The motherboard is generally thought to be the most important part of a computer. And yes, it is. However, the chipset on the motherboard is the most important part of the board itself as it defines almost everything about the system. We have said that the CPU is the brain, the BIOS is the nervous system. Well, the chipset is like the heart.
A motherboard’s chipset serves as the hub of all data transfer through the system. It controls all of the data moving between the processor, buses, memory, peripherals, you name it. Therefore, you can see that the chipset controls the system and its capabilities. Ther chipset itself is a series of chips (usually two separate chips) on the motherboard. The chipset is easily identified as the largest chips on the board with the exception of the CPU. Some motherboards use chipsets that can get pretty hot, so some chipsets have a heat sink on the them. You can see both active and passive heat sinks on chipsets – it depends on what the motherboard manufacturer chooses to use. Chipsets are integrated, meaning they are soldered onto the board and are not upgradable without buying a whole new motherboard.
The functions served by chipsets today used to be handled by several different chips on older systems. Chores like data transfer, IRQ assignments, DMA, etc. used to have their own unique controllers that performed these tasks. Much like processors eventually integrated the math coprocessor, L2 cache, etc, chipsets eventually integrated many of these separate controllers into a single chip. This helps alleviate compatibility concerns between the controllers. It also reduces the cost of manufacturing because one chip is cheaper to make than several.
Being that chipsets handle such core tasks of a personal computer, it deals very closely with the hardware. Thus, each chipset must be designed to work specifically with certain hardware. Anyone buying a motherboard today is familar with the fact that chipsets dictate not on the capability of the motherboard, but what hardware you can use with it.
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