The Anatomy of a Server - The Motherboard
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The motherboard (also referred to as a main board or system board) contains the computer ’s core circuitry and components. On the typical motherboard, identification and configuration information is silk-screened on the planar surface. The embedded circuitry is on a chip or permanently soldered onto a board. The most common motherboard design for computers is the ATX, based on the original IBM AT motherboard. The components you’d find on both designs include the following:
Figure 6 shows the full-ATX motherboard on the left and the micro-ATX motherboard on the right. The smaller size of the micro-ATX means less expansion slots and limited expandability. These two boards may appear to have the same processor slot (upper left with the extension brackets), but they are different. The motherboard on the left is the AMD “Slot A” and the motherboard on the right is the Intel “Slot 1.”
Figure 6 A full-ATX motherboard (left) and a micro-ATX motherboard (right)
Figure 7 displays three flavors of the ATX motherboard, which can include onboard video and audio (top); or with onboard audio, but video dedicated to an expansion card (middle); or little onboard functionality, leaving the other necessary components for the expansion slots (bottom).
Figure7 Three types of ATX motherboards
 This chapter is from Build Your Own Server, by Tony Caputo (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003, ISBN: 0072227281). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today.
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