▷ Chipset what is it and what is it for

You have probably heard the term chipset when talking about motherboards, but what exactly is a chipset and how does it affect the performance of your PC? In this article we try to answer all the most common questions about the motherboard chipset.

What is the motherboard chipset

Simply put, a chipset acts as the communications hub and traffic controller for the motherboard, and ultimately determines which components are supported by the motherboard, including the CPU, RAM, hard drives, and graphics cards.. It also dictates your future expansion options and to what extent your system can be overclocked. These three criteria are important when considering which motherboard to buy.

We recommend reading our post on AMD B450 vs B350 vs X470: differences between chipsets

Now you have a basic idea of ​​what a chipset is, but why do you care? As we pointed out at the beginning, the motherboard chipset determines three main things: component compatibility (what CPU and RAM you can use), expansion options (how many PCI cards you can use), and overclocking capability. The choice of component is important. Will your new system be the latest generation of Intel Core i7 processors, or are you willing to settle for something a little bit older and cheaper? Do you want a faster DDR4 RAM, or is a more basic RAM okay? How many hard drives are you connecting and what type? Do you need integrated Wi-Fi or will you use Ethernet? Will you be running multiple graphics cards or a single graphics card with other expansion cards? All of these are possible considerations, and the best chipsets will offer more options.

Price will also be a determining factor here. It goes without saying that the more advanced the system, the more it will cost, both in terms of the components themselves and the motherboard that supports them. The chipset also determines the amount of space for expansion cards, such as graphics cards, TV tuners, RAID card, etc., that you have in your system, thanks to the buses they use.

The great importance of the chipset

The components of the system and the peripherals (CPU, RAM, expansion cards, printers, etc.) are connected to the motherboard through buses. Each motherboard contains different types of buses, which can vary in terms of speed and bandwidth, but for simplicity, we can divide them into two: external buses (including USB, serial and parallel) and internal buses.

The primary internal bus found on modern motherboards is known as PCI Express (PCIe). PCIe uses "lanes", which allow internal components like RAM and expansion cards to communicate with the CPU and vice versa. A lane is simply two pairs of wired connections: one pair sends data and the other receives data. Therefore, a 1x PCIe lane will consist of four cables, 2x has eight, and so on. The more lanes, the more data can be exchanged. A 1x connection can handle 250MB in each direction, 2x can handle 512MB, etc.

The number of lanes available depends on the number of lanes the motherboard has, as well as the bandwidth capacity that the CPU can deliver. For example, many Intel desktop CPUs have 16 lanes, the Z370 chipset motherboards provide another 24, for a total of 40. The X99 chipset supplies 8 PCI Express 2.0 lines and up to 40 PCI Express 3.0 lines, depending on the CPU. that you use.

Therefore, on a Z370 motherboard, a 16x PCI Express graphics card will use up to 16 lanes on its own. As a result, you can use two of these together on one Z370 board at full speed, leaving you with eight remaining lanes for additional components. Alternatively, you can run one PCI Express 3.0 card on 16 lanes (16x) and two cards on 8 lanes (8x), or four cards on 8x.

If you plan to have a lot of expansion cards, like two graphics cards, a TV tuner, and a Wi-Fi card, you can fill the lanes of a motherboard pretty quickly. In many cases the chipset determines which parts are compatible with your system and how many expansion cards you can use. But there is another main thing that determines: overclocking.

We recommend reading our post on the best motherboards on the market

Overclocking simply means pushing the clock speed of a component higher than it was designed to run. Many users choose to overclock their CPU or GPU to improve games or other performance without spending more money. This may seem like a no-brainer, but along with that speed increase comes increased energy usage and heat output, which can cause stability issues and decrease parts life.

However, only certain CPUs are ideal for overclocking. Also, only certain chipsets can allow overclocking, and some may require special firmware to enable it. Therefore, if you want to overclock, you must take into account the motherboard chipset. In the case of Intel, only the Z and X series chipsets allow overclocking. In the case of AMD, it will be possible to overclock with the X and B series chipsets . The chipsets that allow overclocking will have the necessary controls in their UEFI or BIOS to increase the CPU clock speed. If the chipset doesn't handle overclocking, then those controls won't be there.

This ends our article on what is the motherboard chipset and what is its importance. We hope that it has been useful to solve all your doubts.