chipset

The chipset is the core part of the motherboard. If the central processor (CPU) is the heart of the entire computer system, then the chipset will be the body's trunk. In the computer industry, the manufacturer of the design chip set is Core Logic. The Chinese meaning of Core is the core or the center. The significance of literally 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 entire computer system. The chipset is the soul of the motherboard. The performance of the chipset determines the performance of the motherboard and the level of the level. This is because the current CPU has a wide range of models and different functions. If the chipset cannot work well with the CPU, it will seriously affect the overall performance of the computer and may not even work properly.

The motherboard chipset almost determines all the functions of the motherboard, including the type of CPU, the system bus frequency of the motherboard, the memory type, the capacity, and the performance. The graphics card slot specifications are determined by the North Bridge chip in the chipset; and the types of the expansion slots are different. The number, type and number of expansion interfaces (such as USB2.0/1.1, IEEE1394, serial ports, parallel ports, notebook VGA output interfaces), etc. are determined by the chipset's South Bridge. Some chipsets also include functions such as 3D accelerated display (integrated display chip) and AC'97 sound decoding. They also determine the display performance and audio playback performance of computer systems.

The desktop chipset requires strong performance, good compatibility, interchangeability, and scalability. It also has the highest requirements for price/performance, and considers the scalability of users in a certain period of time. The scalability is the highest among the three. In the earliest notebook designs, there were no separate notebook chipsets, all using the same chipset as the desktop computers. With the development of technology, the emergence of notebook dedicated CPUs, there is a dedicated set of notebook chips. The notebook chipset requires low energy consumption and good stability, but the overall performance and scalability are also among the lowest among the three. The overall performance and stability of the server/workstation chipset is the highest among the three. Some products even require full-year workloads, and the highest supported memory capacity is the highest of the three, supporting up to ten or even several tens of gigabytes of memory. Memory capacity, and its highest requirements for data transmission speed and data security, so its storage devices also use SCSI interfaces rather than IDE interfaces, and more use of RAID to improve performance and ensure data security.

So far, the manufacturers that can produce chipsets are Intel (USA), VIA (Taiwan), SiS (Taiwan), ULI (Taiwan), AMD (USA), NVIDIA (USA), ATI (Canada), ServerWorks. (America), IBM (United States), HP (USA), etc. There are only a few, among which Intel and NVIDIA and VIA chipsets are the most common. Intel's own chipsets occupy the largest market share on the desktop Intel platform, and have a complete product line, high, medium, low-end and integrated products, other chipset vendors VIA, SIS, ULI and the latest additions The combination of ATI and NVIDIA will only occupy a relatively small market share. Other manufacturers except NVIDIA are mainly in the low-end and integration fields. NVIDIA only has medium and high-end products, and lacks low-end products. The lines are incomplete. On the AMD platform, AMD itself usually plays a pioneering role, with a small number of products and a small market share. VIA used to occupy the largest market share of the AMD platform chipset, but it is now challenged by the rising star of NVIDIA. With the powerful performance of its nForce2, nForce3 and now nForce4 series chipsets, it has become the best chipset product for AMD platform, which has gained a lot of market share from VIA. Now it has become the chip with the largest market occupancy rate on AMD platform. Group vendors, and SIS and ULI are still playing a supporting role, mainly in the middle, low-end and integration areas. In terms of notebooks, the Intel platform has an absolute advantage, so Intel's own notebook chipset also occupies the largest market share, other manufacturers can only play a supporting role and design products for the AMD platform with a very small market share. In terms of server/workstations, the Intel platform is an absolute dominant position. Intel's own server/workstation chipset products account for the vast majority of market share, but in the field of high-end multi-server servers based on Intel architecture, IBM and HP have Absolute advantages, such as IBM's XA32 and HP's F8 are very good high-end multi-channel server chipset products, but they are only used in the company's server products and reputation is not too great; and AMD server / workstation Because of its small market share, the platform used AMD's own chipset products before, and now some of them started using NVIDIA products. It is worth noting that ServerWorks, which has been in the field of server/workstation chipsets based on Intel architecture, has completely withdrawn from the chipset market after being acquired by Broadcom; and ULI has also been acquired by NVIDIA and is very likely to exit the chipset market. .

The technology of the chipset has also been leaps and bounds in recent years, from ISA, PCI, AGP to PCI-Express, from ATA to SATA, Ultra DMA technology, dual channel memory technology, high-speed front-side bus, etc. Increased computer performance. In 2004, chipset technology will face a major change, the most notable is the PCI Express bus technology, it will replace the PCI and AGP, a great increase in device bandwidth, resulting in a revolution in computer technology. On the other hand, chipset technology is also moving toward high integration. For example, AMD Athlon 64 CPUs have integrated memory controllers inside, which greatly reduces the difficulty for chipset manufacturers to design products, and the current chipset products have been integrated. Audio, network, SATA, RAID and other functions greatly reduce the cost of the user.