The chipset inside the motherboard is the component that handles the communication between the memory, the local BUS, and the CPU. The CPU you have will naturally dictate the type of chipset your motherboard has. Better chipsets can operate at faster transfer speeds and are more efficient at power management. For this reason, the chipset is arguably the most important component on a motherboard. Today, the best motherboards use chipsets like Nvidia’s nForce 5 and Intel’s 975 and 975p.
The motherboard chipset is made up of a Northbridge and Southbridge chip.
The Northbridge chip on the motherboard is responsible for handling data transfer between the AGP/PCI ports, the RAM, and the CPU, and is also linked to the Southbridge through data channels. Depending on the brand of chipset, it will use either a BGA encapsulation mode for AMD processors or an FC-PGA encapsulation mode for Intel processors.
Unlike the Northbridge chip, the main function of the Southbridge chips is to handle communication between PCI, IDE, audio, I/O, and network devices. The Northbridge on all motherboards uses a BGA encapsulation mode.
Today, instead of the traditional Southbridge and Northbridge chip, we have certain motherboards that have an all-in-one configuration developed by SiS and Nvidia. These motherboards integrated both components on a single chip, allowing Nvidia and SiS to produce motherboards at a significantly reduced price. However, these new motherboards from both SiS and Nvidia do not have the support of the more conventional models.
