AMD Motherboard Features

AMD has been producing motherboards for as long as it has been producing central processing units. Though somewhat obscure and focused largely on the computer needs of large businesses, AMD has emerged as the primary competitor to Intel. Both companies have been locked in a struggle for the most powerful processor on the market, and as such, both sides have produced truly phenomenal CPUs with technology far and above what was thought possible even a few years ago. AMD is generally seen as producing processors with more raw power, while Intel is known to produce processors which are less expensive or more suited to special applications.

In order to support their line of CPUs, AMD has been offering motherboards specifically designed to accommodate them. Whether produced by AMD themselves or under license by other companies, AMD motherboards are largely seen as more powerful and accommodating than those produced by Intel. While AMD still produces a large number of motherboards for the business market, AMD has looked to capitalize on the home computing and gaming market by offering both very simple, stripped-down motherboards with few features, and extremely large motherboards designed to accommodate large quantities of RAM and several graphics cards at a time. As such, AMD motherboards have become very popular among gamers, graphic designers, and other people who need very large amounts of processing power.

The highest level AMD motherboards can accommodate more RAM than current operating systems allow and can run several graphics cards and two CPUs in tandem. However, most of the AMD motherboards are much simpler and are designed to fit the budget of almost any computer builder. Since they are primarily sold to promote AMD CPUs, they are generally compatible only with AMD-brand CPUs. However, many third-party motherboards are produced so as to accommodate both AMD and Intel CPUs. The AMD-only motherboards are clearly identified as such on their packaging, and are often sold in shops as a package deal along with the CPU. In such cases, the motherboard is often sold at a deep discount or even a loss to encourage the sale of the CPU, which is what really makes money for AMD. As such, the package deals are often good when both the CPU and motherboard must be purchased and compatibility must be guaranteed.

AMD's motherboards are considered to be very reliable, however they are not cheap. AMD takes pride in the high quality construction of their first-party motherboards, and uses high quality parts. Most users will find that a third-party board works just as well and costs much less. Almost all AMD compatible motherboards on the market today offer the ability to hold at least four GB of RAM (the maximum amount recognizable by Windows XP) and have slots for graphics and sound cards, both in PCI and more advanced forms. While these motherboards usually have one or more parallel ATA ports installed, there has been a shift to serial ATA ports in recent years due to their improved performance and decreased cost. As such, it may be necessary for persons upgrading from an older model board to purchase PATA to SATA adapter cables.