Mobo reviews

MoBO review                                                                                                           Feb/10/2013

Section 1 Form Factors

ATX

This format was developed by intel to outdo the at factor

Measurements 12”x9.6”

Micro ATX

Backwards compatible with ATX and MICRO ATX cases,

Fewer chassis bays

9.6x9.x6”

ITX

Meant for theatres, or embedded systems.

Compatible with ATX chassis

Section 2 System board components

Bus architecture

- Serial communications  dominate- sustains data rates many times those of parallel connections.

Only downside is the capability of the transceivers.

Types

 SATA- USB, IEEE 1394/FIREwire, peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe)

The term bus is also used in any parallel or bit serial wiring implantation where multiple devices can be attached at the same time in parallel or in series(Daisy chained)

Chipsets

A chipset is a collection of chips or circuits that perfom interface and peripheral functions for the processor. This collection of chips is usually the circuitry that provides interfaces for memory, expansion cards, and onboard peripherals and generally dictates how a motherboard will communicate  with the installed peripherals.

Two major functions of a chipset, North bridge and southbridge

North Bridge

Peripheral boss primarily for communications with intergrated video

The cpuand memory occur over what is known as the frontside bus(FSB)

Backside bus (BSB) if present is responsible for the signal between the cpu and the cache memory

With no BSB the cache is placed on the frontside bus with the cpu and main memory.

Controls the southbridge

SouthBridge

Provides support to the onboard slower peripherals(P.S parallel ports, serial ports, serial and parallel ata, and so on), Unlike NORTHBRIDGE they do not keep up with the external clock of the cpu and do not represent a bottlekneck in the overall performance of the system.

The southbridge is responsible for handing the slower expansion buses

Section 3 Expansion Slots

Expansion Slots

Most visible on a MOBO

Ø  PCI

Ø  AGP

Ø  PCIe

Ø  CNR

PCI EXPANSION SLOTS

PCI EXPANSION buses operate at 33mhz or 66 mhz over a 32 bit (4 byte) channel

Data rates therefore at 133 and 266 mbps 133 mbps most common

Mixing 33 and 66 mhz adapters in a 66 mhz system will slow all adapters to 44mhz

Pci slots and adatpers are manufacture in 3.3 and 5v versions

Notches in the card 5v slots and adatpers oriented toward the front of the mobo

PCI-X expansion SLOT

Visually identical to 64bit PCImost common 133 mhz maximum 533 mhz, 8 byte (64 bit) Bus> maixumum throughput of 4622MBPS roughly 4.3 gbps

PCI-X supports a 266 mhz bus compatible with PCI ADAPTERS

PCI – X  targets server platforms

All adapters falling back to the frequency of the slowest inserted adapter

AGP expansion slots

Accelerated graphics port (AGP)

Mostly for legacy video card use

3d

AGP slots deigsned to be direct connection between the video circuitry and the PCS memory

BROWN slots

AGP X1 uses a 4 byte channel and a 66 mhz clock, results in data rate of 266 mbps

AGP 2X 4x and 8x multiply the 66mhz clock

PCIe Expansion Slots

Backwards compatible

PCIe is usually refered to as the bus architecture to simplify its comparison with other bus tehcnologies

Use switching correspondent bandwith

PciE is a serial technology, striping data packets across multiple serial paths to achieve higher data rates.

PCIE uses the concepts of lanes, which ware switched point to point signal paths between any two pcie components.

Seven different link widths

1x 2x 4x 8x 12x 16x and 32x

1x 4x 16x being most common

16x largest slot

Three major version of PCIE 1x 2x and 3.0

PCIE is compatible with PCI’s best

You can use smaller size cards in a bigger lane slot it will just run at the slower speed

PCIe is gamers choice

SLI on PCIe(two cards)

Perfomarnacne suffers without the proper amount of video cards in the slots

CNR Expansion Slots

Seperates the analog circuitry onto its own card. This allowed analog circuitry  to be separately certified from the already certified digital motherboard.

The communications and networking riser (CNR) slot that can be found on some was devolped after the Audio modem riser (AMR)

These legacy 60 pin slots allowed motherboard manufacturers to implement a motherboard chipset with certain integrated featuires.

A cnr riser card could be added to enhance the onboard capabilities 

CNR has good network support; plug and play compatibility support for hardware acceleration.

Mobo Notes at a glimpse

32 bit(4 Bytes)

64 bit(8byte)

North Bridge- Peripheral Boss- Controls South Bridge

South Bridge- provides support to the onboard slower peripherals

(ATX) advanced techonology extended

Micro Atx

ITX

(PCI) Peripheral component interconnect\

(PCIx)  EXtended

(AGP) Accelerated graphics port(BROWN SLOT)

(PCIe)Peripheral component express

(CNR) Communications and networking riser- 60 pin slots-Network Support

Good night everyone, Hope someone has learned something from this review.
-Mark Bartlett