Computer Hardware

The nearly everyone important component in a PC system is the main board or motherboard. Some companies refer to the motherboard as a system board or planar. Several common form factors are used for PC motherboards. The form factor refers to the physical dimensions and size of the board and dictates what type of case the board will fit into. Some are true standards (meaning that all boards with that form factor are interchangeable), whereas others are not standardized a passable amount to allow for true interchangeability. Regrettably, these substandard form factors disqualify any easy upgrade, which generally means they should be avoided. Motherboards have evolved over the years from the original Baby-AT form factor boards used in the original IBM PC and XT to the current ATX and NLX boards used in most full-size desktop and tower systems. ATX has a number of variants, including Micro-ATX (which is a smaller version of the ATX form factor used in the smaller systems) and Flex-ATX (an even smaller description for the lowest-cost home PCs). NLX is designed for corporate desktop-type systems; WTX was designed for workstations and medium-duty servers, but not at all became admired.