What are mother boards?



A motherboard is basically the most central or important piece of circuitry board that makes up high configuration electronically powered systems such as the computer of today. Also known as a main board, system board, base board, or planar board, the mother board has indeed come a long way in the technology drive over the past few years of computing advancements. The mother board is also often referred to casually as ?mobos?!

Majority of today's mother boards are made for IBM compatible systems, which again hold a major stake in world computer markets. A mother board is the back bone of the Personal Computer, and provides for the electric and electronic connectivity so that the other system components and devices can communicate and pass information and data with each other. The mother board houses the CPU and microchips and also incorporates the system clock and its battery, and other such peripheral devices in a computer.

A common desktop PC is assembled with a variety of components such as the microprocessor, the main memory or the hard disk, the RAM, and other essential components, which find place on the motherboard. External devices like memory cards, sound cards and video cards are also slotted into the motherboards. Peripheral devices like the sound and video cards are attached to the mobo using edge connecting devices and cables, in spite of the fact that most of these peripherals are integrated into the body and constituents of the motherboard to facilitate ease of assembly and handling.

The normal desktop PC motherboard has a large printed circuit board that holds together various electronic components and interconnects the various physical connectors. These physical connectors are the gateways through which the various devices like Microprocessors, hard disks, sound cards and video cards are connected. The motherboard not only connects and facilitates information flow between these various components but also plays a part in the maintenance of these devices. High performance computers today use high capacity processors, video cards and sound cards. To generate the high performance that these components are designed to produce; the components utilize a lot of electricity. This in turn generates a lot of heat within the CPU. The mother board is so given connections to connect and hold fans specially focused on cooling the processors or the video cards. In addition a heat dissipation device called a heat sink is also used.

Most basic motherboards do not have the capability to run or operate high capacity processors or video cards. In such cases people who utilize graphics intensive applications like games or design and simulation software go for high end mother boards like those from Asus. These boards are designed with the purpose of high performance in mind and come with specifications that deliver high performance. For the general purpose computer an original Intel motherboard is preferred. People with really low budgets might find Intel to be on the higher side as well and then may settle for lower priced lesser known brands of mother boards.