A motherboard connects all your computer components together.

Smaller ITX motherboards are good for computers that are small and portable but have limited expansion capabilities.

MicroATX motherboards have additional PCIE slots and can take an m.2 drive and several SATA drives. They usually have two RAM slots and a single GPU slot.

Full ATX motherboards are larger and can accomodate 2 m.2 drives and 4 memory slots. They have additional space for extra PCIE cards or a second GPU.

Basic motherboards are have a standard Network card and sound card. More expensive models have 2.5 Gb networking and better sound.

Intel Core motherboards can typically support 64 Gb if they have 2 slots and 128 Gb if they have 4 slots (bear in mind that 32 GB RAM is much cheaper than individual 64 Gb RAM).

Should you require more RAM, ACL Threadripper Workstations can accomodate up to 1 Tb of system RAM.

More expensive motherboards have better chipsets which allow faster communication between your computer's components.

In addition, they have better passive cooling and will generally last for many years. Basic motherboards found in many value oriented mass produced PCs have poor quality cooling and compoents.

Look for quality Solid Capacitors for all components except the sound card. They will give many years of solid performance.

Some high end motherboards have small active cooling fans, these are best avoided as the fans typically begin to fail within a 3 year timeframe.

When building any ACL PC we consider the motherboard and ensure that good cable management is used. This ensures that cooling air is able to move around the motherboard components.

Call in or email us with your requirements. We'll make sure that you get a good reliable motherboard.