The motherboard houses all the connections a computer uses.
A motherboard governs your computer system. The board houses your processor and RAM and controls all the connections between drives and expansion slots. Building a computer or upgrading one involves finding the best option for your needs. A review of retailers returned the top sellers as the Microstar Motherboard G31M, the Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H and the Asus P5N-D Motherboard.
Asus P5N-D Motherboard
The Asus P5N-D has a front side bus of 1333 to 800 MHz, is Intel socket 775--compatible with Intel next-generation hardware and has four DIMM DDR2 slots for a maximum random memory of 32 gigabytes, which translates to a potential for incredibly high processing speeds. The motherboard has six expansion slots, two each of PCI 2.2, PCIe x1 and PCIe 2.0 x16, which are usable for various types of expansion cards. On-board controls include a printer port, mouse, keyboard, RJ45 LAN connection, four USB 2.0 / 1.1 and an eight-channel audio input/output slot. Internal slots allow for multiple hard drives, ample cooling, front panel audio/CD and an advanced BIOS with overclocking options to boost performance. The P5N-D offers the highest processing speeds and options of the three top sellers.
Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H
The GA-800GA-UD3H allows for AM3 processor's AMD Phenom lineup, four DDR3 DIMM sockets for a maximum of 16GB of RAM and a hyper transport bus at 5200 mt/s, creating better than average speeds and performance. The graphics ports allow for HDMI, DVI-D and D-Sub connections for high-quality graphics. Expansion slots include PCIex16, PCIex4, PCIex1 and three PCI slots for multiple cards of your choice. On-board audio supports Dolby Surround 5.1 with multiple additional audio options for theater-quality sound. The motherboard is capable of multiple hard drives running RAID technology for improved performance and speed. This motherboard is a quality unit with exceptional performance and speed.
Microstar Motherboard G31M
MSI produces the G31M as a maximum processor of the Intel Core 2 Quad 775 socket, an Intel G31 chip and a maximum of 4GB of DDR2 DIMM. Expansion options include PCIex16, PCIe 2.0, PCIex1 and two PCI slots. On-board slots offer LAN, four USB 2.0, printer, serial, printer and standard VGA options. The motherboard can hold up to one IDE and four SATAII hard drive controls with RAID options for improved performance. Of the top three sellers, this motherboard would classify as the top-performing option for standard users due to quality graphics, good speeds and adaptable expansion options.
Tags: Asus P5N-D, Asus P5N-D Motherboard, expansion slots, Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H, hard drives