What is the difference between the north and South Bridge on the motherboard

North Bridge is the most important component of the motherboard chipset, also known as the main span.

Generally speaking, the name of the chipset is named after the North Bridge chip, for example, the North Bridge chip of the Intel 845E chipset is the North Bridge chip of the 82845e,875p chipset is 82875P and so on.

North Bridge Chip is responsible for the connection with the CPU and control memory, AGP data in the North Bridge transmission, to provide the type and frequency of the CPU, the system's front-end bus frequencies, type of memory (Sdram,ddr SDRAM and RDRAM, etc.) and the maximum capacity, AGP slots, ECC error correction, and other support, The integrated chipset's North bridge chip also integrates the display core.

North Bridge Chip is the motherboard on the latest chip from the CPU, this is mainly considering the North Bridge chip and processor communication between the most closely, in order to improve communication performance and shorten the transmission distance. Because the North Bridge chip data processing volume is very large, calorific value is more and more, so now the North Bridge chip is covered with the radiator to strengthen the North bridge chip cooling, some of the motherboard of the North Bridge chip will also be coupled with the fan cooling.

Because the main function of North Bridge chip is to control memory, and memory standard and processor change more frequently, so different chipset of North Bridge chip is certainly different, of course, this is not to say that the use of memory technology is not the same, but the different chipset North Bridge chip certainly in some places there are differences.

The South Bridge chip is also called I/O (input) controller, referred to as the D-ich, distance from the CPU.

The bridge chip is responsible for the communication between the I/O bus, such as PCI bus, USB, LAN, ATA, SATA, audio controller, keyboard controller, real-time clock controller, advanced power management, etc., these technologies are generally relatively stable, so the different chipsets may be the same bridge chip, The only difference is the North bridge chip. So now the motherboard chipset in the North Bridge chip number is much more than the South Bridge chip.

Different bridge chips can be paired with different North bridge chip, although there is a certain corresponding relationship, but as long as the connection bus matching and PIN compatible, the motherboard manufacturers can choose at will. The most obvious example is the Amd-ati chipset, whose North bridge chip can be either paired with its own South bridge chip or a Uli or via bridge chip. In addition, many typical chipsets can also use a different South bridge. For example, when the Intel 845E can be paired with ICH2 can also be paired with ICH4, even now P695 motherboard a large number of ICH8 South Bridge, there are different versions of the difference, thus showing significant functional differences.

The development direction of the South Bridge chip is mainly to integrate more functions, such as network card, RAID, IEEE 1394, even Wi-Fi wireless network and so on.

In addition, the motherboard also has BIOS chip integrated network card, sound card chip and some control circuit chip, North Bridge chip is also called memory controller, referred to as the dimension MCH, is close to the CPU, written on the MCH words.