What is the North Bridge?

Northbridge chip is the most important part of the motherboard chipset, also known as the host bridge. Generally speaking, the name of the chipset is named after the name of the North Bridge chip. For example, the north bridge chip of Intel 875P chipset is 82875P, and the latest ones are 82945P, 82945G, 82945GZ, 82945GT, 82945PL, 82955X and 82955 series which support dual-core processors.

Northbridge chip is responsible for contacting cpu and controlling memory (only for Intel cpu, AMD series cpu has integrated memory controller in cpu since K8 series, so Northbridge chip on AMD platform does not control memory), and AGP data is transmitted inside Northbridge, providing support for CPU type and main frequency, system front-end bus frequency and memory type (SDRAM, DDR SDRAM and RDRAM, etc.). ) and maximum capacity, AGP slot, ECC error correction, etc. , integrated.

Northbridge chip is the closest chip to CPU on the motherboard, mainly because the communication between Northbridge chip and processor is the closest, and in order to improve communication performance, the transmission distance is shortened. Because the data processing capacity of the Northbridge chip is very large, and the heat generation is also increasing, the current Northbridge chips are covered with heat sinks to enhance the heat dissipation of the Northbridge chip, and some motherboards' Northbridge chips also cooperate with fans to dissipate heat. Because the main function of the Northbridge chip is to control the memory, and the memory standard changes as frequently as the processor, the Northbridge chips of different chipsets are definitely different. Of course, this does not mean that the adopted memory technology is completely different, but there must be some differences between the Northbridge chips of different chipsets.