What Does It Mean

[Crusader]

Hey all im planning on building a computer for general use and gaming and iv reached my first problem. I have started looking for motherboards for my computer and i have no idea what all the specs of the motherboard mean. For exampl:

MSI 915P Neo2 Platinum (MS-7028-020)

LGA 775 Motherboard for Pentium 4 processors. Intel 915P Chipset. 800/533/400MHz FSB. Dual Channel DDR2 400/533 RAM Support Max. 4GB (4 DIMMs), 1 PCI-E x16 Slot, Two PCI-E x1 Slots, 3 PCI Slots. IDE RAID, SATA RAID, 7.1 Sound, Firewire, Gigabit LAN

Could someone please explain this stuff to me so i can understand it and possibly point me in the direction of what kind of specs and motherboard i should be looking for to build a general/average gaming computer.

 

[Ste]

"LGA 775 Motherboard for Pentium 4 processors. Intel 915P Chipset. 800/533/400MHz FSB. Dual Channel DDR2 400/533 RAM Support Max. 4GB (4 DIMMs), 1 PCI-E x16 Slot, Two PCI-E x1 Slots, 3 PCI Slots. IDE RAID, SATA RAID, 7.1 Sound, Firewire, Gigabit LAN"

LGA 775= Socket Type, how the CPU interfaces with motherboard.

Intel 915P chipset= Chipset revision/model Number, chipset in short controls everything on motherboard and whats connected to it, I "dumbed" it down. So don't anyone yell at me for it.

800/533/400MHz FSB= The compatible Bus SPeeds in MHZ, FSB= How fast data moves into the CPU

Dual Channel DDR2 400/533= Can run Dual channel mode, Specifies DDR type, and compatible speeds, DDR2 400 and DDR2 533.

4GB (4 DIMMs)= Maximum amount of memory.


1 PCI-E x16 Slot, Two PCI-E x1 Slots, 3 PCI Slots= Specfies What type of Expansion slot and how many of them. Expansion slots are used for add on cards such as, video cards, modem cards, sound cards, video capture cards.

IDE RAID, SATA RAID,= informs user that Motherboard supports IDE RAID and SATA RAID Capabilities, What is RAID? See link.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAID.html


7.1 Sound= Informs of onboard sound.


Firewire, Gigabit LAN"= Informs of Onboard Firewire and RJ-45 Gigabyte conector.

 

[Crusader]

Thanks for that.