A motherboard contains two kinds of chipsets: Northbridge and Southbridge. The two are designed to work together while performing different functions. The Northbridge chip set links the CPU high speed components like main memory (RAM) and display controller while the Southbridge conŽtrols the CPU s connection with other comparatively lower speed devices such as PCI and sound conŽtrollers. Since the chipset alone controls communiŽcation between the processor and other devices it plays a crucial role in determining the performa~ce of a motherboard.

The chipset determines the type of CPU that can be used and the speed at which it can operate. MoreŽover, it controls the type of RAM that can be used. In high end motherboards, the onboard video chipset is deliberately removed to accommodate more performance specific features such as a dual SATA controller with onboard RAID support and dual BIOS. Many more features are also tweaked to give better performance. Apart from the regular chipsets, Intel P35 and ATI 790FX are the new ones that support quad core processors and are getting popular.