Hal's Hardware Haven
~~by Hal Cardona, PC Sleuth

Motherboards and Processors

Hello,

Sorry I was unable to write a column last month.  I was snowed under by some emergency network problems at a client's site. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the holidays and received a few new geek toys as gifts.

This month's column is about matching a modern motherboard and processor to your needs. The motherboard and processor help determine what you can accomplish with your computer. I am not going to be covering older technology (ancient in the computer industry) like socket 7.

I'll be covering quite a few topics in this article, all the things I mention need to be considered when you are choosing which processor and motherboard you are going to use in your new PC. Your processor choice will determine your motherboard choices, which will in turn determine your RAM choices. 

Processors 

Let's start by talking about processors. Processors or CPUs (Central Processing Unit) are the part of your computer that manipulates your data. Right now there are 2 main brands of processors on the PC market: AMD and Intel. Intel manufacturers CPUs under the names of Xeon, Itanium, Pentium and Celeron. AMD makes processors under the names of Athlon and Duron.

There are a couple of differences between Intel and AMD processors. Both manufacturers have added some extensions to the basic x86 chip architecture. AMD has added 3DNow and Intel has added SSE. There is more than one version of both 3DNow and SSE. AMD has added Intel's original SSE instructions to its latest Athlon XP+ line. 

Intel 

Intel's Xeon chip is designed with lots of cache for servers and workstations. It is also designed to be used in multiprocessor systems.

The Itanium chip is a new 64 bit design for high end workstations and servers. I have to say though that every time Intel releases a new chip it is "designed for servers and workstations", but it doesn't take long for the new chips to be used in desktop machines.

The Pentium 4 chip is Intel's latest entry into the desktop market. Intel made some interesting trade offs in designing the Pentium 4 chip, the end result of this is that a Pentium 4 is slower at standard office tasks than a Pentium III running at the same clock speed. Until recently, the Pentium 4 has only been available with Rambus memory; it is now possible to use both SDRAM and DDR RAM with Pentium 4 chips. DDR Ram seems to offer the best value for cost versus performance for a Pentium 4 currently.

The Celeron is Intel's low end offering. Celerons are available at lower clock speeds and with slower front side bus speeds than Pentium 4s. Celerons do not have as much performance enhancing cache as a Pentium 4. 

AMD 

The Athlon on XP+ is AMD's latest offering. With the new Athlon XP+, AMD has chosen not to sell their chips based on pure MHZ and is instead using a speed rating system to let consumers know roughly how their chips perform compared to Intel's Pentium 4 line. In general you can expect an Athlon XP 2000+ (running at 1670 MHz) to perform most tasks as fast or faster than an Intel Pentium 4 2 Ghz. Athlons are also less expensive than the equivalent Pentium 4.

The Duron is AMD's low end offering that competes with Intel's Celeron. Durons are available at lower clock speeds and don't have as much cache as an Athlon. 

Motherboard Features 

Socket or slot type 

The type of processor you choose will help determine the type of socket or slot your mother board requires.

Current AMD chips use a 362 pin Socket called Socket A. Both Athlons and Durons use Socket A Motherboards.

The Intel Pentium 4 can use either a 423 pin socket or the new 478 pin Socket N. Celerons use the older 370 pin socket. 

Memory slots and type 

There are three types of commonly available memory today SDRAM, DDR RAM and Rambus RAM. Rambus RAM is only used in Intel Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 systems. In fact, to combat the cost premium for RAMBUS memory, Intel recently released the 845 chipset which allows the Pentium 4 to run with either DDR or SDRAM. In my opinion the best value for RAM is DDR RAM; it is fast and relatively inexpensive. 

Available card slots ISA/PCI/AGP 

Motherboards have slots which you can use to add peripherals to your computer the basic slots are ISA, PCI and AGP. Which types of slots you need on your motherboard is determined by the add-in cards you wish to use. 

Form factor ATX/MATX 

There are currently 2 basic motherboard formats currently in use in the computer industry. The difference between the formats is basically size. MATX stands for Micro ATX. 

The ATX is a full size mother board usually with an AGP slot and four to six PCI slots. 

MATX boards are smaller versions of ATX boards. They tend to have more integrated peripherals and fewer PCI slots and may not include an AGP slot. Some motherboards (both ATC and MATX) include AMR or CNR slots for adding low end sound/modem and networking to the motherboard, but they usually aren't worth using. 

Chipset 

The chipset determines how the motherboard connects with your peripherals, processor and memory. The chipset is integral to how your computer works, some chipset manufacturers are Intel, AMD, VIA and SIS. The chipset determines what kind of processor, memory and the types of expansion slots your mother board can contain. Chipsets from various manufacturers have their own strengths and weaknesses which vary for each chipset they produce. 

Integrated peripherals 

Integrated peripherals cover a lot of items that can be on your motherboard. The things you need to pay attention to are the number of USB ports, Parallel (printer) ports, Serial ports, and IDE connectors. Most motherboards come with 4 USB ports, 1 Parallel port, 2 Serial ports, 2 IDE connectors and PS2 mouse and Keyboard connectors. Some boards may offer more USB ports, only 1 Serial port and even an additional IDE controller that can handle setting hard drives up in a RAID array. 

In my opinion, integrated audio, video and networking aren't worth the time or effort to set them up. I feel that using a separate video card sound card and network interface card is a much better idea. By using separate components you can choose which components to use, making sure that they will perform the way you want them to. If you will be using your computer for gaming, video editing or even digital photography, you will be much better off avoiding integrated audio or video components. 

More Information 

I recommend that you spend some time reading and learning about the components that interest you. Some good places to find information are www.anandtech.com and www.tomshardware.com. Other good sources of information are Usenet newsgroups and various forums like the Yahoo's groups. You should remember though, that most people that post in a newsgroup or a forum are having a problem, therefore take the issues you read about with a grain of salt.

I hope you enjoyed this month's article. As always if you have any comments or ideas for new articles, please let me know via e-mail to abcomputer@pcsleuth.com. 

I need to say that this is not an offer to provide free technical support, if you need help with your computer, I recommend trying Yahoo Groups. There are groups covering just every topic. Some good groups are: Vic's WinTips and Linda's MS Office Group and my WinXPHelp group. 

Have fun and I'll see you next month!

Hal Cardona, PC Sleuth, serves as tech support and/or offsite Sys Admin for over 200 clients around the US.  He designs, builds, and troubleshoots networks and builds custom computer systems.