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How to Build Your Own PC - Save A Buck And Learn A Lot  9  Chapter 1: Purchasing Components       9  Selecting a Mainboard

Selecting a Mainboard 1 Evaluating Mainboard Components and Features

With experience, you might come to like or dislike certain mainboard manufacturers. Maybe you love Abit, but you hate Asus. Or, maybe, it’s just the opposite. (I like both Abit and Asus boards). That’s fine. Go with a name brand you like.

However, when evaluating mainboards, I think it’s important to read some online reviews of the board and not rely totally upon past experience with the manufacturer. It’s easy to over-rate the value of experience. For example, maybe you had a bad experience with an Asus mainboard. That doesn’t mean that all Asus boards are bad. You might have just received one bad board. And, that could be the fault of someone other than Asus, as we discuss later.

You might also find that you prefer certain vendors. For example, maybe, you’ve purchased components from www.insightcomponents.com and were happy with them in the past, so you go to their website and search for boards that support the CPU you’ve chosen. Shopping online will give you a good chance to compare mainboards and their prices. Select a mainboard that looks good to you and is in the price range you desire.

You can go to google.com and search for that particular mainboard to see what others have written about it. Usually, you’ll read that it’s a pretty good mainboard. If you read something that turns you off, you can select another board and try again.

Selecting a Mainboard 1 Evaluating Mainboard Components and Features