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1.
Choosing the make |
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Other parts being the same, PCs with
certain motherboards are faster than PCs with other motherboards
(m/boards or mobos). This page won't attempt to tell you which is
the fastest motherboard, as that changes all the time. What we
will do is give you access to where you can find that information.
Fortunately,
as with hard disks, you can get a lot of information on mobos from
the web. Visit our links to manufacturer's
sites and also the various mobo review
sites. Not all review sites on the web have the same respect and
credibility as off-line magazines like Computer Shopper. So don't
believe all that you read at mobo manufacturers' sites and review
sites. It's worth visiting the technical forums
to see what complaints existing users have about the models they
bought.
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2.
Choosing the features |
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Elsewhere on this site we've explained
the importance of having IDE controllers that support the speed of
the hard disk. As controllers tend to be built into mobos check
the small print on the mobo to see what type of controller it has.
Does it support only UDMA 33/66? Does it not support the latest
RAM? What about USB, IEEE1394 and other fast externals?
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3.
Vital parts |
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The chipset is the vital part of the
mobo. What
seems the best in the current press may not be the latest and
fastest. When everybody was raving about the Intel BX chipset we
were using VIA chipset mobos and trouncing the competition in
performance.
It's
always tricky finding a mobo from a reputable manufacturer that
has the right chipset & all the other features you want. We
spend roughly about 300 hours researching a mobo before we start
using it in our PCs.
Use
the web. Use popular search engines. Use the technical websites.
You don't need to spend the same amount of time as we do, but
whatever you do spend will be well invested.
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4.
It's the BIOS, it's the BIOS, it's the BIOS stupid |
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As we've
said before there's no substitute for understanding your BIOS.
Mobo manufacturer's tend to provide some BIOS info on their
websites. There's a lot of other BIOS info you can get at reputed
technical sites like Earthweb and motherboards.org.
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5.
Overclocking |
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You will find a lot of information on
overclocking your mobo, processor, RAM and graphics card.
Surprisingly even mobo manuals tend to have information on
overclocking. While you can achieve some ridiculously high scores
with overclocking do remember that overclocking a part invalidates
your warranty for that part. In fact, when you buy a PC from us,
overclocking ANY part may invalidate your warranty for the entire PC.
We
do not cover overclocking in this Guide to Performance for two
reasons. The first is that we do not overclock any part of any PC
we sell. The second is that when PCs are reviewed by magazines,
and when benchmark tests are run on PCs, overclocking is
considered cheating.
There's
so much you can do to increase your PC's performance without
overclocking it, as we've explained in this guide. So our
recommendation is to avoid overclocking.
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6.
Use the latest BIOS and drivers |
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Your mobo would have come
with a CD. Always ensure that you install the IDE, AGP miniport
and other drivers off the mobo CD before you install any
other drivers or software in Windows. Better still, get the latest
drivers from the motherboard manufacturer's website. And while there get a BIOS flash utility
and the latest version of the BIOS for that motherboard.
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Next:
Getting the best performance out of graphics cards
>>
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Standard
Disclaimer
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Your PC is
your responsibility. All
information provided here, including links, is provided without
liability. Our standard recommendation is to never do anything on
your computer unless you have a qualified engineer present. (That
way you sue him and not us).
*
Names are marks/trademarks/registered trademarks of other
companies. We do not claim proprietary interest in names that do not
belong to us.
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