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Periodically, I take a look at the search results that led people to my web site. In a recent examination, I saw that several people asked the question "What is the importance of a motherboard?" and sought an answer. For a seasoned technical support person like myself, the answer to that question is quite obvious, but to someone who isn't that familiar with what is inside his or her computer, it's a mystery. Since a number of you obviously want to know the answer to that question, here it is, as much in layman's terms as I can make it.
Inside your computer's case there are a lot of parts. Each of those parts performs a very specific function or set of functions. For example, a typical PC or Macintosh computer consists of the following main components: Case (or "Chassis"): This is the physical "box" that contains all the computer's components. A case is the piece that looks like the picture below: 
Power Supply: This component, which fits inside the case, provides the electrical current necessary to power all the other components of the computer. In the photograph below, the power supply is the box-like component visible in the top of the case with the fan and power cord hole in the back (circled in the photo): 
Floppy Disk Drive: This component, which also fits in the case, reads and writes information to floppy diskettes. In the picture below, it's the item sticking out of the front of the case/chassis: 
CD-ROM or DVD Drive: This component, pictured below, mounts inside the case and reads CDs and/or DVDs (and may also be capable of writing to recordable CDs or DVDs): 
Hard Drive (or "Hard Disk" or "Hard Disk Drive (HDD)"): This component, pictured below, is one of the key parts of your PC. When your PC boots into Windows (or a Macintosh boots into MacOS 9 or MacOS X), it is this device that holds the programs that make up Windows or the MacOS. When you run a program like Microsoft Office or Internet Explorer, this is the device that contains this program. If you save a file to disk (other than to a floppy or CD-R or DVD-R) this is most likely where you're saving it to: 
Motherboard (or "Logic Board" or "System Board" or "Mainboard"): This is kind of the electronic "glue" that ties the system together. The motherboard is a large electronic circuit board that connects the hard drive, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive, floppy disk drive, CPU chip, memory, video card, etc., together. Without a motherboard, you don't have a computer, just a box full of disconnected components. A motherboard looks like the following photograph (though yours might look slighly different): 
CPU Chip (or "Processor Chip" or "Processor"): This is the "brains" of the computer. It is the CPU chip that runs computer programs and brings the entire system to life. If you have a computer running Microsoft Windows, the component that looks like this is probably an Intel Pentium chip or an AMD Athlon chip. This chip is inserted into a socket or slot on the motherboard. It is normally connected to a device called a "heat sink" or "cooler" which (as the name implies) takes the heat generated by the CPU chip as it functions and channels it away into the air. Without a heat sink, most CPU chips would literally burn up and be destroyed within seconds or minutes. Most of the heat a computer generates comes from the activity of this one chip.
RAM Chip (or "memory chip", "RAM", "random access memory"): There may be one or more of these in your computer. They typically are inserted into sockets on the motherboard. The RAM chips provide the electronic "memory" that allows a computer to keep track of what it's doing right now. When you boot Windows or the MacOS, the computer loads the software from the hard disk into the memory inside these chips. As you create files, such as Microsoft Word documents, those files are created first in the RAM and later saved to hard disk, floppy, or CD/DVD. Generally speaking, the more RAM you have, the more your computer can do and the faster it can do it. 
Video Card (or "Video Board" or "VGA Card"): Sometimes, the functionality of this card is incorporated into the circuitry on the motherboard. In those cases, the computer doesn't have a separate video card. In other cases, there is a separate video card similar in appearance to the one pictured below. The purpose of the video card, as you might guess, is to accept electronic instructions from the computer and produce the images you see on the monitor screen (e.g., if you are playing a game, it's the video card that is drawing all the pictures you see on screen, if you are browsing the web, it's the video card that draws the web pages on your screen). 
Sound Card (or "Audio Board"): Sometimes, the functionality of this card is incorporated into the circuitry on the motherboard. In those cases, the computer won't have a separate sound card. In others, there will be a card installed into a slot on the motherboard that looks vaguely like the card in the picture below. The job of the sound card, as you probably suspect, is to generate the sounds that the computer makes. For example, if you listen to a music file or hear a beep from the computer, more often than not this is the sound card at work. 
Modem (usually not called anything else): This device can either be a card inside the computer or a box attached outside it. The purpose of this device is to take electronic signals from the computer and transfer them across ordinary telephone lines as sound (a process called "modulation"). The computer on the other end has a modem that hears these sounds and turns them back into electronic signals (a process called "demodulation"). A working two-way connection between computers over telephone lines requires each of them to modulate and demodulate sound and signals, hence this device (originally known as a "MOdulator/DEModulator") had its long name shortened to just "modem". Your computer may or may not have a modem. If you don't use the Internet or if you use a means to connect to the Internet that doesn't involve the telephone line in your home (e.g., a cable modem, ISDN line, or DSL line), then you don't need a modem. 
Network Card (or "NIC" which is short for "Network Interface Card"): The functionality of this card is sometimes included in the motherboard. Its purpose is to send and receive electronic signals from a computer network. Those signals include things like your email messages, web pages you're viewing, and the like. Sometimes these are connected to cable modems, ISDN lines, or DSL lines to connect your computer to the Internet or a corporate network. If your computer is a "standalone" (meaning that you don't use it on a network or the Internet), you may not have or need a Network Card.
Monitor: This is the television-like display screen attached to your computer. Much like a television, its only job is to receive signals from the video card or motherboard and display them on the screen. Without a monitor, you can't see what your computer is doing. A typical monitor is pictured below.
Keyboard: This is the device (pictured below) on which you type words, phrases, etc., into the computer. Its job is to interpret your manipulation of the keys and send the information it gathers to the motherboard.
Mouse: This is the device (pictured below) that interprets your movement of it across a desk surface and transmits information about those movements to the motherboard. When the motherboard receives the signals from the mouse, it informs Windows or the MacOS that the mouse has moved, in which direction, how much, and how fast. Windows or the MacOS decides what those movements mean. For example, movement of the mouse forward and to the right might cause the on-screen arrow cursor to move up and to the right on the monitor.
Your computer might contain components other than those shown here. I've tried to focus this document on only those computer features common to most home computers, and only those that are generally necessary for its operation or are the most common to find. Hopefully, for those of you who were wondering, this document has answered the question "What is the importance of a motherboard?" If not, I can probably sum it up this way... The motherboard is one of the three most critical pieces of a computer, without which it cannot function. If you have a CPU chip, a motherboard, and some RAM, you have functioning (though not very useful) computer. If you don't have all three of those things, all you have is a box full of electronics that won't do anything.
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