Motherboard

The motherboard is the basic hardware of most computers and determines their internal layout. The main purpose of the motherboard is to connect the individual components of the computer into a working unit and provide them with electrical power. It consists of printed circuits and is precisely designed for the work of a particular processor. It contains a number of connectors and slots that connect directly to the motherboard or are connected by special cables.

A typical motherboard allows the connection of a processor, RAM. Other components (eg graphics cards, sound cards, hard disks, drives) are connected using expansion slots or cables that plug into the appropriate connectors. There is also a non-volatile ROM on the motherboard, which stores the BIOS, which is used to revive the computer immediately after startup.

The most important integrated circuits are built into a chipset. Physically, it can be either just one chip or two (in which case they are referred to as northbridge and southbridge). A chipset takes care of communication between the processor, buses, slots, controllers, and other components on the computer's motherboard and decides which processor and RAM can be connected to the motherboard.

Other main parts include the socket that connects the processor, PCIe slots for connecting a graphics card and slots for RAM. The latest SATA III interface with a high transfer rate of up to 6 Gb/s is the standard for new hard drives.