Motherboard

Last Updated: 2023-02-21

Factors to Consider

The motherboard should have the correct socket for the CPU you choose.

The chipset on the motherboard decides which CPU can be installed, how many PCIe / USB (and which versions)s can be supported, etc.

Naming conventions:

AMD: X for Enthusiast (e.g. X570), B for Performance (e.g. B550; the "m" in B550m stands for mATX), A for Mainstream (e.g. A520)
Intel: X for Extreme, Z for Performance, H for Mainstream, B/Q for Budget

ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) is the de facto standard for PCs. However it comes in different sizes:

(Standard) ATX > Micro-ATX > Mini-ITX > Nano-ITX > Pico-ITX > Mobile-ITX

ATX: 12 × 9.6 in (305 × 244 mm), the most common one; usually 4 RAM slots
Micro-ATX (or mATX): 9.6 × 9.6 in (244 × 244 mm), has the same width with ATX but shorter, so it just offers less expansion slot.
Mini-ITX: 170 × 170 mm , for tiny PCs, only one card slot. Note that it is "ITX" (Information Technology eXtended) instead of "ATX"

The smaller the board, the fewer PCIe / RAM slots. Also you need to pay attention to the tower specs, make sure the motherboard can fit in.

The standard ATX motherboards usually offer 4 RAM slots.

The expansion slots come in different sizes, modern motherboards usually have the followings:

You can plug a PCIe x1 card into the PCIe x16 slot. A PCIe x1 card can be plugged into any larger slot and will work fine.

Some motherboard has built-in Wi-Fi.
BIOS Flashback: USB BIOS Flashback allows you to easily update the BIOS without entering the BIOS or operating system.

northbridge, or host bridge / Memory Controller Hub, is directly connected to the CPU vis frontside bus(FSB), while southbridge is not.
The northbridge was directly responsible for communications with high-speed devices (system memory and primary expansion buses, such as PCIe, AGP and PCI cards, being common examples) and conversely any system communication back to the processor. The southbridge handled "everything else", generally lower-speed peripherals and board functions (the largest being hard disk and storage connectivity) such as USB, parallel and serial communications.
Requests to resources not directly controlled by the northbridge were offloaded to the southbridge, with the northbridge being an intermediary between the processor and the southbridge.
The connection between the northbridge and southbridge was normally the PCI bus

PCI stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect.

PCIe, or PCI Express, uses a serial, lane-based architecture; it replaces the older PCI, which uses a shared parallel bus architecture.

PCIe slot sizes: x1, x2, x4, x8 or x16. A smaller card can plug in a larger slot, not vice versa.