If we can think of the computer as a human being then the processor can be considered as the brain and the chipset can be considered the blood that is flowing through the body. These two make such a vital combination that they do almost more than half of computer. In layman’s terms, we can define the chipset as a group of microchips, which are designed to work as a single unit and are also sold as one unit. The system chipset and the controllers are like the intelligence of the motherboard. They can be considered as the traffic controllers who are controlling the flow of the data between the processor, the cache, the system bus, the peripheral, and everything else inside a computer. Since the flow of the data is the major function of a motherboard, it is the chipset that is important in the functioning of a motherboard. In earlier times there were smaller chips, which used separately to perform an individual function like the rate chip for controlling the cache, performing the ‘Direct Memory Access’ (DMA), and handling the interrupts, etc. But as technology advanced, all these individual chips were integrated into a single chip called a chipset, which has the capability of doing all the functions, which was earlier done by the smaller chips. It is important to know about the chipset as it controls the flow of the bits that travel between the processor, the system memory, and the motherboard bus. The efficient data transfers, the fast expansion bus support, and the advanced power management features are just a few of the things that the system chipset is responsible for. One of the key features of a chipset is its support for the processor. The key points are the type of the processors, the chipset of the motherboard supports, and the number of the processors. There is much different type of chipsets that are available in the market, which has support for different standards. However, the most chipsets are designed to support only one class of the processors like INTEL 486, INTEL PENTIUM, and INTEL PENTIUM PRO. The chipsets are different for various processors as they use different circuits. For example, in case of INTEL PENTIUM-2, the ‘Level Two’ (L2) cache is built into the processor itself so the circuit of the chipset supporting these processors would be different from those of INTEL PENTIUM, where the L2 cache is on the motherboard and not on the processor. Also, most chipsets that support INTEL PENTIUM processors also support the other range of processors like AMD and the most recent VIA. Although specialized chipsets for these processors are also available in the market these days for enhanced support. One of the major functions of the chipset is the processor speed support. Faster processors require chipsets that are capable handling them. This is because the processor bus speed and the memory bus connect the processor, the chipset, and the memory together. It is the memory bus speed that is the processors’ external speed and it is the speed with which the processor communicates with the rest of the computer. It is the bus speed that tells us typically what kind of processor is supported by the chipset. There are some chipsets that can support more than one processor, even up to two or four processors. The circuit of the chipset is such that the processors do not interfere with each other and they co-ordinate the activities of each other. It is the chipset that determines the maximum amount of memory the system can cache. Many chipsets hold more memory than they can support which is bad for the motherboard. It depends on the amount of tag RAM that is onboard.

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