What is a Motherboard Chipset?Feb 20 '01 (Updated Jan 03 '02) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The Motherboard Chipset consists of two chips. A North Bridge(Memory and Expansion BUS) and a South Bridge(I/O)
The Motherboard Chipset is the matching chip required to use ANY CPU(Central Processing Unit) with that motherboard. The 'Chipset' usually consists of two separate chips, a North Bridge and a South Bridge. The North bridge is the interface between the CPU, the RAM and the Expansion BUS (AGP and PCI.) The South Bridge handles the I/O system (Usually IDE drives and the USB ports, but can also contain AC97 codecs, onboard sound, onboard ethernet or potentially anything else.) Intel calls their North bridge the "Memory Controller Hub" (MCH) and their South Bridge the "I/O Controller Hub" (ICH). Intel's i8xx chipsets are designed a bit different then the older Northbridge/Southbridge design in which the PCI communications is moved to the I/O Controller(former southbridge) and communicates over a faster link with the Memory Controller Hub.) Where as the conventional Nothbridge/South bridge combination has the southbridge actually sitting on the PCI bus itself. Intel's i8xx chipsets have 33% more bandwidth than the older style NorthBridge/Southbridge. Intel makes a variety of Chipsets for their CPU's. AMD makes only a handfull of Chipsets for it's CPU's. VIA makes chipsets for Intel, and AMD's CPU's, but also makes it's own CPU's (Cyrix). Acer Labs (ALi) makes Motherboard Chipsets. nVidia currently is producing the nForce chipset which has a built in geforce 2MX core, but the video performance is much worse than a stand alone Geforce 2 card. The hilight of the nForce chipset however is the memory bandwidth and features provided by the southbridge. ATI will soon be producing Motherboard Chipsets with integrated graphics. Intels hub system provides 266MB/sec of bandwidth. VIA calls their North-South bridge link "v-link" with 266MB/sec of bandwidth. SiS calls theirs MuTIOL with 533MB/sec of bandwidth(double-pumped 266). nForce uses AMD's hypertransport with 800MB/sec of bandwidth. Any questions or comments can be directed at Kisai_Z@yahoo.com  |
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