PC hardware knowledge required series-Main Board

I. Edition


Ii. chipset

3. expansion slots
1. PCI/PCIe
2. SATA interface

IV. I/O interfaces

5. CPU/memory problems
1. CPU slot
2. Memory slot

6. Power supply materials

VII. Other functions
1. BIOS
2. hifi/WiFi
3. onboard chips
4. Others

The figure is from the positive nude image of Asus B85 plus. It will be used multiple times in the subsequent process.

We will divide it into the following parts, and then explain them one by one.

I. Edition


What is a board model? Simply put, it is the overall shape standard of the motherboard. It is related to the combination of the chassis, and there are differences in expansion and interface.


Currently, the most common types of PC motherboard are as follows:
ATX-the "big board" we often call it. Standard size: 305*244mm, with full/mid-tower Chassis
Micro-ATX -- short for M-ATX, needless to say, must be "Small board. Standard size: 244*244mm, with Mid/mini tower Chassis
MINI-ITX-Mini, smaller than small board. Generally 170*170mm, applicable to HTPC Chassis
What board does Asus B85 plus belong? A: ATX!



Ii. chipset


Chipset chips are provided by CPU vendors, such as AMD's a85x/a75 and Intel's z87/b75 are the chipset codes.
It is mainly responsible for controlling non-video card slots such as sound card, Sata device, and I/O interface. It almost determines all functions of the motherboard and is the most important chip in the motherboard.

There are a lot of old materials on the Internet, such as the "chipset" entry under Baidu encyclopedia. It also says [it is a general term of "nanqiao" and "beiqiao ], in fact, the North Bridge has been integrated into the CPU, so the chipset only refers to the "South Bridge. (If you do not know what the "South Bridge" and "North Bridge" are, just skip this section)


▲The latest intel 8 series motherboard specifications table (RST, SRT, and DSA will be briefly described in section 4th of "other functions" below) 3. expansion slots


The "expansion slot" of the motherboard mainly includes a variety of PCIe slots, PCI slots, and SATA disk interfaces. Some boards will also be equipped with msata interfaces (Disk interfaces used to install msata SSD) and other expansion slots such as mini PCIe (mostly used in laptops and desktop boards for installation of wireless network cards.


1. PCI/PCIe


PCIe slots are divided into PCIe video card slots of different channels and PCIe X4/x2/X1 slots for other devices. The former can not only install the video card, but also replace the latter. A typical feature of a video card slot is that it is the longest slot on the motherboard, and there is a snap-in at the end for a fixed video card.

PCIe card slots are divided into two specifications and three types: PCIe 3.0, PCIe 2.0, x16, X8, and X4. As a newbie, you only need to know that you can use 3.0 instead of 2.0. You can use x16 instead of X8/X4. Generally, a single video card does not matter. The motherboard must have at least one 3.0x16 slot. It is correct to use it. for high-end card crossfire/SLI, the two PCIe addresses must be in at least X8 + X8 mode! Therefore, when selecting the main board, if you plan to build a multi-card platform, please go to the main board official website to learn more about whether the multi-card platform is supported, so as to avoid various tears after purchase ......




▲Asus B85 plus, we can see that it has two PCIe graphics card slots

From the information on the official website, it supports CF, but the channel is x16 + X4, and channel splitting is not supported, so communication between high-end cards will suffer losses. The communication between low-end cards is meaningless, therefore, we simply understood this situation as "Multi-card is not supported "! Okay, next topic ......


PCIe X4/x2/X1, including PCI, I will not talk much about it. You only need to know that they are used to install expansion slots for other devices such as the sound card Nic SSD, and you can easily recognize them from the motherboard.




2. SATA interface


You can connect to a storage device using a SATA data cable in two specifications: SATA 3.0 and 2.0.

The maximum continuous transmission speed of the native SATA 2.0 interface is 300 MB/S, which is slightly older and is gradually eliminated
The maximum continuous transmission speed of the native SATA 3.0 interface is 600 Mb/s. The relatively high-speed interface will completely replace 2.0
There is also a third-party bridge SATA 3.0 interface. Its Interface speed is between native 2.0 and 3.0, and the latency is slightly higher than that of native.

Therefore, if you have SSD with Sata interfaces, you must connect them to the native SATA 3.0 interface;
For HDD, The 3.0 interface is preferred. If the 3.0 interface is not enough or the 2.0 interface is not available, the interface is selected. This has little impact (but pay attention to the system disk, read/write latency and the ability to read and write small files and stability are the most important, so you would rather choose native 2.0 instead of bridging 3.0)

IV. I/O interfaces

Robot Microstar Z87-GD65 gaming


PS/2 mouse Interface: As the name suggests, it is dedicated to mouse keys with PS/2 connectors.

Coaxial output interface: It mainly provides digital audio signal transmission. Some motherboards provide complete input and output interfaces (only one yellow output interface exists, and the red interface is the input interface)

Optical fiber audio interface: I have never touched it. The online materials are vague. Currently, we only need to know that it is used for audio output.

VGA Interface: We should all know that 720p or above is obviously distorted when connected to the monitor.

DVI interface: Digital signal transmission, no distortion, supports P HD

HDMI Interface: Supports the video transmission interface for audio transmission, and supports p hd. It is common with DVI and DP interfaces on the graphics card side board.

Network Interface: Who said he didn't know it was used to connect the network cable? It must have been a mess?

USB2.0/3.0 Interface: Currently, the most common external interface is available. The transmission speed of 2.0 is 60 m/s, and the transmission speed of 3.0 is 10 times that of 2.0!

Audio interface: Currently, the output interfaces of mainstream audio devices are described in each color Jack.


The mainstream motherboard I/O interfaces are briefly introduced here. There are still many things not involved in this article. You can refer to the motherboard manual to find the corresponding description.

 

5. CPU/memory problems


1. CPU slot

First, let's briefly compare the CPU slots of Intel and AMD motherboard:


Their differences are obvious: Intel's slots are full of pins and there are cards for fixed CPUs
AMD is full of Pin Holes


Because the pins in the CPU slot on the Intel motherboard are easily damaged by external force, the motherboard will have a plastic protective cover when leaving the factory.
Therefore, if the motherboard purchased by the children's shoes does not carry the protective cover, it may be second-hand or refurbished ......


2. Memory slot

In fact, there is no particular emphasis on memory slots. DDR2 and ddr3 memory slots have different slot defense positions, so the second generation and the current third generation memory cannot be used in the slot first.



Next, let's add some basic knowledge about the number of memory slots and the maximum number of channels that support the memory:


H61/h81 Standard 2 (dual channel)
B75/B85 Standard 4 (dual channel)
Six standard x58 (three channels)
X79 Standard 8 (four channels)

 

 

6. Power supply materials

This part is a major focus of the Main Board. The main board cannot be controlled during the preparation of the draft. It is a few major sections for a single write, so it should be issued as a separate post to avoid affecting the length of this article.
Here, I will briefly introduce the functions of each component in the power supply circuit. I hope you can see the full-text link provided later.


(Asus B85 plus power supply ):



PWM: Controlled by the vid, the output is an adjustable square wave with N pulse width, and the corresponding voltage (VID: Integration in CPU, automatically set the power supply voltage) is obtained by controlling the switch of the MOs.
Google searches for the specific model of the PWM chip (the original Google version is recommended for search at www.google.com/ncr). Generally, we can find its product introduction information, it is required when analyzing the power supply solution of the motherboard.

Mos: Based on the PWM square wave signal, take turns to drive the upstream and downstream MOS. Three MOS drives may be integrated into some PWM chips (the PWM product page will be described)

MosfeT: Through its ON/OFF, the inductance is charged and discharged, and the corresponding voltage can be obtained by controlling its switching frequency.

Input/output inductance: Mutual conversion of magnetic energy and electric energy, filtering and energy storage, and corresponding voltage can be obtained by switching with the power-on of the power-on in a certain period of time.

Input/output capacitance: Storage power can supply power to the CPU, while also playing a filter role

VII. Other functions


1. BIOS


It is a program on the ROM chip on the motherboard. Its main function is to provide the most underlying and direct hardware settings and control for the computer. Whether a motherboard supports overclock is an important embodiment of its BIOS. In this case, we know that B85/h87 does not support overclock in principle for a single chipset, But it supports overclock of K series CPU by upgrading the BIOS, this is a benefit! (I didn't pay attention to this stuff for a while. I don't know if intel has blocked this hole)
On the other hand, the performance of a single motherboard depends largely on whether the BIOS management function on the motherboard is advanced. Therefore, whether the motherboard BIOS supports Chinese characters, whether the interface is beautiful and clear, whether the settings provided are comprehensive enough, and whether the design is user-friendly are definitely worth our attention.


2. hifi/WiFi


Hi fi: the word "hi-fi" refers to "High Fidelity". If you want to take a "Major" course in Xuanxue, the "tuition fee" will be very high ...... So don't think about how high the HIFI experience a motherboard with hundreds of thousands of yuan can bring to you. The onboard sound card can be too limited.


Wi-Fi: no stranger to everyone. In short, it is a wireless network. Now many motherboard models have their own wireless network cards, which is quite practical. In addition, some high-end models such as gigabyte and Microstar are equipped with game-optimized "Killer NICs" to adjust the packet priority to reduce game latency. Javaskiller e2200 series Nic chips



3. onboard chips

When it comes to onboard network/sound cards, let's take a look at other integrated chips on the motherboard, including usb3.0, sata3, Hardware monitoring, and channel switching chips, there is an article about them:
Http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2685295558

Some of them are mandatory, such as onboard NICs, sound cards, and Hardware Monitoring chips. The lack of these chips will cause great inconvenience to our use; there are still some unessential chips, such as third-party usb3 and sata3 control chips. In many cases, we can still be very happy without them. Of course, the performance and absence of these integrated chips also affect our choice of the motherboard, in particular, this year's intel 8-series motherboard manufacturers made some optimizations on sound cards and NICs.



4. Others

RST is Intel's storage-driven management software.
SRT, smart response technology, SSD cache HDD to achieve acceleration.
DSA, Dynamic Disk acceleration, a function to compensate for hard disk performance loss after enabling the energy-saving mode
IRST is a "sleep" technology that supports power outages.
SBA is an IT management tool for small enterprises.

In my opinion, the above functions are either less effective (RST), chicken ribs (SRT, DSA, IRST), or irrelevant to us (SBA), so it is not recommended. Of course, this is not absolute. It may be suitable for some people. Let's take a look at it based on your own situation.

 

PC hardware knowledge required series-Main Board