) on the right hand side of the configurator.| Motherboard |
| A motherboard is like the central hub or backbone of a computer, connecting all its parts so they can work together. Our computers always use motherboards from leading brands which have several features built into them, which include peripheral card slots, CPU sockets, expansion slots and so on. We have included a few definitions of individual parts of a motherboard to help you along your way: PCI Ports Motherboards have a number of PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) ports. You connect items such as the network/wireless card, USB card, sound card etc into these ports. PCI EXPRESS Ports Motherboards have a number of PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Express ports. You connect PCI-E items such as the graphics card, network/wireless card, USB card, streaming card into PCI Express ports. USB Ports USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports allow you to connect peripherals such as the printer, scanner, webcam, cable modem, mobile phone, portable hard disk and much more to your computer with ease. It is therefore recommended to have a large number of USB ports for future connectivity. Serial ATA (SATA) SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is the interface used to connect hard drives and optical drives to the motherboard. SSD An SSD (Solid-State Drive) is a type of storage device but unlike traditional hard drives (HDDs) with spinning disks, SSDs use fast memory chips to store data. This makes them much faster, quieter, and more reliable, ideal for quick boot times and faster file access. M.2 An M.2 is a small, high-speed storage drive. It's like a modern SSD but smaller and faster, perfect for laptops and gaming PCs. There are two main types: SATA (slower) and NVMe (super fast). It plugs directly into the motherboard, saving space and improving performance. NVMe NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a super-fast technology used in modern SSDs. It connects storage directly to a computer's processor via the PCIe interface, allowing much quicker data transfer than older SATA drives. This means faster boot times, file transfers, and overall system performance. |