NonIntegrated System Board This is where the major parts of a motherboard are installed as expansion cards, these are items such as disc controllers, video card and other accessories. These tend not to exist these days.
Integrated System Board This is where the components are integrated into the motherboards circuit, these are designed for simplicity as its all one piece of equipment. However if a component breaks the whole motherboard must be replaced. These are cheaper to produce but more expensive to repair.
MotherBoard Designs
Advanced Technology Extended (ATX) ATX motherboards have the processor and memory slots at right angles to the expansion cards. This means they are inline with the fan from the power supply helping to cool the components. Also because the componenets are not inline with the expansion cards you can get full length expansion cards to fit to an ATX motherboard. ATX boards are the most common motherboards in use today.
Micro ATX Micro ATX boards follow the same idea of component placement used in ATX boards but are smaller. With the smaller size you can fit it in smaller cases however you cannot have the same quantity of memory slots, expansion slots, integrated components and other accesories. These boards are designed to have a lower power wattage so power consumption and heat output are kept to a minimum. New Low-Profile Extended (NLX) NLX boards are designed to be low profile, (vertically narrow) so they can fit into thinner cases.
Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) BTX boards are designed to line up all heat producing components between air intake vents and the power supply's fan to improve cooling. This means fewer fans were needed and it had a more efficient airflow.
MotherBoard Components There are a variety of parts to a motherboard: - Chipsets - Expansion slots and buses - Memory Slots - CPU and processor slots - Power Connectors - Onboard disc drive connectors - Periferal ports and connectors such as keyboard/mouse - BIOS - CMOS battery - Jumpers and DIP switches - Firmware