New to computer building

[Eriol]

Hello,
I'm brand new to computer building and am starting my first build. My question is what does the chipset on the north/south bridge do, and does it matter what brand it is. For example my local computer shop recommended a motheroard with VIA K8T890.
I was looking at the box to doom3(which I cant play yet b/c I dont have a good enough computer =) ) and it says its compatible with ATI Radeon 8500/9000/9200/95000..... and All nvidia3/4/FX chipsets. It doesnt mention anything about VIA.
Are they talking about the same thing?

[Panama Red]

There are several makers of Chipsets for motherboards. Some are acceptable for mainstream, general purpose use while others have proven to be better for high performance applications like gaming. GP chipsets would be SiS, ATI, and Via while the best combinations for performance and stability would be an Intel Chipset mobo with an Intel cpu and an NVidia nForce chipset with an AMD cpu. This is just my opinion based on personal experience and from reading the recommendations of experienced builders here at the Mech. Via may work fine for gaming for some folks but most will agree it has had a history of "issues" relating to instability.

[bitTRL1000]

The writing on the Doom 3 box is refering to the graphics chipset, not the motherboard chipset. When it comes to AMD motherboards, I think if you did a poll you'd find slightly more people who preferred Nvidia chipsets over Via, but I wouldn't consider Via to be a "cheap" brand chipset. One thing to be aware of: the Via K8T890 chipset on at least the Asus A8V-E will not support dual-core processors. This may be a problem with other motherboard manufacturers as well. I would check the motherboard first to make sure it is upgradable should you decide to go with an AMD X2.

[Eriol]

thanks for the quick reply,
I will be using an AMD 4000+ (non dual core).
My question is a little more fundamental, as to what the chipsets actually do and why one would work better over the others. I find it a bit confusing that the chipsets on the motherboards use the same terminalogy as the video cards (but maybe thats just b/c im new to this)
BTW I would really appreciate any additional advice anyone has for a "newbie" at this.
Thanks again

[nicolaus corelius]

it has one exeption though. if u plan to go SLI, for intel only nvdia has a SLI chipset.

[nicolaus corelius]

i know.
i was confused to at first. if u want a non-SLI biuld, then nvidia geforce4 ultra is a very good choice.
the chipset is basicly what buses ur mobo can have. like the PCI, SATA, AGP, the memory bus, and the FSB. a bit of history. in the old days (like 15-20 years ago) the mobo had different chips for each bus. like it had a chip for memory, a different chip cpu, and another chip for paraller port. then intel decided to combine these chips into one chipset, to save space.

[Staren]

They don't really use the same terms, other then "chipset".

From Wikipedia: A chipset is a group of integrated circuits ("chips") that are designed to work together, and are usually marketed as a single product.

That I knew, but the following is new research to me too. If you need anything translated back to english from geek just ask. I had to read the southbridge article twice to make sure I understood all of it.

Northbridge: The northbridge typically handles communications between the CPU, RAM, AGP port or PCI Express. Some northbridges also contain integrated video controllers. Because different processors and RAM require different signalling, a northbridge will typically work with only one or two classes of CPUs and generally only one type of RAM. There are a few chipsets that support two types of RAM (Generally these are available when there is a shift to a new standard). For example, the northbridge from the nVidia nForce2 chipset will only work with Duron, Athlon, and Athlon XP processors combined with DDR SDRAM, the Intel i875 chipset will only work with systems using Pentium 4 processors or Celeron processors that have a clock speed greater than 1.3 GHz and utilize DDR SDRAM, and the Intel i915g chipset only works with the Intel Pentium 4 and the Intel Celeron, but it can use DDR or DDR2 memory.

Southbridge:The functionality found on a contemporary southbridge includes:

* PCI bus
* ISA bus
* SM Bus
* DMA controller
* Interrupt controller
* IDE (SATA or PATA) controller
* LPC Bridge
* Real Time Clock
* power management (APM and ACPI)
* Nonvolatile BIOS memory

Optionally, the southbridge will also include support for Ethernet, RAID, USB, audio codec, and FireWire. Rarely, the southbridge may also include support for the keyboard, mouse, and serial ports, but normally these devices are attached through another device referred to as the Super IO (SIO).

The PCI bus support includes the traditional PCI specification, but may also include support for PCI-X and PCI-E. Though the ISA support is rarely utilized, it has interestingly managed to remain an integrated part of the modern southbridge. The SM Bus is used to communicate with other devices on the motherboard (e.g. system fans). The DMA controller allows ISA or LPC devices direct access to main memory without needing help from the CPU.

[Eriol]

I'm sorry im still in the learning process, what's SLI

[bitTRL1000]

Scalable Link Interface is where you have two video cards (specifically Nvidia-brand cards) in one computer.

[nicolaus corelius]

nvdia uses SLI for dual-vid card technology, ATI uses crossfire.