Motherboard Sockets and Slots (Continue...)

There are several types of slots found in motherboard. Let check them out:

Memory Slots

This is the slot where the RAM is inserted to. The slot for SD RAM, DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 RAM are not the same and there is no way you can insert one into the other. The type of RAM that can be used is also dependent on the type of motherboard you have selected.

In addition, other than the slot type, the number of memory slots determines how many memory modules you can use for your machine. The more slots the motherboard has, the better is it. When buying your motherboard, having four slots for your memory offers you greater flexibility than two slots offer.

Video Card Slot

While there are three possible ways of connecting the video card to your motherboard, only the AGP and PCI express slots are still in use for graphics card connection. PCI video cards are no longer in use nowadays as they are slow and are not capable of processing high quality 3D game.

The AGP slot has been the standard for video card connection for a long time. When PCI-express (also known as PCI-e) was introduced, it rapidly replace AGP as the de-facto standard for video card connection. The reason being, PCI-e allows faster transferring of information and is able to improve the game performance to a greater extent.

At the same time, PCI-e slots also allows the motherboard to handle two graphics card simultaneously in either a SLI or Crossfire setting. This is not possible with AGP or PCI slot. If you want to enable the SLI or Crossfire technology, you have to make sure that the motherboard has at least 2 PCI-e 16X slots.

PCI Slots

While not used for graphics card, the PCI slots can be used to accommodate general expansion cards such as extra USB ports, Firewire card, sound card etc. However as more and more of these features are integrated into the motherboard, there are lesser and lesser need for a PCI slot to be around. Therefore, don’t panic if your motherboard only has two or three PCI slots. The days of motherboard with six PCI slots are long gone; three PCI slots are more than sufficient.

IDE/SATA Slot

IDE and SATA are two different types of slots, but both serve the same function. Both are used to connect the internal storage device such as hard disk and CD-ROM to the motherboard. Before the introduction of SATA, IDE was the standard for connecting storage device. However, due to its slow speed and cable length limitation, it has been gradually phased out by SATA. The more recent motherboard will come with at least 2 SATA and IDE slots, with the newer ones have up to 8 SATA and only 1 IDE slots.

USB Ports

USB ports are probably the most useful connection available in today computer. It has phased out the serial and parallel port and become the standard for connecting external devices to the computer. Be it keyboard, mouse, speakers, gamepad, external hard disk and tons of other devices, all can be connected and powered via the USB ports. Most motherboard come with 4 USB ports, and it is uncommon to see one that has 8 USB ports. If you have a ton of stuff to connect to your computer, you might want to consider getting a motherboard that has 8 USB ports.