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Also known as the mainboard or logic board, this is the main circuit board of your computer. If you ever open your computer up, the biggest piece of silicon you see is the motherboard. This is where you'll find the CPU, the ROM, memory expansion slots, PCI slots, serial ports, USB ports, and all the controllers for things like the hard drive, DVD drive, keyboard, and mouse. Basically, the motherboard is what makes everything in your computer work together.
Each motherboard has a collection of chips and controllers that is known as the "chipset". When new motherboards are developed, they often use new chipsets. The good news is that these boards are typically more efficient and faster than their predecessors. The bad news is that you may not be able to add certain memory and CPU upgrades to older motherboards. Of course, that's typical of the computer industry. |
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