The motherboard is one of the most important parts of the PC, but as a tech enthusiast, you probably already know that. What you might not know, though, is the role played by each chip, port or slot present on a motherboard.

The processor socket (also called a CPU socket) is the connector on the motherboard that houses aCPU and forms the electrical interface and contact with the CPU. Processor sockets use a pin grid array (PGA) where pins on the underside of theprocessor connect to holes in the processor socket.

No computer component can operate without power, and a motherboard is no exception. The power connector, commonly a 20 or 24-pin connector, can be situated either near the right edge of the motherboard, or somewhere close to the processor socket on older motherboards. This is where the power supply’s main connector gets attached, providing power to the motherboard and all the other components.

A memory slot, memory socket, or RAM slotis what allows computer memory (RAM) to be inserted into the computer. Depending on the motherboard, there may be 2 to 4 memory slots (sometimes more on high-end motherboards) and are what determine the type of RAM used with the computer.

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is an interconnection system between a microprocessor and attached devices in which expansion slots are spaced closely for high speed operation. Using PCI, a computer can support both new PCI cards while continuing to support Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) expansion cards, an older standard.

IDE and SATA ports are used to provide connectivity for the storage devices and optical drives. The IDE interface is somewhat outdated, so you shouldn’t be surprised if you see a lot of new motherboards coming without this type of port. It was replaced by the smaller and much faster SATA interface, which currently reached its 3rd revision, being able to achieve maximum speeds of up to 600 MB/s, as opposed to the IDE interface, which can reach a maximum of 133 MB/s.

The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal computer (PC) motherboard, the other being the northbridge. The southbridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture.

Northbridge is an Intel chipset that communicates with the computer processor and controls interaction with memory, the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, Level 2 cache, and all Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) activities.

CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) is the term usually used to describe the small amount of memory on a computer motherboard that stores the BIOS settings.

In computer hardware, a port serves as an interface between the computer and other computers or peripheral devices. In computer terms, a port generally refers to the female part of connection. Computer ports have many uses, to connect a monitor, webcam, speakers, or other peripheral devices. On the physical layer, a computer port is a specialized outlet on a piece of equipment to which a plug or cableconnects. Electronically, the several conductors where the port and cable contacts connect, provide a method to transfer signals between devices.