The motherboard’s chipset is important and consists of the Northbridge and Southbridge chips. The Northbridge handles faster communication needs while the Southbridge controls slower I/O devices. Chipsets determine CPU and feature support, and purchasing a motherboard with the latest chipset is recommended. Some chipsets have integrated the Northbridge and Southbridge into a single chip, and some incorporate a GPU for faster image processing.
If you’re looking for a motherboard, you’ll probably come across a lot of talk about chipsets. A motherboard’s chipset is so important that many people will choose a motherboard based on which chipset manufacturer they prefer. The chipset consists of two main chips: the Northbridge and Southbridge chips, a central part of the motherboard architecture. Some of the more popular chipset manufacturers include nVidia®, Intel®, AMD®, SiS®, VIA® and ATI®.
There is no overriding standard for chipset architecture design, and competition drives innovation and change. In the base model the Northbridge chip handles the faster communication needs of the computer. These include how systems communicate with the computer’s processing unit (CPU), video card slot, Random Access Memory (RAM), and Southbridge chip. The Northbridge is also known as Memory Controller Hub (MCH) or Integrated Memory Controller (IMC).
The Southbridge controls slower I/O or in-and-out devices. These include all hard drives and expansion slots, USB, FireWire, RAID, audio codecs, real-time system clock, system power management, interrupt controller, direct memory access controller (DMA), and memory non-volatile bios. The Southbridge chip is sometimes called the I/O Controller Hub (ICH) or Platform Controller Hub (PCH).
In legacy motherboard designs, each different device that the Southbridge now handles was controlled by a discrete chip on the motherboard. Combining these into a single chip to control them all saved real estate and manufacturing costs. The various connections or data paths between chips and components on the motherboard are referred to as buses. A motherboard with a higher bus speed will be faster than a motherboard with a slower bus speed, all other things being equal.
The chipset determines what type of CPU and features the system will be able to support and what features it will be missing. If you’ve ever tried to upgrade an old computer to a new technology and been told that your chipset doesn’t support it, it was the Northbridge and Southbridge chips that were being referenced. To future-proof any new investment, it’s always best to purchase a motherboard with a chipset that supports the latest disruptive technology.
At least one current chipset design has integrated the Northbridge and Southbridge into a single chip. Some chipsets, including the aforementioned, incorporate a graphics processing unit (GPU) for faster image processing. Previously, you could only have a GPU on a high-end graphics card, located on the card itself. Graphics cards that don’t have a GPU rely on the CPU for processing. Incorporating a GPU into the chipset makes graphics rendering faster, a real plus that gamers should like.
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