Motherboard questions...

[BluesDriveMonster]

So Im teaching myself how to build a PC using online guides, tutorials, and forum responses. Im taking apart old PCs to see if I know whats what and how everything connects. I can tell which parts are what now and what connects, but I still have a couple of unanswered motherboard questions...

-What is considered as the best motherboard on the market currently?
-Does memory type matter in performance?
-What are IDE/Serial ATA controllers?
-What purposes do PCI slots serve?

Any help is appreciated.

[unicycler]

BluesDriveMonster

So Im teaching myself how to build a PC using online guides, tutorials, and forum responses. Im taking apart old PCs to see if I know whats what and how everything connects. I can tell which parts are what now and what connects, but I still have a couple of unanswered motherboard questions...

-What is considered as the best motherboard on the market currently?
-Does memory type matter in performance?
-What are IDE/Serial ATA controllers?
-What purposes do PCI slots serve?

Any help is appreciated.

1. The best MoBo on the market, is the one that fits you best. If you get too many features that you will not use, you are wasting money.

2. Memory type does matter, both physical type: RIMM, SIMM, DIMM, RDRAM, SDRAM, DDRRAM, ect. and speed along with latency of the RAM. Physical type is only important to fit your mother board. speed and latency is where you will get changes in performance. Faster ram == better perfomance, but your mother board will only be able to support ram upto a certain spee.

3. IDE and ATA are the interfaces used to connect drives like CD/DVD, Hard disk, tape drives, etc.

4. PCI slots are used for cards. Some cards that fit the PCI slot are network cards, sound cards, some video cards (vidoe cards typically use the agp slot), modems, additional firewire and usb ports, etc.


5. Good luck, and remember to shop www.newegg.com and read the reviews.

[Amdkillsintel]

Does memory type matter in performance?
-What are IDE/Serial ATA controllers?
-What purposes do PCI slots serve?

Yes memory matters try to choose DDR ones the numbers should match up or be faster to your bus speed

The IDE/Serial ATA controllers connect hard drives and other devices like DVD drives and such

They serve as slots for expansion cards like graphics card, sound cards, and other perpherial devices

[BluesDriveMonster]

Ok, thanks to you both :3