What is motherboard in computer? Types of the motherboard.

The motherboard is one of the most important parts of the computer system. Its short form is “Mobo”. It’s the main printed circuit board on the computer, crucial for the functioning of the computer, and is attached to the motherboard, including the central processing unit (CPU), memory and connectors for input and output devices. It is the main backbone connectivity point of a computer that connects all parts and external peripherals. It connects directly or indirectly to each part of the PC. The large PCB of the motherboard may consist of 6-14 layers of fiberglass, copper trace connectors and copper planes for power and signal isolation. The base of a motherboard consists of a very firm sheet of non-conductive material, usually some kind of rigid plastic.

Types of motherboard

#1. AT Motherboard

These Motherboards are the oldest of its kind. It is a motherboard that has dimensions of several hundred millimeters in length, wide enough to be unable to fit in mini desktops. The AT Motherboards are used in the mid-80s. AT means that the panel consists of power connectors with Advanced Technology (AT). The dimensions (13.8 x 12 inch) of this Mobo make it difficult for the new drives to get installed. Such motherboards are used in earlier computers 286/236 and 436.

#2. ATX Motherboard:

Advanced technology extended known as ATX. The ATX Mobo is an upgrade from the motherboard that used to work like AT. Full-Size standard ATX board dimensions are 12 x 9.6 inches. The ATX motherboard has undergone the most recent updates. However, the dimensions of this Mobo are smaller than the AT motherboards and thus the proper place for the drive bays is also required. There was a keyboard connector on the AT motherboards and additional slots for various add-ons were offered on the backplates.

Some of the features and uses of ATX Motherboard are as follows:

• More stable power and more power phases for cleaner.
• Wider gaps for better graphics card cooling between expansion slots.
• Further clearance to fit these large aftermarket heatsinks around the CPU socket.

#3. Micro-ATX Motherboard:

It is smaller than the standard ATX motherboards with a dimension of 9.6 x 9.6 inches. Many producers have a length of 9.6 x 8.1 inches. Many standard ATX Mobo has a maximum of seven PCI and PCI Express expansion slots, while micro-ATX boards have a maximum of four.

Advantages of Micro-ATX Motherboard are given below:

• It’s budget similar to other motherboards ATX and ITX.
• It’s lighter and smaller than ATX motherboard, featuring more ports and slots than ATX.

#4. E-ATX Motherboard:

E-ATX was expanded to the ATX motherboard and its size is huge compared to the ATX motherboard, but it doesn’t matter how big it has many features and all the other traditional motherboard lagging. The E-ATX is mainly used for games. It can be extended to have a wide memory and more CPU cores.

The features and advantages of the E-ATX Motherboard are given below

• It has Maximum 128 GB ram
• It has a number of PCI slots and DIMM slots
• These boards have built-in wifi, sound cards, onboard troubleshooting features, and powerful VRM

#5. BTX Motherboard

BTX stands for Balanced Technology extended. It has been developed to reduce and prevent some of the issues that have arisen while using the latest technologies. Both the ATX standard and the BTX standard were introduced by Intel. This form of the board has made some improvements over previous technologies:

• Thermal design – The BTX design offers a straighter airflow path with less complexity, resulting in improved overall cooling capabilities. The feature of BTX is the vertical mounting of the Mobo on the left side. This kind of feature results in the graphics card heat sink or fan facing upwards, rather than in the direction of the adjacent expansion card.
• Structure layout – The BTX specification specifies different locations for hardware mounting points and therefore eliminates latency between key components.
• Low-profile – With greater demand for ever-smaller systems, a streamlined backplane that shaves inches away from height requirements would support network integrators and businesses that use rack mounts or blade servers.

#6. Pico-BTX Motherboard:

Pico BTX is a motherboard form factor designed to produce even smaller BTX standard sizes. This is smaller than many existing Mobo of the “mini” scale, which is why the term “Pico” was used. These share a common top half in the BTX line with the other sizes, but they only accommodate one or two expansion slots designed for half-height or riser-card applications.

#7. Mini-ITX Motherboard:

Mini ITX is 6.7 x 6.7 inches in size which is smaller than any other standard motherboard.

Some of the features and advantages of Mini ITX Motherboard are given bellow

• The Mini ITX board can be used in any case that is configured for ATX, Micro-ATX and other ATX variants, if necessary.
• The smaller size and the fan-less cooling that allows low power consumption.

Motherboard components:

Everything behind the computer case is connected to the motherboard in some way so that all the components can interact with each other.

It’s consists of various components that have their own role to play in the functioning of the PC. However, it is good to know some of the more important parts and how the motherboard links the different parts of the computer system together. Here are some of the common parts:

• 3-pin case fan connectors.
• Expansion slots (PCI Express, PCI, and AGP).
• 4-pin (P4) power connector.
• Inductor.
• Heat sink.
• Screw hole.
• ATA / IDE disk drives the primary connection.
• Southbridge.
• RAID
• Capacitor.
• CPU socket.
• Memory slot.
• Floppy connection.
• 24-pin ATX power supply connector.
• Serial ATA connections.
• Coin cell battery (CMOS backup battery).
• Serial port connector.
• Integrated circuit.
• USB headers.
• Jumpers.
• Back pane connectors.
• Northbridge.
• 1394 headers.
• Super I/O.
• System panel connectors.
• FWH.
• SPDIF.
• CD-IN.

Conclusion

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Also Read: Types of computer | How many types of computer?

Also Read: What is computer | who invented computer | History of computer

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