How to choose a motherboard

I, as an ordinary owner of a personal computer, not fond of "overclocking" components and other extreme improvements, the question of how to choose a motherboard, was only interested in theory.

We can assume that users who are important that the operating system work smoothly, the video and sound were smoothly reproduced, the browser functioned normally and the games - the majority. All this was for several years, until one day it became clear that it was time for forums to ask a question about how to choose a motherboard. It just came to realize that USB ports behave very strange: the devices connected to them could spontaneously turn off or not be detected at all, and the speed ceased to correspond to the second version of the protocol. A new power supply, a reduction in the number of connected devices and a change in the operating system did not give anything. It became clear that the reason for what was happening, most likely, lies in the control bus controller and if you do not study the question of how to choose a motherboard, you can stay without USB at all. The problem was solved by replacing this element. All of the above says that everyone should know about how to choose a motherboard.

The first thing that the choice starts with is deciding which processor (CPU, CPU) is to be used. There are fees for both Intel products and AMD, and they are incompatible, so this is an important step. Determine the CPU-supported generations of the CPU. To do this, open the page with the specification in the instructions to the motherboard (usually it is at the very beginning) and look at the "CPU" section. Here are all the processors that can be installed on this board. In addition to their name, pay attention to the type of socket (for example, there is a Core i3 for LGA1155 and LGA1156). If the system is going "from scratch", then it is preferable to choose the newest type of socket (you can ask the consultant). These people can help with the answer to the question "how to choose a motherboard", although all their words are taken for granted is not worth it.

The next thing you should pay attention to is the type of memory supported and the number of connectors for the modules. The type should be DDR3 with a frequency of 1333 MHz, and as for the connectors - it is better if they are more than two (simplification of the volume increase).

Now many boards are supplied with only one kind of connectors for components - PCI Express (1, 8 and 16). Buying such a solution means that if you have a tuner, a high-quality sound card or another PCI expansion card, they will have to be handed over to the museum or using inconvenient adapters. Therefore, we must take this moment into account, and if necessary, choose a motherboard with PCI support, we advise the consultants about this. At the same time, there is one important point that many people overlook: the PCI connector should be located at a sufficient distance from PCI Express 16, which is supposed to be installed on the video card. Ignoring this can cause the video card cooling system to completely close the PCI slot, not allowing it to be used. If it is decided to use the built-in video solution, then this problem is interesting in terms of the future possible upgrade.

All modern boards come with a built-in sound chip (usually a HD Audio codec). Despite the high claimed characteristics, often their subjective sound quality loses even the old SB Live. Therefore, it is recommended before going to the store to familiarize yourself with forums with user feedback about the sound of different versions of sound solutions.

In the light of the latest technological advances, it is advisable to choose the motherboard with support for the latest versions of USB and SATA - 3.0 and 3, respectively.

If you plan to connect hard disks larger than 2 TB to the board, you must choose a solution with UEFI, rather than a classic BIOS.