How to choose a motherboard for a computer?

Common sizes

The choice of the form factor of the motherboard depends primarily on how many slots and connectors you want to get, and in what case you plan to build a PC.

Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX are the most compact motherboard sizes (12x12 and 10x7 cm, respectively). They are mainly used in ready-made nettops and embedded systems. Due to very limited functionality, PCs are of little use for self-assembly.

Mini-ITX is a slightly larger, but still quite compact (17x17 cm) motherboard format. Unlike Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX, it is widely represented on the mass market and is suitable for assembling not only office and multimedia PCs, but even compact gaming systems (the so-called Steam Machine).

MicroATX - medium-sized motherboards (24x24 cm) with two or four DIMM RAM slots (for comparison, Mini-ITX has strictly two such slots) and three slots for PCI expansion cards (Mini-ITX has only one). Due to their mass character, they have a low cost, so they are best suited for assembling office, multimedia and entry-level gaming PCs.

ATX, E-ATX and XL-ATX are full-sized boards with the maximum number of slots and connectors. ATX models have an oblong shape (30x24 cm), which allows you to place four DIMM slots and seven PCI. E-ATX (30x33 cm) enlarged in width are equipped with six to eight DIMM slots (for three- and four-channel memory operation), and XL-ATX (34x26 cm) enlarged in length are equipped with ten PCI slots (for bundles of four dual-slot video cards) . All varieties of ATX boards are designed primarily for powerful gaming and professional PCs.

Current sockets and chipsets

In addition to motherboards with an integrated processor, there are six current processor platforms - three each from Intel and AMD. For each of them, several chipsets with different functionality are available to choose from. A chipset or a set of system logic is called one or two chips (another name is the north and south bridges), which are responsible for the interaction of the processor with other PC components. So, the north bridge is responsible for interacting with a discrete graphics card, and the south bridge is responsible for interacting with disks, sound, and the network. Most modern motherboards do not have a northbridge, since the processor interacts directly with the graphics card.

Motherboards with an integrated processor are a ready-made kit for office computers. It costs less than buying the motherboard and processor separately, but there is no upgrade option.

AMD AM1 is an alternative to motherboards with an integrated processor. They are also inexpensive, but allow you to choose between a dual and quad-core processor. Interestingly, AM1 motherboards are completely devoid of a chipset - all system logic is integrated into the processor.

The AMD FM2+ is the basis for building an entry-level gaming PC with an inexpensive discrete graphics card or integrated graphics at all (see the article “Starting $300 Gaming PC (Spring 2016)”). Considering the cost-effectiveness of the platform, it makes little sense to overpay for the older A88X chipset. It is quite possible to limit ourselves to the younger A68 - it supports SATA III and USB 3.0 interfaces, but more is not needed.

AMD AM3+ - the platform has gained a second youth after a significant price reduction for six- and eight-core FX processors. After several years of inactivity, motherboard manufacturers even refreshed their lineup - they added USB 3.1 and M.2 ports, as well as LED backlighting, which is now fashionable among modders. The mid-level AMD 970 chipset remains optimal, as before. Motherboards based on the junior 760G chipset, usually, lack heatsinks on the processor power circuit, which promises overheating and emergency lowering of the frequency. And there is simply no reason to overpay for the older 990X chipset.

Intel LGA1150 is no longer the newest, but still popular Intel platform, on the basis of which you can build a PC for almost any task: from an office typewriter to a gaming monster. Noteworthy are the youngest and oldest chipsets - H81 and Z97. The first is enough for any processors from Celeron G to Core i7, and the second is needed for chips with the “K” suffix, that is, with an unlocked multiplier and overclocking support, as well as for bundles of two video cards. Everything in between (B85, H87, H97) doesn't make much sense - just a little more PCI lanes and USB ports. The previous flagship Z87 is also useless, as it does not support Devil's Canyon processors (Pentium G3258, Core i5-4690K and Core i7-4790K).

The Intel LGA1151 is Intel's latest mainstream platform with support for both old DDR3 and new DDR4 RAM. In many ways, it repeats the situation with the LGA1150: you have to choose between the junior H110 chipset and the older Z170 (processor and memory overclocking, bundles of video cards), and everything in between (B150, H170) is doubtful. Unless the C232 and C236 chipsets make sense, since they are the only ones that support Xeon processors.

Intel LGA2011-v3 is a platform for avid gamers, PC enthusiasts and professionals that allows you to install six-, eight- and even ten-core (twenty-thread) Intel Core i7 Extreme processors, as well as 64 GB of RAM (LGA1150 and LGA1151 platforms support only 32 GB ). There is only one chipset here - X99.

Ports and connectors

The motherboard connectors can be conditionally divided into two groups: placed directly on the textolite and placed on the rear interface panel.

DIMM or SO-DIMM - connectors for long computer and shortened laptop RAM modules, respectively. There are SO-DIMMs on compact Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX motherboards. Note that installing the old type of DDR3 memory into the new DDR4 socket and vice versa will not work. The only compromise is motherboards with both types of memory slots (half DDR3 slots, half DDR4), but these are very niche solutions.

PCI-E and PCI are the new and old type of slots for expansion cards. Moreover, PCI-E slots can differ in bandwidth: the fastest PCI-E x16 slots are used for video cards, medium-speed x4 slots are used for SSDs, and slow x1 slots are used for sound, network and video capture cards. You can install a slow card in a fast slot, but not vice versa.

SATA and M.2 - ports for connecting disk drives. The classic SATA interface, all three generations of which are compatible with each other, supports both HDD and SSD, while the newfangled M.2 supports only SSD.

USB - part of the ports is pre-wired to the rear interface panel, and another part is soldered in the form of connectors on the motherboard for output to the front panel of the PC case. By analogy with SATA, all generations of USB (1.1, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.1) are compatible, with the exception of Type-C, which has a modified connector.

HDMI, DVI and VGA - two digital and one analogue video output on the back of the motherboard. They will only work if the processor has an integrated graphics accelerator, and a discrete graphics card is not connected.

MiniJack and S/PDIF are analogue and digital audio interfaces. MiniJack can be represented by three or five audio connectors for connecting a multi-channel speaker system.

Ethernet is the wired network interface of the motherboard. Some motherboards may have two Ethernet sockets to connect to two different networks at the same time. Optionally, Ethernet can be supplemented with a Wi-Fi wireless network card and even a Bluetooth module installed in the MiniPCI slot.

Should You Buy Gaming Motherboards?

Almost all computer components and peripherals have now become awarded with a sonorous and beautiful epithet “gaming”: gaming RAM, gaming solid-state drive and even a gaming router. It got ridiculous: now even video cards that are not used practically anywhere except for games are divided into ordinary and gaming ones.

So how applicable is the adjective “gaming” to a motherboard? No, miracles do not happen, and the gaming motherboard is not able to raise the frame rate in games. But still, the gaming model has enough differences compared to the non-gaming one: a thickened textolite that prevents the board from bending under the weight of the tower CPU cooler; large heatsinks on the processor power circuit; an audio subsystem based on an older codec with an additional amplifier chip for high-impedance headphones, etc. Simply put, these are motherboards with improved workmanship and an additional body kit - not critical, but still useful. And the epithet "gaming" just helps them sell a little better.