How to Choose a New Motherboard?

Now, you have a vague idea of what a motherboard is, why it is important and all the little characteristics it has. Now is time to detail what to consider to choose one.

Processor Type. To decide which processor you want, it is simple: look at prices first because processor prices are usually unpredictable, ranging roughly from less than US$100 to US$1,000. The Intel Pentium Pro for instance costed US$900 when it was released and US$600 a few months later. Why? Because Intel tried to push its Pentium II sales and therefore dropped the Pentium Pro price. If you mostly do e-mail, some word processing and other common Windows 95 work, the Intel Pentium is fine, the Pentium II is better. For Windows NT users, prefer the Intel Pentium Pro or Intel Pentium II because these processors are optimized for 32 bits operating systems. If you do games or video stuff, take a processor which includes MMX. Oh, if you are worried about those processor bugs so widely reported in the press, you shouldn't, unless you are upgrading Ariane space launcher's onboard computer.

Processor Speed. Do not consider less than 200Mhz, as it will be a bad investment. Intel Pentium clock speed run from 120Mhz to 233Mhx, Intel Pentium Pro from 150Mhz to 200Mhz, Intel Pentium II from 233Mhz to 333Mhz. You usually choose the processor speed depending on the budget you have for the processor. Note that the processor speed will note affect Internet browsing (only the speed of your modem matters).

Processor Sockets. Most motherboards are single processor, some are dual processor (i.e. you can have one or 2 processor on the same board). If you are going to use DOS, Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, a dual processor motherboard is useless because these operating systems do not include any feature to run programs on several processors. If you are going to use Windows NT or UNIX operating systems, then it can be interesting to have 2 processors if you often have one background lengthy task running all the time.

Motherboard Size. The choice is limited: ATX, or Baby AT. ATX is newer, requires fewer cables, has a better cooling system but requires an ATX case and an ATX power supply. I recommend ATX size motherboards.

Extras. Some motherboards include SCSI controller, video controller, and sound card… Although it is very convenient to have some or all of those right on the motherboard (instead of buying dedicated cards taking slots), they are usually of average quality and performance and if top component is what you want, I do not recommend it. If you have limited budget and want convenience, then it is a great deal.

RAM Type. Motherboards support either SDRAM or everything else (FPG, EDO, Parity...). You choose depending on the price of the type of RAM because they are changing rapidely, in unpredicatable directions. SDRAM is the RAM of the future. If you are recyling old RAM, do not choose SDRAM type motherboards because you won't be able to use your old RAM modules.

RAM sockets. Some motherboards include 4, occasionally 6, or 8 RAM module slots. Each RAM module slot can accept 4Mb, 8Mb, 16Mb, 32Mb, 64Mb or 128Mb modules. Be careful of the prices of these RAM modules: two 32Mb modules (total 64Mb) may be cheaper or more expensive than one 64Mb module, for the same amount of RAM. So, more RAM module slots on the motherboard, the better, but 4 is fine. If you are recycling lots of small RAM modules, choose motherboards with 6 or 8 RAM slots.

ISA and PCI slots.  Usually 2 to 4 ISA slots and 2 to 6 PCI slots. If you are recycling many ISA cards to be plugged into the motherboard, choose a great number of ISA slots. If you don't, choose a great number of PCI slots (ISA is a very slow bus; PCI is the fastest available today and most cards today mount on PSI slots).

Motherboard Brand. There are several companies doing motherboards (listed below), most of them from Taiwan, some famous, some less famous, some serious, some less serious. The first step to choose a good brand is to go to their Web site and download the manual of the type of motherboard you want. Some manual are like 10 pages, full of typos, some others are 150 pages with very detailed technical charts. This should give you a hint on how seriously they take their business. Some companies also detail too much (Intel's motherboard manual are huuuuge). I personally recommend ABit (for performance freaks), Tyan (excellent quality), Asus (excellent manuals), AMI (excellent BIOS), Giga-Byte and Intel. Those are not the cheapest brands but have very good reviews, reputation and warranty. Other brands include AOpen, Shuttle, SuperMicro and Tekram. Note that there is very very limited performance difference between the slowest and the fastest motherboard for a given processor type and speed.

Important Note. Never, NEVER forget the processor fan that must be mounted on top of the processor. This fan should be designed for the processor you are buying (don't recycle a Pentium fan on a Pentium Pro processor) and I really recommend buying from the best, PC Power & Cooling (they also do fantastic PC power supplies and cases).