Types Of Motherboard

Discuss Types of Motherboard. Motherboard of a computer can be said to the soul of the computer as all the components of the computer are connected to it. They are also referred to as system board or main board) The Central Processing Unit or CPU is installed on the motherboard while other components such as the keyboard, the mouse, the hard drives, the monitor are connected to it using cables. The types of motherboard can be classified on the basis of the processor and the size.

Different CPUs are compatible with specific types of motherboard and thus on the basis of CPU the types of motherboard can be classified as follows:-

Socket A Motherboards or Socket 464 Motherboard – AMD and Durons processors are compatible with this motherboard. There are 462 pins in the CPU socket and the packaging is PGA (Pin Grid Array). It has a bus speed of 100 to 200 MHz.

Socket 370 Motherboards – Compatible with Intel P-111, VIA Cyrix III, VIA C3 and Celeron Processors the motherboard has 370 pins in the CPU socket. Like Socket 464 motherboard it also comes in PGA packing and has a bus speed of 66 to 133 MHz.

Socket 378 Motherboards or Socket N Motherboards – The processors supported by this motherboard are Pentium 4, Intel Pentium 4 EE and Intel Pentium M processor. With a bus speed of 100 to 200 MHz and having 478 pins this motherboard is available if PGA packing.

Socket T motherboards or LGA775 – it can support a host of Intel processors such as Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Xeon,Celeron-4, Celeron, P-4, Pentium-XE, Pentium-D. The motherboard has 775 pins and has an amazing bus speed of 1600 Mhz. Like most of the motherboards it also comes in PGA package.

Socket 939 Motherboard – Coming in a PGA package it is meant for the processors from AMD. The processors supported are Opetro, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2. With 939 pins it has a very good bus speed of 200 to 1000 MHz.

Socket AM3 Motherboards – One of the latest types of motherboard available in the market it has a bus speed which ranges from 200 to a whooping 3200 MHz. The processors that are compatible with it are AMD Athelon II and AMD Phenom II and is available in PGA packaging.

Socket H or LGA 1156 motherboards – Unlike other types of motherboard it comes in a LGA (Large Grid Array) packaging and is comparatively new motherboard being launched in 2009. As the name suggests it has 1156 pins and is compatible with Intel processors such as Core i3, Corei5 and Core i7

The above mentioned processors are the most common available in the market and there are several other types of motherboards available.

Based on the size the different of types of motherboard are:

ATX motherboards – It has a dimension of 12×7.5 inches. It has direct integration of USB and I/O ports and has a bus speed of 100 MHz. It mostly supports Intel procesors.

Full AT motherboards – They were the first motherboards to be made and has dimension of 12×11 inches. The main problem with this motherboard is that it is difficult to access the components and gets overheated.

Baby AT Motherboards– It is made for classic Pentium processors and is 10 inches long and 8.5 inches wide.