What is a Motherboard?
A motherboard (sometimes called a MoBo) is the most important internal physical component (hardware) of a typical computer. Be it a desktop PC, laptop, or a smartphone, all computers have a motherboard in them. In this motherboard, other physical components are installed, such as the CPU, the RAM, the hard disk drives, the SSDs, the GPU, etc. It's also in this motherboard that you plug most of your cables, such as the Ethernet cable, the keyboard cable, the mouse cable, the USB cables, etc.
What is the Function of a Motherboard?
The motherboard is the medium through which all electronic components of your computer communicate with each other. Because the CPU is physically installed in one place and the RAM is physically installed in another place, in order for the CPU to talk to the RAM, and vice-versa, there must be a path between the two of them. This path is carved into the motherboard.
So the motherboard is a bunch of paths where data goes through. It's a bunch of electronic circuits where electronic signals go through. If data was cars, the motherboard would be a city full of streets.
The motherboard is also responsible for powering some components in your computer. More specifically, in an electronic computer, electricity is the data, as bits are measurements of voltage, so the electric power that comes from your PSU goes to your motherboard before it reaches your CPU and RAM. Some components may need more electricity than a motherboard can handle inside of it, which is why power-hungry GPUs, for example, need to be connected to the PSU directly.
Traditionally, these were the only functions of the motherboard, but nowadays, the motherboard also comes with a few components built into them: such as the sound card and the Ethernet card of the computer.
These are like GPUs—they could be installed separately—but as they don't require much power, and every personal computer needs them, they're just build into the motherboard, so you don't need to plug anything to have them.
About Motherboard Compatibility
CPU
Whenever the CPU (Central Processing Unit) wants to exchange data with other components of the computer, these requests and answers must go physically through te motherboard. Consequently, the physical structure of the CPU needs to be compatible with the physical structure of the motherboard.
This is mainly an issue when upgrading your computer.
Most people who upgrade their CPU also end up replacing their motherboards, because the newer CPU is no longer compatible with the older motherboard.
It's possible to upgrade the CPU without replacing the motherboard. You could replace just the CPU, but for that you would need a motherboard with a physical structure that matches both the old CPU and the new CPU.
In most cases, by the time a person upgrades their computer, their CPU is so old that newer motherboards don't support it anymore. Keep this in mind: if you ever need to upgrade your CPU, you'll most likely need to replace your motherboard, which probably means you'll need to replace your RAM as well to match your new CPU and new motherboard.
Of course, this is assuming you only upgrade your computer every 5 years or so. Some people want the latest generation of technology and upgrade more frequently, so they probably don't run into this sort of compatibility problem. For most people, however, this is how it generally goes.
Typically, it's only the CPU and RAM that will get obsolete, mainly because the RAM is very important for the CPU, so their physical structures are highly dependent on each other. Other components of your computer don't get obsolete just because you replaced your motherboard.
GPU
For example, a GPU is installed in a PCIe slot. So long as your new motherboard has a PCIe slot of the same size, you can just put your old GPU into your new motherboard slot. PCIe is backwards compatible1, so if you have a GPU installed in a PCIe 3.0 slot and you upgrade to a motherboard with PCIe 4.0 slots, it will still work, so long as they're of the same size.
It's worth noting that PCI and PCIe are different things. PCI is a legacy parallel bus interface, while PCIe (PCI express) is a modern serial bus interface.2 However, given that motherboards don't come with legacy PCI slots anymore, whenever you see someone saying "PCI slot" they're talking about modern PCIe slots.
HDDs and SSDs
Hard disks and SSDs are plugged into SATA ports, and every motherboard is going to have them. Exceptionally, NVMe SSDs go into PCIe slots.
USB and Video Ports
Different motherboards have different numbers of USB ports. If you don't have a dedicated graphics card, you're using your CPU's integrated graphics processing unit, so you will need to use the motherboard's video ports (e.g. HDMI, DVI). You could end up in a situation where your motherboard only has a DVI port but your monitor only has a HDMI port, or vice-versa, or they both have DVI, but your new monitor only came with a HDMI cable, so you need to go buy a DVI cable, etc.
PC Case
Different motherboard have different physical sizes, different form factors, called ATX, mini-ATX, micro-ATX, etc. Since the motherboard goes inside the PC case, one obvious problem is that if your motherboard is too big and your PC case too small, it literally won't fit inside.
It's possible to replace the motherboard inside a PC case. All you need to do is unscrew the old motherboard. Of course, since everything is connected to the motherboard, you would also need to remove everything from the old motherboard before installing the new motherboard.
Another terrible problem that you may have is that if you buy a GPU that's too large for a form factor that's too small, you may be physically unable to install the GPU into the motherboard because RAM chips or other components will be on the way. Low-end GPUs are only as large as their PCIe slots, so it's not a problem, but medium-range GPUs are larger, so it could be a problem then.
References
- https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/resources/what-is-pcie-4-and-why-does-it-matter.html (accessed 2024-05-23) ↩︎
- https://www.prodigytechno.com/pci-express-pcie-or-pci-e (accessed 2024-05-23) ↩︎
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