This red square is a computer's motherboard
The core of a computer is its CPU (Central Processing Unit) and its motherboard. This combination is as important to a PC as a pitcher and catcher to a baseball team; you can't operate one without them, and they combine to perform the most basic and important functions of the system. The Pentium 4 motherboard has a long history, since this variety of Pentium was produced for several years and came in no fewer than three mutually incompatible varieties.
CPU Socket Basics
A motherboard is generally defined by its socket type. This refers to the shape and overall design of the slot in which the CPU sits. Over the course of the Pentium 4's lifespan, it went through several socket types, including 423, 478 and 775. These numbers usually refer to how many pins are on the underside of the CPU. So an early Pentium 4 has 428 pins on the bottom and fits into a CPU slot with 428 pin holes. Socket 478 was also known as "Socket N," and 775 was also known as "Socket T." These alphabetic assignments did not represent abbreviations of anything.
Sockets and Chipsets
A motherboard is also defined by its chipset model. A motherboard can come in a variety of chipsets throughout the lifespan of that socket. The 423's main chipset in its brief lifespan was the i850. This chipset allowed for one "4x" speed AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port), 6-channel integrated audio, integrated Ethernet, two IDE channels (for hard drives and optical drives) and RDRAM (Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory), which is much different from the DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM that we're used to seeing now.
Advantages and Disadvantages
This chipset did not support "hyperthreading" CPUs (which would make the operating system see two CPU cores when there was only one physical core), nor did it support Serial ATA storage devices or PCI Express. Later 478 chipsets such as the 845e supported faster DDR speeds and USB 2.0. The chipsets for this socket eventually supported higher AGP speeds, larger amounts of RAM, "Dual-Channel" RAM and Serial ATA.
775 Arrives
At this point, the 775 socket type came into play. This was a major change. The 775 motherboards supported multi-core CPUs, PCI Express (a major improvement on AGP), DDR2 RAM and integrated Wi-Fi Internet. These CPUs also had flat undersides with contacts instead of pins. The pins were moved into the motherboard socket itself.
775's Evolution
Although this motherboard supported compatible Pentium 4s, it was oriented towards Intel's Core and Core 2 Duo CPUs, which offered much higher performance, lower power requirements and lower heat generation. The 775 socket would eventually see quad-core CPUs, external SATA connectors and multiple PCI Express slots which could be used for several high-demand functions aside from video display.
Tags: also known, also known Socket, CPUs which, known Socket, Socket also, Socket also known