Computer Series: The Motherboard

How to detail this part of a computer…Also known as the mainboard or “mobo” for short, this device wins the most underrated award. What I’m thinking is that it’s important to have an understanding of but is not really important to _really_ know unless you are building your own system. So I’ll try to start off by explaining some basics about the motherboard, what it’s for, and why it matters. Then I’ll leave you with some food for thought about motherboards.

The motherboard is that large green, sometimes a different color, thing that you see in your computer case…it looks somewhat reminiscent of cardboard, but is really a bunch of wires and connectors pieced together to allow your computer to function. Not very interesting eh? Well, I would say that you wont get much more interesting than that when you’re looking at motherboards. I’m not kidding. That being said, the motherboard is the most important part in a computer second only to the processor.

When you combine the processor and the motherboard you’ve in essence detailed the entire architecture for the computer you will build or buy. So to get you from novice to novice “but dangerous enough to challenge that dude in the store” lets talk shop. *Warning* - This may get technical.

The motherboard has a “chipset”. This means that you have a few mini processors that control the flow of information to the cpu. Within modern  chipsets, based on the Pentium processor, you typically have two separations; a north and south bridge. The north bridge is the faster of the two. Think of these as highways with many lanes. The north bridge speed limit is 175 MPH or more while the south bridge is generally much slower at like 35 MPH. The northbridge generally connects the CPU, RAM, and graphics card while the south bridge connects the rest of the peripheral devices. There are many reasons for the speed differences. Let me explain.

Naturally there are a number of ways to increase the speed of a computer. One of these ways is to take the mission critical pieces of a computer and attach them directly to the cpu with a very high speed highway. Now, if you still don’t understand what I’m talking about thing of it this way. If I’m the CPU and I’m running at horrifically blazing speeds because I’m in the fast lane and my memory is in the slow lane carrying something that I need, I will get to a point where I must wait for that information before I can continue driving like a maniac. Also, if you are thinking, why not just have everything connected the same way and on the same wires, think of rush hour traffic. You have the ability to use all lanes at 3AM when nobody is around. You can drive as fast as you’d like and pull off stunts. But, as soon as 7AM hits you could be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic with a long wait ahead of you. I suspect none of us is patient enough to let others go in front of us and so we’re all pushing forward with the expectation that we should finish first. This is how the computer works. So, the chipset designers give precedence to certain things. This is why it is important that you take advantage of those changes and speeds. In fact, the reason this is important is because places like Dell will let you select a processor and then your RAM. They will leave out the motherboard, but they tell you information about bus speeds. These speeds are the ones we just talked about. When dell gives you a combo where the Froint Side Bus (FSB) runs at 800 MHz and you select RAM that runs at 667 MHz, you’ve selected RAM that will never allow your system to fully utilize your motherboard. You should take advantage of this. So keep this in mind.
If you are not building a computer then you have very little control over the rest of the motherboard specs. Most of the time motherboards come with a number of “on-board” additions that help you so that you don’t have to spend as much on the motherboard and additional parts and so that they can manufacture a cheaper board. These on-board things usually include networking, sound, USB, and a few other things. This means that you don’t need to look elsewhere for a network card or extra USB connectors. It’s a convenience to you, but also reduces the cost. If you are getting a system from a place like Dell or Gateway, you’ll need to know this because they will offer you upgrades to things such as sound and otherwise that you may or may not need. I recently built a new system and am using the on-board sound. I’ve had no problems with it whatsoever. So, them telling you that you need to spend an additional $50 for sound or something similar isn’t really worthwhile unless you are running a production studio. And if you are, get someone to build you a crazy system, don’t cheap out on parts. For the rest of us, most of the on-board stuff will be sufficient. My last note on the on-board items is that USB ports are important. Usually you’ll only see USB 2.0, but on the rare occasion you see USB 1.0 or 1.1 shy away. Most devices will use 2.0 and require it for speed. And, with the speed, you also want to get as many USB ports as is possible. I have 4 in the back of my machine, and then 4 more through my case. I’ll be all set and wont ever have to use a USB port replicator. That means I’ll get full power and full throughput from the device I’ve connected to the motherboard and not have to share that port with another device.

Well, I know this has been technical. It’s hard to talk about the motherboard without getting technical, but I hope I’ve covered everything about the motherboard. This is the stuff that I can think of. I’ve been writing this over a couple of weeks and tweaking it to remove some of the tech speak. If you have questions, feel free to ask. Also, if one of you is a techie and I’ve mistated something or forgotten something, let me have it. Hope it helps.

Computer Series: The Processor

The processor, aka the CPU, is the one part of your computer that will define the computers function the most. The kind of processor you get will dictate which motherboard you get. The motherboard is the platform that the rest of your components must run on. So, it’s important to pick a good processor. Also, really when someone says “is this a good computer?” they are really asking about a couple of things, the brand and the processor. Most people today get the basic idea about hard drives and most people don’t have a clue as to what a video card is or what it is for, but most people do have a vague idea of a processor but only enough to get them into trouble. So how do you know if the processor is any good?

Most places today such as Dell will give you a choice in processor. Usually these choices are limited to AMD and Intel. There are a couple of things to do when you are deciding on a processor. First you should consider what you will need to do with the computer. Are you going to be using this to write papers and check email or are you going to be using it for hardcore, 24/7 gaming; most likely somewhere in between. Next, you should consider what you feel the longevity of the system should be. Obviously we all hope that our computer will last through all of time. The reality is that it wont. That being the case you have something else to consider here. Is it worth paying top dollar for a processor that could die in 2-3 years? Another thing to look into is the actual value. What are you getting per dollar (or other currency for the foreign readers)? How noticeable will the 200 MHz and 2MB of L2 cache be? Ok I think I may be getting a bit ahead of myself. Lets start answering some of these questions. Please note, that I’m making the assumption that your use will be somewhere between data entry and frag city.

So, to help you better understand what your decision should be made of lets talk about longevity. No system will last forever. It just isn’t possible. You’ll likely find that things like heat, dust, “oops I spilled my coffee all over everything”, and other factors will play into this. With that in mind, how likely is it that you really need the top of the line processor of today for the next 3 years. The reason I say three years is because in most accounting practices computers are no longer considered assets after 3 years. While a number certainly do last longer, this is a general assumption. Since we’re working on a three year time table what can I imagine will be the requirements of my system inside of three years. What new things will I find to tax the hell out of my processor and ability to run software? There will likely be a boatload of new spyware/adware, applications will likely move more to parallel processing, and new operating systems that try to run more from memory will exist. We can look into that future and see this as being the case so we will want to plan accordingly. We will want to choose a processor that takes advantage of multi-core technology. Why? Because when applications parallelize their functions we’ll be able to capitalize on those gains. This will make our systems incredibly powerful in the future as well as very good now. We need to be able to see a bit into the future to really see what is going to make our processor choice the best it can be. A few years from now the decision may rely entirely on the fact that we need to run web applications and nothing more so that we should really be focused on improving performance between the network connection and the processor. For now, parallelizing processes is where it is at.

We need to look at value. This is something you will always be confronted with when making the new purchase. Is that processor really 1, 2, even 300$ better than that other one even though it only has 1 MHz difference in the speed? Why is it that my computer will be obsolete tomorrow when I bought it today? We can look at these questions and answer them to a degree. But first, we must know a little bit about the technical side of a processor.

We measure processor speed in Hertz. This can be in any variation thereof such as Mega, Giga, etc. So, when you take two processors, A and B, where one is 2.3GHz and the other is 2.44GHz respectively, B is 244 mega-hertz faster than A. What is important to take into account here is the fact that A could very well be perfect for your situation. Processing speed has become fairly cheap. This means that you most likely wont pay our the wazoo for the speed. When you are reviewing the pricing information for your processor you should evaluate the difference in speed. To put this into perspective, a delta of 1GHz is like putting a Ferrari against a Ford, but 200MHz is like putting a Mustang against a BMW. Some slight differences. At this stage in the game, the changes aren’t really all that noticeable. So, the lower cost solution is probably a better choice.

To add in the confusion of processor decision, we discussed a bit about parallel processing. Lets expand on this topic. If you consider the idea of yourself multitasking, taking more than one thing at a time and doing it, you start to see that you are not very good at it. Humans are sequential beings. We take input, process that input, and make decisions based on that input. Computers used to be very much the same way. However, computers have recently come into the multiple input realm. They can do more than one thing and make decisions, all at the same time, well…for the most part. The problem here is not the hardware. The issue lies in the software that developers are making. If you are planning for the future, software developers are really making strides to make their applications use more processors. This means that the future will be grand for those that actually take this insight into account. But, if you need to buy for now then there is no need to get more than two processors. Also, please note that when I say “processors” I’m really talking about cores, processors, cpus, etc. Anything that can take data in and spit out decisions.

With all of this said, this is what I tend to look for when I make processor decisions. I look for new technology that has had a couple months to mature (if that can happen in a couple months). This ensures that there is some shakeout of issues with the processor, and that the people who are far more intelligent than I have had a chance to look at and review the processor. I also look to make sure it’s an acceptable price. I usually tend to spend more on the processor purely because of it’s importance on the rest of the system. I want to try to eliminate it as a bottle-neck for speed since the rest of the build is dependent on it.

Hopefully this helps you out the next time you go to the store or look online and start taking a look at processors. Let me know what you think. Enjoy.

Computer Series: Preface

Well, those of you who saw my poll on Twitter, and through social networking application connections Plaxo and Facebook, you know that I have been considering writing a few tutorials on computer parts. This being the case, I want to make clear what I will and will not be talking about. Also, keep in mind that I’ve been working with computers for a long time so I have some idea of what I’m doing.

The plan is to give you all some idea of what to look for when you are considering purchasing hardware. Quite often I get the phone call from friends and family with a question about which Dell model they should get, or that they are at BestBuy or The Apple Store and need help picking something. What people generally don’t do is research something before buying it. It tends to be impulse, thus the phone calls. Why do you guys care? Research honestly can take as little as an hour of your time and you’ll be able to go to BestBuy and tell the salesperson to stick it because you know what you’re into! It’s fun, I’ve done it before. ;D

What I will not be doing here is suggesting any specific hardware. I recently made the decision to build a new computer and so I have done some research into it for the current market. But, I want to help you be able to look at a Dell model and say, hmmm is that extra 100MHz really going to help me at $300 more…”taint likely!” as my favorite comedian Bob Marley says.

I always feel an awkwardness when I am making large purchases for things that I don’t know about. Like cars. You could ask me nearly anything about cars and all I can tell you is…”hey it runs”. I would love for someone to explain the point of all the parts, why it’s all necessary, how they work together, and why in the world you need to pay tons of money for it all. That’s what I aim to help solve for you when it comes to computers.

Well, with that preface, look for the posts to come. I’ve written portions of a couple already. I’ll finish them and post them.