is to share it. When you want to boost your machine, upgrade it, even if you know very little about computer hardware! Forget about Overdrive processors and unless you have thousands of $$ for replacing the whole computer, just upgrade the motherboard. It's really worth it because it's not difficult, and it's a lot cheaper than buying a new PC and you will finally understand what the hell is going on inside your computer.

So here we go, with the following sections: