What is the main function of the Northbridge chip?

The main function of the Northbridge chip is to control the memory; the Northbridge chip is responsible for contacting the CPU and controlling the transmission of memory, AGP, and PCI data within the Northbridge, providing information on the type and main frequency of the CPU, the front-end bus frequency of the system, Memory type and maximum capacity, ISA/PCI/AGP/PCIE slot, ECC error correction, etc. are supported.

The operating environment of this tutorial: Windows 7 system, Dell G3 computer.

What is the Northbridge chip?

For a computer motherboard, if the CPU socket is oriented north, the chip close to the CPU socket that plays a connecting role is called the "North Bridge Chipset", and its English name is: North Bridge Chipset. The Northbridge chip is the chip closest to the CPU on the motherboard. This is mainly due to the fact that the communication between the Northbridge chip and the processor is the closest, and the transmission distance is shortened in order to improve communication performance.

The North Bridge chip (North Bridge) is the most important component that plays a leading role in the motherboard chipset, also known as the Host Bridge. Generally speaking, the name of the chipset is named after the name of the northbridge chip. For example, the northbridge chip of the Intel 845E chipset is 82845E, the northbridge chip of the 875P chipset is 82875P, and so on.

The main function of the Northbridge chip

The main function of the Northbridge chip is to control the memory.

The Northbridge chip is responsible for contacting the CPU and controlling the transmission of memory, AGP, and PCI data within the Northbridge. It provides information on the type and main frequency of the CPU, the system's front-side bus frequency, and the type of memory (SDRAM, DDR, RDRAM and DDRII, etc.) and maximum capacity, ISA (this has long been eliminated)/PCI/AGP/PCIE slots, ECC error correction and other support. The Northbridge chip of the integrated chipset also integrates a display core.

Because the data processing capacity of the Northbridge chip is very large and the heat generation is increasing, the Northbridge chips are covered with heat sinks to enhance the heat dissipation of the Northbridge chip. The Northbridge chip of some motherboards will also be equipped with a fan. heat dissipation. Because the main function of the Northbridge chip is to control memory, and memory standards change frequently like processors, the Northbridge chips in different chipsets are definitely different. Of course, this does not mean that the memory technology used is completely different, but There must be some differences between the Northbridge chips of different chipsets.

Since the released AMD K8 core CPU integrates the memory controller inside the CPU, the Northbridge chip that supports the K8 chipset has become much simpler, and can even adopt a single-chip chipset structure. This may be a general trend. The functions of the Northbridge chip will gradually be simplified. In order to simplify the motherboard structure and improve the integration of the motherboard, perhaps the mainstream chipset in the future will become a single chip with the Northbridge and Southbridge combined (in fact SIS has long released many single-chip chipsets).

Since each chipset product corresponds to a corresponding Northbridge chip, the number of Northbridge chips is very large.

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