Supermicro H8DA3-2 Dual AMD Opteron MotherBoard

Form Factor is the physical size and shape of your motherboard, and therefore defines what sorts of cases and power supplies it can use, and also defines its physical organization.

The chipset is the heart of the computer and is the hub for all data transfer. It determines how fast components like the processor, memory, keyboard and various plug-ins can function in relation to each other. Not all chipsets support all components that you may want with your computer. Before selecting a chipset, decide what features you want with your computer, and then check to see that the chipset supports them.

PCI replaced ISA as the standard bus type, and unlike ISA buses, enables dynamic configuration of a peripheral device. When a system is booted the PCI card's BIOS and the system BIOS interact and negotiate the resources that the PCI card needs. This enables the PCI bus to provide a detailed description of all the connected PCI. PCI-Express is a new version of the PCI computer bus that uses existing PCI programming and communications standards. Based on a much faster serial communications, it is being supported primarily by Intel\r\nThe higher speeds reached by PCI-Express will allow it to ultimately replace almost all existing internal buses, including AGP and PCI. PCI-X is an extension to the PCI interface developed by IBM, HP, and Compaq. The extension allows data to be transferred at increased rates (up to 1 GB per second using a 64-bit bus running at 133MHz). PCI-X peripherals are fully compatible with older PCI and vice-versa, but will not run faster than the chipset or peripheral allows. AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a single device to the computer's motherboard. Many classify AGP as a type of computer bus; even though AGP does not allow multiple devices to be connected. Some modern motherboards have multiple independent AGP slots built-in.

There are many different slots and sockets for CPUs, the slots correspond with processor types and with processor manufacturers. Newer sockets, those with a three digit number, are named after the number of pins they contain, where as older ones are named in the order of their invention or generation and usually contain a single digit. Sockets supporting Intel CPUs Socket 1 - 80486SX, 80486DX, 80486DX2, 80486DX4 Socket 2 - 80486SX, 80486DX, 80486DX2, 80486DX4 Socket 3 - 80486SX, 80486DX, 80486DX2, 80486DX4 Socket 4 and 5 - early Intel Pentium processors Socket 6 - 80486DX4 li>Socket 7 - Intel Pentium and Pentium MMX Socket 8 - Intel Pentium Pro Slot 1 - Intel Pentium II, older Pentium III, and Celeron processors (233 MHz - 1.13 GHz) Slot 2 - Intel Xeon processors based on Pentium II/III cores Socket 370 - newer Pentium III and Celeron processors (800 MHz - 1.4 GHz) Socket 423 - Pentium 4 and Celeron processors (based on the Willamette core) Socket 478 - Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors Socket 603/604 - Intel Xeon processors Socket 755 - Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron processors Sockets supporting AMD CPUs Socket 7 - AMD 80486, K5, and K6 processors SuperSocket7 - AMD K6, K6-2, and K6-3 processors Slot A - older AMD Athlon and Duron processors Socket 462 (or Socket A) - newer AMD Athlon, Athlon XP, and Duron processors Socket 754 - lower end AMD Athlon 64 with single-channel memory support Socket 939 - AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Athlon FX with dual-channel memory support Socket 940 - AMD Opteron and early AMD Athlon FX processors

One of the most essential components that is plugged in to your motherboard is your system's main memory. There are essentially three types of memory (or "RAM") that you will find for your motherboard: DDR / SDRAM, RDRAM, and SDRAM. DDR Double-Data Rate RAM essentially doubles the rate of standard SDRAM. Any DDR RAM will be quicker (and probably more expensive) than its non-DDR counterpart. RDRAM RDRAM basically doubles the output of SDRAM and also moves the data quicker. This is a high-end variant of RAM. SDRAM This is a high performance, faster variant of some other types of RAM. The S stands for "synchronous" because it uses a new technology to send spurts of data at specific intervals of time.