Taking Apart a System: A Detailed Guide to Motherboards

Good timing because I've just taken apart a system last night and I removed one of these SATA SSDs, it has a SATA connection on it. If you want to plug this into your computer, you do need to use these SATA ports down here. It's not quite so relevant anymore but again on higher end systems, you guessed it - you usually get more ports.

As for the rest of it, this is where things do start to get a little bit on the small side. We'll start at the top, this is where you have a lot of your fan connections, so for your CPU fan and any case fans that you're using, you also have these little RGB headers as well - some of them have four pins, some of them have three depending on whether it's old school or newer addressable RGB. Then moving down, you have all of your USB connections. This very large one is USB 3.0, then below it you have USB Type-C that you need a pretty modern case to actually be able to use here.

You have all of your front panel connections so you've got your power switch, reset, and any LEDs there's sometimes a little speaker bracket as well. These are really easy to get mixed up, so this is where the motherboard manual comes in handy - you'll know exactly which ones to plug in. Moving to the left here, you have your USB 2.0 ports - a feature I absolutely love is this error code readout display and this tells you exactly what's wrong with your PC if it's not working properly.

Which is really useful. If it's the RAM, it's graphics - going for a more entry-level board then it will still tell you what's wrong but it's a bit more limited to the left of that you then have HD audio and this goes again to the front panel - this is what allows you to actually hear anything when you plug your headphones into your case.

And then better boards will actually have a proper audio chip on board, shouldn't pick up any static and will give you a better quality audio solution assuming you are using an analog headset or analog pair of headphones. Almost forgot - and it's really important - one last thing to bear in mind is that if your PC doesn't boot - it really will help to clear the CMOS sometimes you'll get a button on the back other times you won't. It's like with this motherboard you have to jump two pins when the PC is completely off disconnected from power.

You then wait about five seconds and then when you turn your PC back on it actually resets the BIOS to the factory settings - so if you've got issues with an overclock or maybe your RAMs being a bit funny, then that will usually fix it. That really was pretty in-depth, now wasn't it? That's pretty much everything that a PC gamer needs to know about their motherboard and a whole lot more.

And I said at the start this video - or midway that I would tell you which sort of motherboard is gonna be best for you - obviously that answer is gonna depend on what you want to do with it. Because if I was buying a motherboard tomorrow for my personal PC, I'd probably look at something quite high-end, probably like an ASUS ROG Hero or a MSI Strix something like that. Because I love having all of the extra features and ultimately I do use them.

I expand my PC - I've got loads of Gen 4 SSDs and all of these things it would be really useful for me but not everyone needs all of those features if you're just building a budget gaming PC, then something like one of these Prime boards while they're not gonna have all of the features out there, they are gonna work and give you great performance at being a gaming PC.

The way I see it is that a gaming PC is all about gaming performance and maximizing that whilst buying a high quality compatible motherboard should be your absolute top priority. The most common issues that I have when building gaming PCs with slightly cheaper motherboards is that maybe you're using a case with USB-C but then it doesn't actually have the USB-C header on it - if you want to use Wi-Fi like I do for all of my PCs, that's extra money and ultimately extra mess that you didn't really need to have in the first place.

Exactly the same thing with the audio chip - the number of USB ports - overclocking capabilities etc... work out exactly what you actually need from a motherboard and then buy something that is appropriate. If you want to learn more about any of the motherboards that were featured in this video and see if they'll fit into your rig, then you can find them linked down below with my Amazon affiliate links.

But thank you so much for watching - let me know what you use and what you'd buy in the comment section below. Smash that like button get subscribed and I'll see you in the next one.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat actually is a motherboard and how much did you spend on one we're gonna walk you through everything that you need to know about them and make it easy to understand amd versus intel itx versus atx and budget versus high-end a massive thank you to asus for sponsoring this video let's get started buying a gaming pc doesn't actually have to cost a ton of money but a lot of people end up buying completely the wrong motherboard for their needs which of course ends up biting them in the bum this actually happened to me with my first ever motherboard i mean not literally my uh behind is definitely still intact but i ended up getting just completely the wrong thing it was a previous generation just because i didn't really understand what i needed the first step is to decide between an amd or an intel processor as different chips need different boards rather confusingly not all amd boards will work with all amd chips even if they both say they're ryzen compatible older motherboards sometimes can be updated to support the newer cpus but only if they are officially compatible the best way to check this is just to go onto the amd or the intel websites and then you can find out exactly what type of board you need for your processor of choice if you do need a little bit of help actually choosing a gaming cpu then don't worry because i've actually made a video that goes into this in great depth and actually shows you the differences in real world gameplay and you can find that video in the top right corner of your screen contrary to the olden days motherboards don't usually result in better or worse frames per second in games however they can certainly facilitate better performance we'll explain precisely why throughout this video but generally speaking boards are actually built to a spec defined by intel or amd so they all need to meet this minimum spec to actually work with the processors and this is why unless you're overclocking you're not usually going to get any extra performance because they all need to work with the cpus at that level so unless you're actually going to go into the bios and change some of the settings maybe remove the power draw limits maybe you're going to overclock the cpu or the ram you're not really going to see any differences in performance this is what often gets a little bit lost in the marketing because there are so many different variables at play with frames per second and ultimately the easiest way to boost them is to buy a better cpu or a faster graphics card but at the end of the day it all comes down to context an intel i9 11900k is likely gonna work best with a high-end motherboard but if you're gaming on a budget then something more entry level is clearly going to get you better value for money brands will typically separate their motherboards into different ranges to help you understand their feature set who they're aimed for and ultimately what they're capable of achieving asus for instance have four main ranges you've got your primes you've got your tuffs you've got your rogs your republic of gamers and your pros but i don't have one of those here sorry prime boards are absolutely brilliant for anyone on a budget as they offer the best value and they give you all of the features that you need to have a great experience tough meanwhile it's all about giving you a really high quality board but with some extra features that a gamer can really appreciate like more usb ports and larger heatsinks rog or republic of gamer boards are for those that pretty much want everything the highest quality components for crazy overclocking super stable memory and masses of ports both inside and out asus's pro boards are still fabulous for gaming but their goal is to bring extra features to the table like 10 gig networking thunderbolts and loads of other features that working professionals will love i'm sure everyone would love to have the most decked out motherboard out there but realistically for most of us it's not strictly necessary the real art to buying a motherboard is to actually know what features you need or what ones you're going to use maybe in the future and then just buy something appropriate i commonly see people overspending on their motherboards but then getting a cheaper processor or graphics card to compensate and ultimately this ends up lowering your gaming performance you need to work out what motherboard you need and then buy something that's appropriate without going overboard aren't you glad i left that in don't worry i will tell you exactly what level of motherboard is best at the end of this video but first you need to understand exactly what a chipset is well put simply the chipset acts as the platform for your entire pc to rest on and this is what allows all of your pc components to actually communicate and work with each other every motherboard has a chipset and the most common ones are b550 and x570 on amd and then b560 and z590 on intel the newer ones are just around the corner each chipset will work with specific processors only and it outlines exactly what features your motherboard has the flagship z and x chipsets have the best consumer features that intel and amd can offer whilst b series chipsets offer a little bit less but also cost less intel only supports cpu overclocking on z and x series chipsets but it is worth noting that not all cpus can actually be overclocked anyway there are also high-end desktop processors so you've got things like ryzen threadripper an intel x series and you need a completely different motherboard for this but these are more aimed at prosumers for people that actually need a lot of cause and do a lot of things other than gaming but again you could use this platform for gaming if you wanted it's just not really aimed at you i'd say that for most gamers b series chipsets are probably going to be all you need but there are loads of reasons why you might want more devices in your pc or of course complete overclocking capabilities now size matters in the game and if you want a smaller pc you guessed it something like this is not going to fit unless you chop it up but then it won't work for gaming pcs there are four main sizes of motherboards the most common is atx this is your standard full size motherboards and most cases will support this you get the largest amount of pcie slots which are really useful for add-in cards things like wi-fi or graphics and they usually have four ram slots which will maximize the amount of ram that you can install there is a size above this e80x it is a little bit rare these days but if you're spending the big bucks and getting the most feature packed motherboards then you're likely to end up with one the same height as atx but it is a fair bit wider moving down in scope we then have micro acx this is a smaller board in height which essentially just strips out some of those pcie slots with the main benefits being a cheaper price but also the ability to use a smaller chassis finally we then have mini itx and this is definitely a little bit of a trade-off the benefit is all about the size as now we have a comparatively tiny board still action-packed with features but now just the single pcie slots and support for just two sticks of ram it's probably not going to be an issue for most after all the performance should be unchanged but you get the awesome ability to create a portable perfect for the desk gaming pc motherboards will come in this anti-static very loud bag and then your motherboard will look something along the lines of this so again this is a full size atx motherboard and there are a few different things to point out the most obvious things are these the ports or the i o located at the back of the system obviously this is going to vary depending on the exact motherboard that you go for something high-end will usually have a lot more something cheaper will have less if you do need wi-fi make sure your motherboard does actually support this because especially at the budget ends not all of them do the socket itself will have a little lever that opens up this is when you drop that cpu in and then you close it up there usually be a little arrow on the motherboard to tell you which way your cpu actually needs to go in your ram will go in these slots over here you usually buy two sticks and run them in dual channel operations so you use slots 2 and slots 4. these are called your pcie slots you have 4 size ones and then slightly smaller ones depending on how many lanes they use your graphics card pretty much always goes in this one here at the top you also have dedicated bays for your m.2 ssds or your pcie ssds these go here at the top or on this motherboard you've got another one down here at the bottom again this number will depend on the exact motherboard that you go for and higher end motherboards do actually have these thermal heatsinks that can help your pci ssd from thermal throttling all of these ssds and add-in cards talk to each other via pcie express lanes this is one of the big differences between high and low in chipsets as you get more lanes that allow for more connections not all lanes are equal though as faster gen 4 and soon to be gen 5 pci express lanes support even faster data rates that not only mean faster graphics cards and ssds are supported but also more internal headers and ports on the rear i o the chipset itself is a real physical thing and it's usually located here underneath this thermal heatsink and you'll notice that there are other heatsinks on this motherboard as well most notably up here we've got quite a big heat sink why do we need this well this is where the vrms or the voltage regulation modules are actually located because your cpu needs power and it needs to be very consistent and the higher quality the motherboard the better power delivery you're going to get and in theory the better overclocking you're going to get so we've got two rows of vrms here but they're next to them and scattered throughout this motherboard actually you'll find a load of these things these are called capacitors and you don't really need to worry about them too much but higher quality motherboards use higher quality capacitors and their job is to essentially avoid any voltage spikes they absorb energy that would otherwise go into your components and could cause damage of course in order for your motherboard to actually work you're going to need to connect this to a power supply your cpu is powered from the top left with these cpu connections then for the rest of the motherboard you have this 24 pin atx connection and this will send power as i say to the rest of your motherboard this is actually good timing because i've just taken apart a system last night and i removed one of these a sata ssd it has a sata connection on it if you want to plug this into your computer you do need to use these sata ports down here it's not quite so relevant anymore but again on higher end systems you guessed it you usually get more ports as for the rest of it this is where things do start to get a little bit on the small side we'll start at the top this is where you have a lot of your fan connections so for your cpu fan and any case fans that you're using you also have these little rgb headers as well some of them have four pins some of them have three depending on whether it's old school or newer addressable rgb then moving down you have all of your usb connections this very large one is usb 3. then below it you have usb type-c that you need a pretty modern case to actually be able to use here you have all of your front panel connections so you've got your power switch reset and any leds there's sometimes a little speaker bracket here as well these are really easy to get mixed up so this is where the motherboard manual comes in handy as you'll know exactly which ones to plug in moving to the left here you have your usb 2.0 ports a feature i absolutely love is this an error code readout display and this tells you exactly what's wrong with your pc if it's not working properly which is really useful is it the ram is it graphics if you go for a more entry level board then it will still tell you what's wrong but it's a bit more limited to the left of that you then have hd audio and this goes again to the front panel this is what allows you to actually hear anything when you plug your headphones into your case and then better boards will actually have a proper audio chip on board shouldn't pick up any static and will give you a better quality audio solution assuming you are using an analog headset or analog pair of headphones almost forgot and it is important one last thing to bear in mind is that if your pc doesn't boot it really will help to clear the cmos sometimes you'll get a button on the back other times you won't it's like with this motherboard you have to jump two pins when the pc is completely off disconnected from power you then wait about five seconds and then when you turn your pc back on it actually resets the bios to the factory settings so if you've got issues with an overclock or maybe your rams being a bit funny then that will usually fix it right that really was pretty in-depth now wasn't it that is pretty much everything that a pc gamer needs to know about their motherboard and a whole lot more and i said at the start this video or midway that i would tell you which sort of motherboard is gonna be best for you obviously that answer is gonna depend on what you want to do with it because if i was buying a motherboard tomorrow for my personal pc i'd probably look at something quite high-end probably like an rg hero or a strix something like that because i love having all of the extra features and ultimately i do use them i expand my pc i've got loads of gen 4 ssds and all of these things it would be really useful for me but not everyone needs all of those features if you're just building a budget gaming pc then something i've only just noticed it was upside down then something like one of these prime boards while they're not gonna have all of the features out there they are gonna work and give you great performance at being a gaming pc the way i see it is that a gaming pc is all about gaming performance and maximizing that whilst buying a high quality compatible motherboard should be your absolute top priority the most common issues that i have when building gaming pcs with slightly cheaper motherboards is that maybe you're using a case with usbc but then it doesn't actually have the usbc header on it if you want to use wi-fi like i do for all of my pcs that i build here if you've got to go out and buy an add-in card then that's extra money and ultimately extra mess that you didn't really need to have in the first place exactly the same thing with the audio chip the number of usb ports overclocking capabilities etc etc work out exactly what you actually need from a motherboard and then buy something that is appropriate if you want to learn more about any of the motherboards that were featured in this video and see if we'll fit into your rig then you can find them linked down below with my amazon affiliate links but thank you so much for watching let me know what you use and what you'd buy in the comment section below smash that like button get subscribed and i'll see you in the next one youwhat actually is a motherboard and how much did you spend on one we're gonna walk you through everything that you need to know about them and make it easy to understand amd versus intel itx versus atx and budget versus high-end a massive thank you to asus for sponsoring this video let's get started buying a gaming pc doesn't actually have to cost a ton of money but a lot of people end up buying completely the wrong motherboard for their needs which of course ends up biting them in the bum this actually happened to me with my first ever motherboard i mean not literally my uh behind is definitely still intact but i ended up getting just completely the wrong thing it was a previous generation just because i didn't really understand what i needed the first step is to decide between an amd or an intel processor as different chips need different boards rather confusingly not all amd boards will work with all amd chips even if they both say they're ryzen compatible older motherboards sometimes can be updated to support the newer cpus but only if they are officially compatible the best way to check this is just to go onto the amd or the intel websites and then you can find out exactly what type of board you need for your processor of choice if you do need a little bit of help actually choosing a gaming cpu then don't worry because i've actually made a video that goes into this in great depth and actually shows you the differences in real world gameplay and you can find that video in the top right corner of your screen contrary to the olden days motherboards don't usually result in better or worse frames per second in games however they can certainly facilitate better performance we'll explain precisely why throughout this video but generally speaking boards are actually built to a spec defined by intel or amd so they all need to meet this minimum spec to actually work with the processors and this is why unless you're overclocking you're not usually going to get any extra performance because they all need to work with the cpus at that level so unless you're actually going to go into the bios and change some of the settings maybe remove the power draw limits maybe you're going to overclock the cpu or the ram you're not really going to see any differences in performance this is what often gets a little bit lost in the marketing because there are so many different variables at play with frames per second and ultimately the easiest way to boost them is to buy a better cpu or a faster graphics card but at the end of the day it all comes down to context an intel i9 11900k is likely gonna work best with a high-end motherboard but if you're gaming on a budget then something more entry level is clearly going to get you better value for money brands will typically separate their motherboards into different ranges to help you understand their feature set who they're aimed for and ultimately what they're capable of achieving asus for instance have four main ranges you've got your primes you've got your tuffs you've got your rogs your republic of gamers and your pros but i don't have one of those here sorry prime boards are absolutely brilliant for anyone on a budget as they offer the best value and they give you all of the features that you need to have a great experience tough meanwhile it's all about giving you a really high quality board but with some extra features that a gamer can really appreciate like more usb ports and larger heatsinks rog or republic of gamer boards are for those that pretty much want everything the highest quality components for crazy overclocking super stable memory and masses of ports both inside and out asus's pro boards are still fabulous for gaming but their goal is to bring extra features to the table like 10 gig networking thunderbolts and loads of other features that working professionals will love i'm sure everyone would love to have the most decked out motherboard out there but realistically for most of us it's not strictly necessary the real art to buying a motherboard is to actually know what features you need or what ones you're going to use maybe in the future and then just buy something appropriate i commonly see people overspending on their motherboards but then getting a cheaper processor or graphics card to compensate and ultimately this ends up lowering your gaming performance you need to work out what motherboard you need and then buy something that's appropriate without going overboard aren't you glad i left that in don't worry i will tell you exactly what level of motherboard is best at the end of this video but first you need to understand exactly what a chipset is well put simply the chipset acts as the platform for your entire pc to rest on and this is what allows all of your pc components to actually communicate and work with each other every motherboard has a chipset and the most common ones are b550 and x570 on amd and then b560 and z590 on intel the newer ones are just around the corner each chipset will work with specific processors only and it outlines exactly what features your motherboard has the flagship z and x chipsets have the best consumer features that intel and amd can offer whilst b series chipsets offer a little bit less but also cost less intel only supports cpu overclocking on z and x series chipsets but it is worth noting that not all cpus can actually be overclocked anyway there are also high-end desktop processors so you've got things like ryzen threadripper an intel x series and you need a completely different motherboard for this but these are more aimed at prosumers for people that actually need a lot of cause and do a lot of things other than gaming but again you could use this platform for gaming if you wanted it's just not really aimed at you i'd say that for most gamers b series chipsets are probably going to be all you need but there are loads of reasons why you might want more devices in your pc or of course complete overclocking capabilities now size matters in the game and if you want a smaller pc you guessed it something like this is not going to fit unless you chop it up but then it won't work for gaming pcs there are four main sizes of motherboards the most common is atx this is your standard full size motherboards and most cases will support this you get the largest amount of pcie slots which are really useful for add-in cards things like wi-fi or graphics and they usually have four ram slots which will maximize the amount of ram that you can install there is a size above this e80x it is a little bit rare these days but if you're spending the big bucks and getting the most feature packed motherboards then you're likely to end up with one the same height as atx but it is a fair bit wider moving down in scope we then have micro acx this is a smaller board in height which essentially just strips out some of those pcie slots with the main benefits being a cheaper price but also the ability to use a smaller chassis finally we then have mini itx and this is definitely a little bit of a trade-off the benefit is all about the size as now we have a comparatively tiny board still action-packed with features but now just the single pcie slots and support for just two sticks of ram it's probably not going to be an issue for most after all the performance should be unchanged but you get the awesome ability to create a portable perfect for the desk gaming pc motherboards will come in this anti-static very loud bag and then your motherboard will look something along the lines of this so again this is a full size atx motherboard and there are a few different things to point out the most obvious things are these the ports or the i o located at the back of the system obviously this is going to vary depending on the exact motherboard that you go for something high-end will usually have a lot more something cheaper will have less if you do need wi-fi make sure your motherboard does actually support this because especially at the budget ends not all of them do the socket itself will have a little lever that opens up this is when you drop that cpu in and then you close it up there usually be a little arrow on the motherboard to tell you which way your cpu actually needs to go in your ram will go in these slots over here you usually buy two sticks and run them in dual channel operations so you use slots 2 and slots 4. these are called your pcie slots you have 4 size ones and then slightly smaller ones depending on how many lanes they use your graphics card pretty much always goes in this one here at the top you also have dedicated bays for your m.2 ssds or your pcie ssds these go here at the top or on this motherboard you've got another one down here at the bottom again this number will depend on the exact motherboard that you go for and higher end motherboards do actually have these thermal heatsinks that can help your pci ssd from thermal throttling all of these ssds and add-in cards talk to each other via pcie express lanes this is one of the big differences between high and low in chipsets as you get more lanes that allow for more connections not all lanes are equal though as faster gen 4 and soon to be gen 5 pci express lanes support even faster data rates that not only mean faster graphics cards and ssds are supported but also more internal headers and ports on the rear i o the chipset itself is a real physical thing and it's usually located here underneath this thermal heatsink and you'll notice that there are other heatsinks on this motherboard as well most notably up here we've got quite a big heat sink why do we need this well this is where the vrms or the voltage regulation modules are actually located because your cpu needs power and it needs to be very consistent and the higher quality the motherboard the better power delivery you're going to get and in theory the better overclocking you're going to get so we've got two rows of vrms here but they're next to them and scattered throughout this motherboard actually you'll find a load of these things these are called capacitors and you don't really need to worry about them too much but higher quality motherboards use higher quality capacitors and their job is to essentially avoid any voltage spikes they absorb energy that would otherwise go into your components and could cause damage of course in order for your motherboard to actually work you're going to need to connect this to a power supply your cpu is powered from the top left with these cpu connections then for the rest of the motherboard you have this 24 pin atx connection and this will send power as i say to the rest of your motherboard this is actually good timing because i've just taken apart a system last night and i removed one of these a sata ssd it has a sata connection on it if you want to plug this into your computer you do need to use these sata ports down here it's not quite so relevant anymore but again on higher end systems you guessed it you usually get more ports as for the rest of it this is where things do start to get a little bit on the small side we'll start at the top this is where you have a lot of your fan connections so for your cpu fan and any case fans that you're using you also have these little rgb headers as well some of them have four pins some of them have three depending on whether it's old school or newer addressable rgb then moving down you have all of your usb connections this very large one is usb 3. then below it you have usb type-c that you need a pretty modern case to actually be able to use here you have all of your front panel connections so you've got your power switch reset and any leds there's sometimes a little speaker bracket here as well these are really easy to get mixed up so this is where the motherboard manual comes in handy as you'll know exactly which ones to plug in moving to the left here you have your usb 2.0 ports a feature i absolutely love is this an error code readout display and this tells you exactly what's wrong with your pc if it's not working properly which is really useful is it the ram is it graphics if you go for a more entry level board then it will still tell you what's wrong but it's a bit more limited to the left of that you then have hd audio and this goes again to the front panel this is what allows you to actually hear anything when you plug your headphones into your case and then better boards will actually have a proper audio chip on board shouldn't pick up any static and will give you a better quality audio solution assuming you are using an analog headset or analog pair of headphones almost forgot and it is important one last thing to bear in mind is that if your pc doesn't boot it really will help to clear the cmos sometimes you'll get a button on the back other times you won't it's like with this motherboard you have to jump two pins when the pc is completely off disconnected from power you then wait about five seconds and then when you turn your pc back on it actually resets the bios to the factory settings so if you've got issues with an overclock or maybe your rams being a bit funny then that will usually fix it right that really was pretty in-depth now wasn't it that is pretty much everything that a pc gamer needs to know about their motherboard and a whole lot more and i said at the start this video or midway that i would tell you which sort of motherboard is gonna be best for you obviously that answer is gonna depend on what you want to do with it because if i was buying a motherboard tomorrow for my personal pc i'd probably look at something quite high-end probably like an rg hero or a strix something like that because i love having all of the extra features and ultimately i do use them i expand my pc i've got loads of gen 4 ssds and all of these things it would be really useful for me but not everyone needs all of those features if you're just building a budget gaming pc then something i've only just noticed it was upside down then something like one of these prime boards while they're not gonna have all of the features out there they are gonna work and give you great performance at being a gaming pc the way i see it is that a gaming pc is all about gaming performance and maximizing that whilst buying a high quality compatible motherboard should be your absolute top priority the most common issues that i have when building gaming pcs with slightly cheaper motherboards is that maybe you're using a case with usbc but then it doesn't actually have the usbc header on it if you want to use wi-fi like i do for all of my pcs that i build here if you've got to go out and buy an add-in card then that's extra money and ultimately extra mess that you didn't really need to have in the first place exactly the same thing with the audio chip the number of usb ports overclocking capabilities etc etc work out exactly what you actually need from a motherboard and then buy something that is appropriate if you want to learn more about any of the motherboards that were featured in this video and see if we'll fit into your rig then you can find them linked down below with my amazon affiliate links but thank you so much for watching let me know what you use and what you'd buy in the comment section below smash that like button get subscribed and i'll see you in the next one you\n"