Elite Book

Choosing a suitable motherboard is the primary factor in determining the fate of the compatibility of your hardware components. People focus more on choosing the best GPU and the best CPU while totally neglecting this crucial aspect and ended up facing troubles. It is vital in the sense that every component of your PC plugs into the motherboard you opt for. Its compatibility and size translate into the final product you are going to have and how many components you can add later. Whereas, the chipset/processor socket determines what kind of CPU you can install.

Things to Remember

• Budget Factor – You can easily get a decent motherboard for less than $150 if overclocking is not your cup of tea. Otherwise, you need PCIe 4.0 or you need a lot of ports on your motherboard which is available for more than $200. The prices may vary for desktop and laptop motherboards.
• Additional Features – No need to spend extra pennies for built-in Wi-Fi, high-end ports unless you actually need them. If you can use a wired connection better to save money and investment in any other component. For a futuristic approach, you can acquire a system board with USB 3.1 Gen 2 and/or Thunderbolt 3 support, as well as PCIe 4.0.

Let’s discuss some most crucial factors in detail that constitute the equation of your motherboard’s compatibility.

Which chipset are you going to deploy?

The CPU you’re going to deploy on your board can filter out much of the options, because the CPU socket on a specific motherboard will only show compatibility with the processor lineup it was designed for.

Suppose you’re going to buy an Intel 10th or 11th Generation CPU; you’ll require a motherboard with an LGA 1200 socket. Previous 9th Generation chips are compatible with an LGA 1151 socket. AMD turned this process less confusing by using AM4 socket for all of its current-gen lineup of processors (from Athlons to 16-core Ryzen 9). Intel, on the other hand, featured immense variation in recent times by altering the course of sockets compatibility from one generation to the next and finally refrained from going further into complexities by maintaining the Socket 1200 standard for the last two generations.  The socket available on 702847-501 – HP System Board for Elite Book Folio 9470m possesses built-in 3rd Gen Intel processors with Intel’s QM77 chipset.

PS: The aforementioned compatibility of chips is not absolute as high-end models (both Intel and AMD) entertain compatibility with different sockets to accommodate the bigger size and power consumption of their Core X and Thread ripper lineup of processors.

Variety of Ports

It is recommended to check the I/O interface of your motherboard to ensure the presence of an external connection you may need later. Do not forget to check the USB headers on the motherboard that will allow you to add more ports using a front-panel connection on your PC case or less expensive expansion slot brackets at the back.

Below is the list of commonly used ports and their usage.

• Gen 1 USB 3 – Also known as USB 3.1 works with most devices
• Gen 1 USB 2 – Slower than USB 3, but serves well for keyboards, mice, and other peripherals
• Gen 2 USB 3.1 or 3.2 – Not many peripherals are compatible with this standard yet. It delivers 10 GB/s of transfer rate, which is twice the bandwidth of USB 3.1 Gen 1 or USB 3.0. USB 3.2 Gen2 (2×2) doubles the transfer rate again due to the presence of two 10 GB/s transfer lanes. You can hardly find only one of these ports that too on high-end motherboards.
• USB Type-C – These ports can either show compatibility with USB 3.1 Gen 1 or USB 3.1 Gen 2 are introduced for newer devices such as the latest android or apple smartphones. Few of them are just USB 2.0 but often get titled as Audio USB-C ports to connect USB-C headphones.
• HDMI – You only need an HDMI port if you are going to use integrated graphics. 3rd Party GPUs like that of Nvidia and AMD feature their own video ports.
• Audio ports – Used to connect audio devices such as speakers or headphones
• PS/2 ports – Not in use today. They provide pin-based connectivity with old-school keyboards and mice.
• Thunderbolt – This connectivity interface is very expensive and rare to find as an integrated motherboard chip and very few motherboards support it through dedicated add-on cards. This connectivity standard offers the fastest possible connections of up to 40 GB/s.

Connectivity interfaces in 702847-501 – HP System Board for Elite Book Folio 9470m

 702847-501 – HP System Board for Elite Book Folio 9470m features:

• Three USB 3.0 Port
• A DisplayPort
• SD/MMC Reader
• VGA
• Docking port
• Ethernet Port (also known as LAN port)
• mSATA slot (smaller form factor than a standard SSD and is introduced for use with portable, power-friendly devices such as laptops, tablets)
• Built-in Bluetooth

RAM Slots

The importance of this aspect can be determined by the fact that the number of slots on your board can limit the number of RAM cards you can install at the moment. Normally, the laptop motherboards feature two to four RAM slots (compact Mini-ITX models are exceptions for having just two RAM slots). 

For mainstream workloads and games, 16GB of RAM is sufficient and 32GB is more than enough and even with just two slots.

Apart from this, the number of pins differs in DDR2, DDR3, DDR4, DDR5, and DDR6 memory modules. You can damage your RAM strip by forcing it to insert in the wrong slot. Must read the specs of your board to ensure which type of DDR module it is intended to support.  702847-501 – HP System Board for Elite Book Folio 9470m motherboard features two DDR3 (240 Pins) DIMM memory slots.