Computer Upgrades: New Motherboard Technology Means Increased Speed

Are you a power user? By that, I mean someone who must have speed, whatever the cost. Perhaps you have to deal with monster sized files. Maybe you do video editing, or graphics work. Does your passion for a certain game consume you?
If any of this is true for you, then you may want to consider a motherboard upgrade. Recent speed enhancements make this ?major surgery? attractive.
Here are the items you?ll be looking to gain: PCI Express slots, SATA II, an extra RAM slot; and for the gamers, SLI or Crossfire capability. Not to mention your new board could handle a dual core chip. All of this is available for under 0.
What kind of increase in speed could you expect? There are some astonishing numbers on this. Your old PCI slot could handle data at 133MB/s. The new PCI Express can deliver 2.5GB/s! Or consider SATA II for such tasks as connecting an external hard drive. That USB II port you?ve relied on has a throughput of 480MB/s. An SATA II gives you 3.0 GB/s!
For gamers, a two-GPU system is the doorway to an almost unbelievable level of realism. The two competing systems, SLI from NVIDIA, and Crossfire from ATX, require SLI or Crossfire ready motherboards. This has gamers everywhere swapping out boards.
Having a motherboard with a socket that accepts dual core chips, like the 775, or AM2, is a dream come true for video editing. Often editors find themselves needing to run more than one program at the same time. Dual core lets them multitask as if they had two machines in one case.
Michael Quarles is the author of the book "Building a PC for Beginners". His website is http://www.monkeyseemonkeydobooks.com
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