How can you tell a fast motherboard from a slow one?

Laxgoalie1

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I'm building my own computer and I know most things, but one thing i never knew was what the difference is between a fast mother board and a slow one....Can someone tell me then show two from newegg.com as a example? And what does 4x184PIN ddr mean? or 2x 182pin ddr?
 
It is not so much the motherboard as it is the chip.

The cpu is what determines the speed along with the type of ram that is used to tell how fast the applications are.

The motherboard is kind of a personal difference as to what it has on it and brand and all that after one determines the socket(chip) that will be used and the type of memory.

for instance 2 mobos using a socket 939 (amd 64) and both supporting ddr 400(pc3200) would run about the same as speed goes but allow one of the boards to support dual channel mode (memory) would actually process a little faster because of the dual channel memory

The other conciderations would be type of socket for graphics installation and whether it uses onboard vido or type of sound and what is supported USB connections and how many..and what size you need the board to be so as to make sure it will fit within the case are. These are all related to motherboard configuring.

> and of course the overclocking capabilities as defined by the BIOS as some boards will allow a minimum amout and others allow a full range<
 
182 pin is the socket for the 182 pin DDR memory.
2x would be 2 sockets and 3x would be 3 sockets and 4x would make 4 sockets... The difference is aloowed in how much ram is used per socket and as to whether it was dual channel supported.

usually described as 2x ddr 182 pin sockets of 1gig pc3200(ddr400)for a total support of 2 gigs or close to that. meaning that each socket will take any stick of pc3200 ddr memory up to 1 gig in size and the board supports 2 sockets totalling 2 gigs of ram.

to add to that would be dual channel capabilities. which are not normally seen in only 2 socket boards.
 
You can always look at a MSI K8N Neo Motherboard, I find mine has quite a few nice things to it.


Chris
 
motherboard bus speeds are important though, and chipsets

but as lurkswithin says.. its all about the processor and ram
 
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