About Motherboards (For the beginners!) 

If you're a PC-building novice, you'll probably want to review the bare essentials of what exactly a motherboard is all about. In short, the motherboard is a large circuit board that gets fastened directly on to the inner back of your PC case, and functions as the means to which all of your computers internal parts (processor chip, power source, power cables, RAM) link up and synergize.

Motherboard Parts & Primary Areas 

• PCI Slot: PCI or Peripheral Component Interconnect slots are pictured on the right in the above image. PCI computer bus slots can hold PCI-compatible cards. There are many products that encompass PCI, such as cable modem cards, graphics cards, video capture device cards, sound cards, SCSI adapters and more. Generally, graphics cards are more favorable in AGP format, as the PCI format is an older technology.
• AGP Slot: Standing for "Accelerated Graphics Port," this newer slot out-muscles PCI in terms of graphics card usage. It's main competency is that it aids performance by helping to accelerate 3D motion graphics. Note that AGP has recently been deemed obsolete, thanks to the newer PCI-Express bus format.
• Connectors for Integrated Peripherals: Plain and simple, these are the input areas for your speaker and/or audio visual component jacks, mouse and keyboard plugs and USB ports. While you can plug your monitor in here, it makes much more sense to get some kind of modern graphics card for those purposes (since the card will also have a monitor connection).
• CPU Socket: This is the housing for your very sensitive, very expensive processor chip. It has a metal arm bar that must be raised before you place the chip (carefully) into the pin pattern, and then push down the metal arm to fasten the chip in place.
• CPU Fan & Heatsink Mounts: A heatsink will be needed to cool your chip while your PC is running, as the chip itself generates a great amount of heat which must not only be disbursed (which is what the heatsink's metallic fins do), but a fan will need to be concentrated on the chip itself. These are the places where you fasten the heatsink fan.
• Memory Slot: As you may have guessed, your RAM card(s) go here. You'll want to double-check with your motherboard's manual for the correct type of RAM that it is compatible with - or you'll be sorry to see a PC that simply does not boot up at all!
• Power Connector: Nothing works without electricity, of course - you'll need to fasten a power source to the inside of your case, and hook it up to the motherboard. All additional parts, including your hard drive(s), CD or DVD drives, heatsink fan, other interior fans, and possibly your graphics card will also need their own power connectors. Don't worry - the power source always supplies you with more than enough plugs.
• What else?: You'll also need other parts, including cables made specifically for your CD and DVD drives and hard drives. In the old days, these cables were extremely wide and as flat as a credit card, and VERY bulky. Thankfully, a stroke of common sense has resulted in the flat cable - a space-saving alternative.

Overall Top 5 Best Motherboards (INTEL-based) 

Here's a modern running list of what the pros have determined to be the top 5 best overall Intel-based motherboards on the market! If you're building a new PC, it's always a best practice to get the newest, most featured-packed motherboard that you can get. Thankfully, it is one of the lesser expensive parts of your entire PC-building experience.

#1) Asus P5N-E SLI Motherboard 

+ nVidia nForce 650i SLI chip set
+ 2 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x1, 2 PCI slots
+ 4 SATA, 2 PATA ports
+ 4 & 2 USB, 1 FireWire, 1 eSATA ports

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#2) ECS NForce 570 SLIT-A Motherboard 

+ nVidia nForce 570 SLI chip set
+ 2 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 3 PCI slots
+ 8 Serial ATA, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 USB ports

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#3) MSI P965 Platinum Motherboard 

+ Intel P965 chip set
+ 2 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 2 PC slots
+ 7 SATA, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 & 2 USB, 1 + 2 FireWire ports

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#4) Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Motherboard 

+ Intel P965 chip set
+ 2 PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x1, 2 PCI slots
+ 8 SATA, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 USB, 1 FireWire, 0 + 4 eSATA ports

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#5) Abit AB9 Pro Motherboard 

+ Intel P965 chip set
+ 1 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 2 PCI slots
+ 8 SATA, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 & 2 USB, 0 + 2 FireWire, 1 eSATA ports

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Overall Top 5 Best Motherboards (AMD-based) 

Here's a list of what the pros have determined to be the top 5 best overall AMD-based motherboards on the market:

#1) Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5 Motherboard 

+ nVidia nForce 590 SLI chip set
+ 2 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x8, 1 PCIe x1, 2 PCI slots
+ 8 SATA ports, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 USB, 1 FireWire, 0 + 2 eSATA ports

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#2) Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X Motherboard 

+ nVidia nForce 590 SLI chip set
+ 2 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 1 PCI slots
+ 6 SATA ports, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 + 2 USB, 0 + 2 FireWire ports

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#3) MSI K9A Platinum Motherboard 

+ ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200
+ 2 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 2 PCI slots
+ 4 SATA ports, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 & 2 USB, 1 + 1 FireWire ports

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#4) Asus Crosshair Motherboard 

+ nVidia nForce 590 SLI chip set
+ 2 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x4, 3 PCI slots
+ 6 SATA ports, 1 PATA ports
+ 4 + 2 USB, 1 + 1 FireWire ports

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#5) Sapphire Pure Crossfire PC-AM2RD580 Motherboard 

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