This article starts with a descritption of what a mother boards is first...kind of a definition and summary. And then I describe what a review should contain and how they should be written so that you can get a better grasp of what motherboard is right for you.

If you are looking for motherboard reviews, be careful. Many are biased or written by the manufacturer and not by an unbiased professional.

This motherboard reviews site may have what you are looking for if you are looking for the low down on motherboards.

But before starting with the main information about motherboard reviews lets say a few words about the motherboard itself...

The motherboard contains the computer's basic circuitry and components. On the typical motherboard, the circuitry is imprinted or affixed to the surface of a firm planar surface and usually manufactured in a single step.

Copper circuit paths called traces that resemble a complicated roadmap carry signals and voltages across the motherboard.

Layered fabrication techniques are used so that some layers of a board can carry data for the BIOS, processor, and memory buses. Other layers carry voltage and ground returns without the paths short-circuiting at intersections.

The insulated layers are manufactured into one complete, complex sandwich. Chips and sockets are soldered onto the motherboard. The most common motherboard design in desktop computers today is the AT, based on the IBM AT motherboard.

A more recent motherboard specification, ATX, improves on the AT design. And of course, there are some computer components, which are included in almost every motherboard. These are the microprocessor, coprocessors, memory, basic input/output system (BIOS), expansion slot, and interconnecting circuitry.

Of course, there are a lot of additional components, which can be added to your motherboard through its expansion slot.

If you want to add a floppy disk drive or a parallel port or a joystick you buy a separate card and plug it into one of the slots. This approach was pioneered in the mass market by the Apple II machine. By making it easy to add cards, Apple and IBM accomplished two huge things: They made it easy to add new features to the machine over time. And they opened the computer to creative opportunities for third-party vendors.

(And another thing which is important is that the electronic interface between the motherboard and the smaller boards or cards in the expansion slots is called the bus.)

The BIOS is the setup program on the computer where the basic hardware is configured to allow the computer to run. If this information is not setup correctly your computer will give you an error and may not boot. You can have access to this program at bootup time, usually with the DEL, F1, or F2 keys.

As you know, different motherboards of different vintages typically have different ,form factors.

The form factor is essentially the size, shape and design of the actual motherboard. There are more than a half-dozen form factors for motherboards. And so, you see that you have to look up a lot of information before even thinking of buying a motherboard.

What can you find in one well organized motherboard review? If you want, you can have a look at a casual motherboard review.

First of all, motherboard reviews should have a short description of the manufacturer and the product or their brief history. A kind of introduction to the main part of the review. Then comes the real review on the features of the motherboard.

The specifications that should always be mentioned are: Board version, BIOS version, Default Clock Speed (which is measured in MHz), North Bridge, South Bridge, the number of PCI slots, the Memory type, the number of memory slots, the maximum memory (which is measured in GB), the Active Cooling Chipset, the adjustable memory voltage, the Auto speed-down/shutdown on fan failure, the Auto speed-down/shutdown on heat alarm, the On-board Sound, and the On-board LAN.

Every feature included in the review should have a short description and summary in which the author expresses his opinion about the product.

Sometimes a review can be can be overestimated. That is why, a good thing you can do is to check a few posts in the forums connected with the motherboard you like.

The people there are well grounded in this matter.

Have a look at the links below for more information...