Field Guide · hardware

A chipset is the set of support chips on a motherboard that manages the flow of data between the CPU, memory, and peripherals.1

CPU on-die memory + graphics RAM GPU · PCIe x16 (was the northbridge) DMI chipset · PCH I/O hub USB SATA PCIe lanes
Modern PCs have one chipset chip — Intel's Platform Controller Hub — bridging the CPU to slower I/O: USB, SATA, and spare PCIe lanes. The old northbridge that once handled memory and graphics has moved onto the CPU die, so the RAM and the x16 GPU link now attach straight to the processor.

Overview

Historically a PC chipset split into a northbridge (fast links to memory and graphics) and a southbridge (slower I/O like storage, USB, and audio). As CPUs absorbed the memory controller and graphics link onto the die, the northbridge’s job moved into the processor, leaving a single I/O hub — Intel calls it the Platform Controller Hub (PCH). Today the chipset mainly provides the extra PCIe lanes, USB ports, SATA connectors, and other I/O that a platform exposes.

Where it fits

The chipset, paired with a given CPU socket, defines much of what a board can do: how many devices it supports, which features are enabled, and how peripherals reach the processor over the system bus. It works alongside the board’s BIOS/UEFI firmware at startup. On a single-board computer the chipset’s functions are folded into the system-on-a-chip, so a GopherTrunk capture node has no separate chipset — but the connectivity it provides is the same idea.

Sources

  1. Chipset — Wikipedia, on motherboard chipsets, northbridge/southbridge, and the modern PCH. ↩

See also