What's the difference between chipset and motherboard?

The introduction is as follows, take your time and look at it in detail:

First, the chipset

Chipset is the core component of the motherboard. If the central processing unit (CPU) is the heart of the whole computer system, then the chipset is the trunk of the whole body. In the computer industry, the manufacturer of chipset design is called Core logic, and the Chinese word for core means core or center, so the literal meaning alone is enough to see its importance. For the motherboard, the chipset almost determines the function of this motherboard, and then affects the performance of the whole computer system. Chipset is the soul of the motherboard. The performance of chipset determines the performance and level of motherboard. This is because there are many models and types of CPU at present, and their functional characteristics are different. If the chipset can't cooperate with the CPU well, it will seriously affect the overall performance of the computer and even fail to work normally.

The chipset of the motherboard almost determines all the functions of the motherboard, among which the CPU type, system bus frequency, memory type, capacity and performance, and graphics card slot specifications of the motherboard are all determined by the Northbridge chip in the chipset; The type and number of expansion slots and interfaces (such as USB2.0/ 1. 1, IEEE 1394, serial port, parallel port and VGA output interface of notebook) are determined by the south bridge of the chipset. Some chipsets also determine the display performance and audio playback performance of computer systems, because they include 3D accelerated display (integrated display chip), AC'97 sound decoding and other functions.

Desktop chipset requires strong performance, good compatibility, interchangeability, expansibility, the highest cost performance, and moderate consideration of the user's upgradeability within a certain period of time, and the expansibility is the highest among the three. In the earliest notebook design, there was no separate notebook chipset, but the same chipset as the desktop was used. With the development of technology and the appearance of notebook dedicated CPU, notebook dedicated chipset appeared. Notebook chipset requires low energy consumption and good stability, but its comprehensive performance and expansibility are also the lowest among the three. The comprehensive performance and stability of server/workstation chipset are the highest among the three. Some products even require full-load operation all year round, and the supported memory capacity is the highest among the three. It can support up to tens of GB or even tens of GB of memory capacity, and has the highest requirements for data transmission speed and data security. Therefore, its storage devices mostly use SCSI interface instead of IDE interface, and RAID mode is often used to improve performance and ensure data security.

Up to now, there are not a few manufacturers that can produce chipsets, such as Intel (USA), VIA (Taiwan Province Province of China), SiS (Taiwan Province Province of China), ULI (Taiwan Province Province of China), AMD (USA), NVIDIA (USA), ATI (Canada), ServerWorks (USA), IBM (USA), HP (USA). Other chipset manufacturers VIA, SIS, ULI and the latest ATI and NVIDIA can only occupy a relatively small market share. Other manufacturers except NVIDIA are mainly in the low-end and integration fields, while NVIDIA only has medium and high-end products, lacking low-end products and incomplete product lines. On the AMD platform, AMD itself usually plays a pioneer role, with few products and small market share. VIA once occupied the largest market share of the chipset on AMD platform, but now it is strongly challenged by the rising star NVIDIA, who has become the best chipset product on AMD platform with the powerful performance of nForce2, nForce3 and nForce4 series chipsets. Furthermore, it has won a lot of market share from VIA, and now it has become the chipset manufacturer with the largest market share on AMD platform, while SIS and ULI are still supporting roles, mainly in the low-end and integration fields. In terms of notebooks, Intel platform has absolute advantages, so Intel's own notebook chipset also occupies the largest market share. Other manufacturers can only play a supporting role and design products for AMD platform, and the market share is very small. In terms of servers/workstations, the Intel platform is absolutely dominant. Intel's own server/workstation chipset products occupy the vast majority of the market share, but in the field of high-end multi-channel servers based on Intel architecture, IBM and HP have absolute advantages. For example, XA32 of IBM and F8 of Hewlett-Packard are excellent high-end multi-channel server chipset products, but they are only used in our company's server products, and their fame is not too great. However, due to the small market share, AMD's server/workstation platform used to mainly adopt AMD's own chipset products, and now some of them have begun to adopt NVIDIA products. It is worth noting that ServerWorks, which once dominated the field of Intel-based server/workstation chipsets, has completely withdrawn from the chipset market after being acquired by Broadcom. ULI has also been acquired by NVIDIA, and it is very likely to quit the chipset market.

Chipset technology has also advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years, from ISA, PCI, AGP to PCI-Express, from ATA to SATA, super DMA technology, dual-channel memory technology, high-speed front-end bus and so on. Every new technology progress will bring about the improvement of computer performance. In 2004, chipset technology will face great changes, the most striking is PCI Express bus technology, which will replace PCI and AGP and greatly increase the bandwidth of equipment, thus bringing a revolution in computer technology. On the other hand, chipset technology is also developing towards high integration. For example, AMD Athlon 64 CPU integrates a memory controller, which greatly reduces the difficulty for chipset manufacturers to design products, and now chipset products have integrated audio, network, SATA, RAID and other functions, greatly reducing the cost of users.

Chipset is the core of motherboard circuit. In a sense, it determines the level and grade of the motherboard. It is the collective name of "South Bridge" and "North Bridge", that is, a chipset that integrates complex circuits and components into several chips to the greatest extent.

Second, the motherboard.

A. What is a motherboard?

Motherboard, also known as motherboard, systembourd, motherboard; It is installed in the chassis and is one of the most basic and important components of microcomputer. The motherboard is generally a rectangular circuit board, on which the main circuit system of the computer is installed, generally including BIOS chip, I/O control chip, keyboard and panel control switch interface, indicator light connector, expansion slot, motherboard and plug-in DC power connector. Another feature of the motherboard is the open structure. Most motherboards have 6-8 expansion slots for the control cards (adapters) of PC peripherals to insert. By replacing these cards, the corresponding subsystems of the microcomputer can be upgraded locally, thus giving manufacturers and users greater flexibility in configuring models. In a word, the motherboard plays an important role in the whole microcomputer system. It can be said that the type and grade of the motherboard determines the type and grade of the whole microcomputer system, and the performance of the motherboard affects the performance of the whole microcomputer system. Common PC motherboards are classified as follows.

B. Classification of mainboards:

First of all, according to the CPU used on the motherboard, there are:

386 motherboard, 486 motherboard, Pentium (586) motherboard, Pentium Pro (686) motherboard. The same level of CPU is often further divided. For example, the Pentium motherboard is different from whether it supports multi-function Pentium (P55C, MMX requires the motherboard to have built-in dual voltages) and whether it supports Cyrix 6x86 and AMD 5k86 (both Pentium-class CPUs require the motherboard to dissipate heat better).

Second, according to the type of I/O bus on the motherboard

Industry standard architecture bus.

Eisa (Extended Industry Standard Architecture) extends the standard architecture bus.

Microchannel bus. In addition, in order to solve the bottleneck problem of slow transmission speed between CPU and high-speed peripherals, there are two kinds of local buses, namely:

VESA (video electronics standards association) video electronics standards association local bus, abbreviated as VL bus.

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnection) Peripheral Component Interconnection Local Bus, abbreviated as PCI Bus. Class 486 motherboards mostly use VL bus, while Pentium motherboards mostly use PCI bus. At present, more peripheral interface buses have been developed after PCI, especially USB (Universal Serial Bus). IEEE 1394 (American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 1394 standard) is commonly known as "Fire Ware".

Third, control the chipset according to logic.

These chipsets integrate the control of CPU, cache, I/O and bus. Motherboards above 586 pay special attention to the role of chipset. Chipsets produced by Intel for 586 motherboards include: chipsets produced by LX for Pentium 60 and 66MHz CPU in the early days.

NX Neptune, which supports Pentium CPU above 75 MHz, was very popular before the introduction of Intel 430 FX chipset, but now it is rare.

FX has this chipset in both the 430 and 440 series, the former for Pentium and the latter for Pentium Pro. HX Intel 430 series is used in commercial microcomputers with high reliability requirements. VX Intel 430 series is optimized and simplified for common multimedia applications based on HX. There is a tendency to be replaced by TX. The latest chipset of TX Intel 430 series is specially optimized for Pentium MMX technology. The Intel 450 series of GX and KX is used for Pentium Pro, GX is used for servers, and KX is used for workstations and high-performance desktops. MX Intel 430 series, specially used for Pentium-class chipset of notebook computers. Check out the Intel 430 MX chipset. Chipsets of non-Intel companies include: VT82C5xx series 586 chipset produced by VIA Company.

Sis series, produced by SiS Company, is well-known among non-Intel chipsets.

Opti series, produced by opti company, uses fewer motherboard manufacturers.

Fourth, according to main board structure.

AT standard size motherboards named after IBM PC/A are used for the first time, and some 486 and 586 motherboards also adopt AT structure layout.

Baby AT's pocket-sized motherboard is smaller than AT's motherboard, hence the name. Many original integrated motherboards first adopt this kind of main board structure.

ATX & amp； 127; The improved AT motherboard optimizes the layout of components on the motherboard, and has better heat dissipation and integration, so it needs to be used with special ATX chassis.

The motherboard of the all-in-one machine integrates various circuits such as audio and display, and generally can work without inserting a card. It has the advantages of high integration and space saving, but it also has the disadvantages of inconvenient maintenance and difficult upgrade. Widely used in original brand machines.

NLX Intel's latest main board structure is characterized by flexible, convenient and effective upgrade of the motherboard and CPU, and it is no longer necessary to update the motherboard design every time a CPU is introduced. In addition, there are some deformation structures of the above motherboards, such as ASUS motherboards, which use a large number of main board structure with the size of 3/4 Baby AT.

Five, according to the function

The main board with PnP function adopts PnP BIOS and PnP operating system (such as Win95), which can help users to automatically configure host peripherals and realize "plug and play".

Energy-saving (green) function is generally marked with energy star when it is turned on, which can automatically enter the waiting and sleeping state without using the host, and reduce the power consumption of CPU and components during this period.

Jumper-free motherboard This is a new motherboard and a further improvement of PnP motherboard. On this motherboard, even the type of CPU, working voltage and so on. There is no need for jumper switches, all of which are automatically recognized, and only need a little adjustment by software. After the remarks, the CPU has nothing to hide on this motherboard. Motherboards before 486 generally do not have the above functions. Motherboards above 586 are equipped with PnP and energy-saving functions. Some original brand machines can also control the on-off of the host power supply through the motherboard to further realize intelligent on-off, which is rare on compatible motherboards, but it is definitely a development direction in the future. Jumper-free motherboard will be another direction of motherboard development.

Six, other motherboard classification method:

According to the structural characteristics of motherboards, motherboards can also be divided into CPU-based motherboards, adaptive circuit-based motherboards and integrated motherboards. The integrated motherboard based on CPU is a better choice at present.

According to the process classification of printed circuit board, it can be divided into two-layer structure board, four-layer structure board and six-layer structure board. At present, products with four-layer structural boards are the main products.

According to the component installation and welding process, there are surface mount welding process board and DIP traditional process board.