We've all heard about the newest chipsets from Intel, VIA, Nvidia and more and how miles better they are. But what does the chipset really do on the motherboard. We all know what the CPU does, we all know what the graphics card is for and why we have got a hard drive but not a lot of people know too much about the chipset.

Hopefully we able to shed a little light on the working of the chipset and why they vary from one chipset to the next. The chipset is the "glue" that links the microprocessor to the remainder of the motherboard and thus to the rest of the computer.

North and South Bridge

The chipset consists of 2 major microchips. These are referred to as the North Bridge and the South Bridge. The North Bridge Handles info for the AGP Port and the key memory which contains the FSB (Front side bus). Although both chips are needed for the Computer to work the North Bridge handles almost all of the important jobs like the connection between the CPU and main memory.

The South Bridge handles information from the PCI and ISA slots and can also have integrated elements like Audio codec's for example. The North and South bridges will have different chip names although they're often twinned with the same opposite bridge to come under the collective name of the chipset.