Chipset ( motherboard )

In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System"[citation needed] that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on the motherboard. Chipsets are usually designed to work with a specific family of microprocessors. Because it controls communications between the processor and external devices, the chipset plays a crucial role in determining system performance.

The chipset is a silicon backbone integrated into the motherboard that works with specific CPU generations. It relays communications between the CPU and the many connected storage and expansion devices.

Details 

Living on the motherboard(opens in new tab), a PC's chipset controls the communication between the CPU, RAM(opens in new tab), storage and other peripherals. The chipset determines how many high-speed components or USB devices your best motherboard can support. Chipsets are usually comprised of one to four chips and feature controllers for commonly used peripherals, like the your keyboard(opens in new tab), mouse(opens in new tab) or monitor(opens in new tab).

PC chipsets are designed by Intel and AMD but are found on motherboards from a variety of third-party vendors, such as MSI, Asus and ASRock. Different chipsets support different CPUs, so when you're buying a CPU(opens in new tab), you have to consider that your processor will only work with motherboards using a specific chipset (and CPU socket(opens in new tab)). 

Traditionally in x86 computers, the processor's primary connection to the rest of the machine was through the motherboard chipset's northbridge. The northbridge was directly responsible for communications with high-speed devices (system memory and primary expansion buses, such as PCIe, AGP, and PCI cards, being common examples) and conversely any system communication back to the processor. This connection between the processor and northbridge is commonly designated the front-side bus (FSB). Requests to resources not directly controlled by the northbridge were offloaded to the southbridge, with the northbridge being an intermediary between the processor and the southbridge. The southbridge handled "everything else", generally lower-speed peripherals and board functions (the largest being hard disk and storage connectivity) such as USB, parallel and serial communications. In 1990s and early 2000s, the interface between a northbridge and southbridge was the PCI bus.[1]

Before 2003, any interaction between a CPU and main memory or an expansion device such as a graphics card(s) — whether AGP, PCI or integrated into the motherboard — was directly controlled by the northbridge IC on behalf of the processor. This made processor performance highly dependent on the system chipset, especially the northbridge's memory performance and ability to shuttle this information back to the processor. In 2003, however, AMD's introduction of the Athlon 64-bit series of processors[2] changed this. The Athlon64 marked the introduction of an integrated memory controller being incorporated into the processor itself thus allowing the processor to directly access and handle memory, negating the need for a traditional northbridge to do so. Intel followed suit in 2008 with the release of its Core i series CPUs and the X58 platform.

Overclocking

Keep in mind that overclocking can void your manufacturer warranty, so do some research before you get started. If you decide to do it, the right (or wrong) chipset can be the difference between achieving those speeds you want and being disappointed.

Some chipsets simply won’t work, and others will only work after installing third-party firmware. Know what you’re getting into before you invest in a motherboard or CPU for the purpose of overclocking.

Chipset vs motherboard

Some people use the term “chipset” interchangeably with “motherboard,” but they’re not the same thing. The chipset is a permanent fixture of the motherboard, but it must be compatible with the components or features you want to use. Since a chipset cannot be upgraded, the motherboard’s sockets need to fit your CPU and the chipset on the motherboard must work optimally with that CPU as well.

This is why it’s common to discuss chipset in relation to the motherboard when shopping. It's actually possible for a chipset to have capabilities greater than its paired motherboard, such as additional USB ports.

Definition of a chipset

An electronic chipset manages the flow of data between components on a motherboard. It’s the traffic controller between the CPU, GPU, RAM, storage, and peripherals. Experts have referred to it as the “glue” of the motherboard. The chipset is basically the electronics on the motherboard that communicate with all the connected components.

Most importantly, the chipset determines compatibility between all of these other components. If any of the processors or memory cards don’t communicate with the chipset, they can’t send or receive information from the motherboard.

Today’s integrated chipsets live on the motherboard and allow components to communicate with each other through the motherboard from a centralized location. But in the past, there were smaller, individualized chips for each component.

You can imagine that it was quite confusing to have a chip for the CPU, a chip for RAM, and so on. As time went on, chip functionality consolidated into two main chipsets, the faster northbridge that connects directly to the CPU and memory, and the slower southbridge.

Some functions are now absorbed by the CPU completely. The remaining components, which need their own communication bridge to the motherboard, use smaller and more efficient chipsets.

chipset lanes

If you want to expand your PC to enjoy better graphics, faster connectivity, or more memory, make sure your chipset supports it. There are only so many “lanes” on a chipset, usually between 8 and 40, and these lanes are two-way, wired connections that send data back and forth between things like a graphics card and the chipset (and then on to the motherboard).

Each component may take up many lanes, and some even take up 16 lanes at once. If your chipset doesn’t have room for everything you want to connect, you can forget about the expansion. You have to make sure that both the motherboard and the chipset have the room to make your setup work.