Motherboard chipsets explained, including why chipsets are needed and what they do, legacy Northbridge / Southbridge chipsets, and modern platform controller hubs. Plus information on current and recent Intel and AMD chipsets and their processor compatibilities.
My previous video “Explaining PCIe cards” is here: • Explaining PCIe Slots
And the web page where Intel describes a chipset is here: www.intel.com/content/www/us/...
If you enjoy this video you may also be interested in these earlier ExplainingComputers episodes:
“Explaining Intel & AMD CPUs”:
• Explaining Intel & AMD...
“How do CPUs Work?”:
• How Do CPUs Work? and
“The big.LITTLE CPU Revolution”:
• The big.LITTLE CPU Rev...
More videos on computing and related topics can be found at / explainingcomputers
You may also like my ExplainingTheFuture channel at: / explainingthefuture
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:42 Motherboard interfaces
03:12 Chipset Evolution
06:18 Intel Chipsets
09:52 AMD Chipsets
11:46 The Silicon Backbone
#Chipset #Intel #AMD #ExplainingComputers
As some of you have noticed, in the Intel diagram from about 06:25 to 07:32, the two labels connected to the processor at the top left should be labelled "x16 PCIe 5.0" and "x4 PCIe 4.0", (not PCI as they appear). My apologies. Somehow, regardless of how many times I check things, an error insists on creeping through! :( The audio correctly describes them as PCIe, as would also be inferred from the previous generic Intel schematic.
I am sure we all knew it would only make sense as PCIe. I'm not a KZhead creator, but maybe do one of those text overlays? Thank you for the video. Informative as always.
There's another spot where the graphic says something like " 5 x PCIe" that I couldn't figure out, but eventually decided must be inverted. But no worries, the whole most excellently explains the chipset system, and I had a moment of enlightenment about how it is that performance has so radically increased in recent systems.
Was just about to mention this but good catch. Great video yet again, thank you.
Great video with your perfectly clear explanations, as always. Thanks Chris for providing great content!
@@mlong5666 Thanks Mike.
A+ study guides should be written this way. Clear, concise and retainable.
This guy is saying good things but he talks a little like a professor in class that makes you feel you want to sleep or talk to the person next to you.
@@SIPEROTH Not if you are curious and truly interested in the content. I was fully engaged the whole video but I am not saying you should be. My Dad use to say I had selective attention and memory. Yup, I sure did, and I still do now. I fall asleep during many conversations!
Exactly, I read the book and wasn't sure what it was talking about until I watched this video.
When getting a motherboard, it is important to check if chipset support the CPU you are buying. Good explanation.
Or more importantly with AMD, that the motherboard BIOS it ships with supports your CPU out of the box. If not then you'll have to use a cheaper CPU to boot it, do the BIOS update and then fit your intended CPU.
And check the right memory for your MoBo.
@@6581punk AMD (at least used to) will send you a chip for free to do this very thing. Thought I might have had to do it for my last build, but luckily it just worked.
@@NH-mc7xs It could also be the case, that your motherboard will support a BIOS upgrade without inserting a cpu. Vandors like Gigabyte call this feature "q flash plus" .
I’m struggling with a Blank Lenovo T440 Factory with windows 8pro. It came with no OS. I’ve been trying to USB boot Win10, with no success due to the bios not enabling the device to run on in the Boot menu in BIOS. I just need a no strong machine for Archiving Databases, and reliability for downloading onto External Storage devices. This is not easily done with just an IPhone as alternate device. What am I missing here?
Chris, this would have been incredibly difficult to get my head around if it wasn't for those lovely graphics which you must have spent hours on! Thanks
My daughters friend wants to pursue a career in computers - he isn't sure in what capacity yet, he's only 11 but very keen! - and I have sat with him through several of your tutorials. Thank you for your educational material Christopher, his interest - and enthusiasm - have grown considerably and you present the information in a way that is perfect for people - young and old - who want the facts without fluff. I appear to have picked up some additional dad points too!
Well, I have started building and repairing computers shortly after turning 12, during Christmas holidays that year. At age 16 I got my first network going, Novell NetWare 3.12 back then. At age 18 I won the contract to build my Highschools computer network (and learned not to listen to customers cabling choices due to aesthetics, it worked but only at 10Mbps and poorly instead of 100Mbps properly like the rest of the network where my choice was the law). So, my advice is, get him to work part time on a small to medium computer shop where they let him work hands on AND make sure to force him to finish highschool and make sure to have him on a related course (I ended in Electronics, Microelectronics, Electricity, Communications and Industrial Automation technical course due to the Ministry of Education budget cuts removing the course I applied to, Computing and Programming, but I have to say that the electronics background really helped me more than I ever thought, though I only noticed or took advantage of much latter, which is partly why I never went to university and focused on working and making money, make sure he has a course he can work hands on and use straight away)
And give him programming books regarding C, C++ and also provide him with books on Algorithms. Have him make an analogue clock (will need trigonometry and all of it, me deciding I had to do one resulted in my Maths Trigonometry test having my highest grade ever without studying for the test, well what you'd call study that is, using trig's as in depth as that forced me to really did the job way better than any conventional studying. Same thing for statistics, I wanted to make a. Installation program, so I needed a progress bar and we didn't have objects doing everything for you back then meaning not only I had to draw the progress bar I had to handle the maths, result I derived the formula to calculate percentages with a variable number of elements without ever studying statistics which were actually the first thing on the menu on my next year of maths. During the first week I found myself looking at the board and thinking, shit I know that formula... It was the same I had come to when doing my stuff hehehe. My only regret was not combining programming and my school studies more often, specifically anything involving mathematics and physics. Give the kid some legs with the programming books, then challenge him with school stuff being implemented on software by him. He'll be studying and learning willingly and happily without even noticing! He won't need to cram ANY topic he does a program for using the formulas and knowledge gathered from school lessons. He will know it by heart when the time comes to have an exam.
Show the young man some videos from Asianometry channel, involving semiconductor manufacturing stuff (ASML, Zeiss, ...). Maybe it's a bit early for that, but who knows?
I used to build and sell computers for years. I knew you needed a "good" chipset, but had no idea of what you explained here. I just accepted the word of my suppliers. Thanks!
Excellent concretization of a concept I only vaguely comprehended previously. These videos continue to interest me, even though I can only partially understand them.
just takes time and experience
I was just trying to sort out what I needed to buy in order to build my first gaming PC in almost 20 years. I was trying to sort out what Ryzen 3000 or 500 or X470 all meant. I just about gave up and went Intel for the simple fact that I understood their naming scheme. Thank you for this, now I can actually go in with a little more understanding and choose the processor and chipset that make the most sense for me.
Almost the same situation as I were in. Built my first in '03/'04, my 2nd in '20. I went with AMD. Looking at building my first server(NAS), and trying to catch up on Intel's Core series CPU and mobo naming scheme 🤯. Having a bit of hard time trying to figure out which lake-series fit which socket and chipset - in hopes finding a cheap solution to my needs.
Thanks for this video, Chris. For a long time, I have been waiting for someone to show me the difference between a Z motherboard and a B motherboard this was a brilliant video and well worth watching again as a reminder, I wish there were more videos like this one, it explained so much I needed to know about the in's and outs of a computer,
The animations in the first part of the video were simply awesome! Thanks again for yet another instructive and entertaining episode
Many thanks.
@@ExplainingComputers Do you make these 3D animations yourself? Just wondering if you're modelling these components yourself, or maybe you can get models of these things online? Because it's actually quite detailed with all the pins and holes, and even some little resistors (?) on the RAM and NVMe. Nice. Also, I like the reflections. Especially on the motherboard itself, where you can see, from the reflections, that it's not a flat surface but has loads of tiny dimples on it.
@@klaxoncow I do indeed make the animations myself, and here its all geometry (rather than some of the detail being in texture maps). So the PCIe slots and RAM slots contain a lot of polygons! It is possible to purchase stock 3D models online, and I have done so in the past for some components. But I've never been happy with the quality of the modelling when it comes to PC parts, so everything in this video (and indeed in the EC title sequence) has been modelled myself.
@@ExplainingComputers I'm suitably impressed, then. Granted, it's all geometric shapes, when it comes to these connectors. But you do have an attention to detail there - actually modelling it properly, with geometry, not just some texture map to "fake" where the holes should be - that I do appreciate. It's also a nice and crisp render too. Do you use Blender or something else?
@@klaxoncow Everything is modelled and rendered in LightWave 3D. If starting out today I would choose Blender. But it did not exist when I started using LightWave in the early 1990s.
This is another superb and essential entry into the estimable corpus of your fundamental Explaining Computers video series. Everybody benefits by this knowledge when trying to make a computer buying decision. But especially anybody who is trying to design their own do-it-yourself personal computer configuration will benefit greatly by understanding these basic architecture choices. All the permanent functional capabilities are constrained by this choice. Thank you once again, Dr. Barnatt!
I've been watching too long, missed the "Lets go take a closer look" line 😆 as always nicely done 👍!
Nice animations, especially the M.2 screw fastening.
This video reminded me why you're going to hit that 1M subscribers mark. Especially appreciated that you started talking newer chipsets, but also covered older chipsets. Thanks for another excellent video.
It's truly a gift to take a complex (or at least seemingly complex) topic and break it down so that more people can truly grasp it. Thanks again for another amazing video which does just that.
No longer confusing! Thanks for making it all so clear and also explaining what Northbridge and Southbridge meant...I was too lazy to look it up myself. Usual excellent presentation.
Another cracking, informative video filling in details on all those things you know exist but never really had the time or inclination to dig into.
You are the sole reason I know/care anything about hardware, as an OS/software nerd. You just make it so easy to follow and produce it so well yet simple and elegant.
…another great video Chris!…the often overlooked, forgotten chipset - thanks for bringing it the rightful attention it deserves!…
A fantastically concise yet well-explained video. Thank you!
Thank you for bringing this video Chris ...much needed
A truly wonderful presentation, Chris!
Clear, concise, accurate and informative as always. Thanks.
Chris, we need more channels like yours that prove learning technology can be fun in itself without all the unnecessary gimmicks. Cheers to you.
Really great and informative video Chris!
Awesome presentation! I'm not new to building computer systems but failed to learn explicitly about the chip class designations until now. Very handy when shopping. Thanks.
This is genuinely useful information I never considered reading up on
This was pretty well done and clearly explained. That reflections on that 3D render of a motherboard made me wow on the amount of effort you put for a small segment of the video. If only school lectures were all like your videos Chris as they are easy to understand haha. The Intel chipsets (and those for Ryzen 5000) were new knowledge to me as I haven't been following on the new tech lately. When I bought the motherboard for my current pc (Ryzen 5 2600 and B350) I should have spent a bit more on the motherboard because while it works for most things, it fails hard on detecting my USB game controller and only works for a little bit once every power cycle.
One of your best, most useful videos for us mere mortals planning to spec out our new desktop. Thank you!
This is extremely helpful, I've never given much thought to these chipsets I've literally just searched for a motherboard with the right socket and the right connections I need
Great video! I will have to watch it a couple more times to internalize all this information.
This was a much needed video on modern motherboard chipsets. Thanks!
Great video, very clear explanation of the chipset setup. It’s quite amazing how motherboard have evolved over the years yet based on the same principles.
Another excellent video, with very useful information. Thanks Chris.
Thanks for the info, very informative
Thanks for a great and devilishly informative presentation (again!). Congratulations on the design; the container is as excellent as the content!
Oh Man What a Great Explaining Video Chris. As Previous Comments Noted, simply Brilliant Graphics and Clear and Concise Voice over just Fantastic Thankyou so Very Much.
I'm currently taking a college Computer Tech Supp course and just reading a text book trying to understand chipsets and how they match wihlth the CPU and mobo, this made it so much easier!! I spent 7 hours last night after 8hours of work doing this...
Good luck with your course. :)
Really clear explanation of a complex topic - thanks!
When I need a valuable academic explanation I enjoy watching ExplainingComputers :) Thank you so much
This is a great explanation for these modern chipset, thank you for this great video👏🏼
Excellent presentation and crystal clear. As always, of course.
Another very well made & informative video!
I ignored this when it came out, but what a great overview! Thanks as always.
Very good explained. And jolly good graphics! Great job - Thank You!
HOW I WISH A+COMPIA GUIDE WAS WRITTEN THIS WAY,SIMPLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE
You put a lot of work in this presentation ! Cheers
Excellent! Very informative. Thank you
Great information as always, thanks
08:05 'and the last number is always zero!' *small pause this was the funniest thing ever
A channel named Explaining Computers literally explaining computers and doing it very well. Thanks!
Thanks for explaining computers. Great presentation. 👍
Greetings on another Sunday. :)
It’s part of my Sunday morning ritual. ☕️ 🥯 & EC 😊
I understand chipsets and bios well, but can I say: what a useful and under covered topic. Cheers!
As always very good, accurate and highly professional explanation, thank you very much for your efforts!
Another on the mark video... Great job
Thanks for another great video Chris. This one has a lot to cover, so I'll be watching it a couple more times, at least. I do miss the days when CPU’s and motherboards were simpler to choose from.🙂
THIS IS MY GUYYYYY so happy I have found this channel thank you for all the knowledge and information provide for the community
Thanks for watching. :)
This helped so much! Great video
An actual Explaining Computers explaining computers video. Back to basics. Well done, as usual!
Yes, you are correct. A "real" explaining computers video this week! :)
I look forward to your videos and I've learned so much... Very fundamental things and so easily explained
Such lucidity and simplicity in the explanation is a mark of your erudition Christopher. I express my gratitude to you as appreciation for your work. Bravo!!!
Thanks for your kind feedback, most appreciated. :)
Honestly, I have watched so many different tech channels, and none of them have actually explained the chip set like this.
Thanks so much Chris, this is something I don’t generally think about. I plan to build a new desktop later this year: this presentation is therefore timely. 🙏
another cracking good explanatory vid, many thanks Chris
Thanks 👍
As always very informative and helpful, thank you very much :)
this is great, Ive always wondered what a chipset even was since I first learned about them
Very grateful for this wonderful explanation ✔👏
Finally understood what is a chipset ❤ . Thanks for your hard work. Great content.❤
Great video on a topic that is sometimes quite confusing. Thanks!
I love your videos i always learn so many new things that i never understood before
Hi Chris, I see the classroom is all setup and ready for today’s lesson! I have my notebook out and ready to take some notes, so let’s get started! 📝👨🏫
Nice. Details well expained with graphics.
Wow thank you for the explanation. It was easy to understand with how you explained things. Thanks!
I wish I could hit the "like" button a hundred times as I enjoy your videos so much. You are a great teacher. Glad to have you aboard. Thank you Chris.
Thanks!
Wonderfully informative.
Another excellent video, a great refresher on chipsets, they have always confused the hell out of me .
Great tutorial. Very informative.
Excellent video for a device we all take for granted!
Great clarification Chris! 🤩
Thanks! 👍
Thank's for the good explanation of the chipsets.
Excellent info. So very well presented !! ;)
Super one Chris ! With the manufacturer information (Processor, chipset, memory, motherboard, add-on boards) that's published on the web nowadays, ordinary bods i.e. non-enthusiasts should, if they wish, have no difficultly checking compatibility between components, purchasing same and building their own custom computer - its a breeze compared with 30 years ago. Build times then could range up to several days, when in a component information desert that existed then, hours could be spent altering settings on just one board (Via jumpers) to make components behave properly with one another. And that was before you loaded any software. Nowadays you can comfortably get a system up and running in half a day
Thank you for working the explanation of the chip sets into an easy to understand video. I don't think I have ever heard an explanation of the chips sets and their relation to the cpu that is so easy to understand. Maybe a little to explain how the bios and chip sets are related would have been helpful.
Very informative, thank you.
Thank you for the Awesome and Very Informative Video
The frightening thing about this excellent video is that even after an explanation that makes the schemes a lot clearer it is still very complicated. But thank you for making my current search for my next desktop PC a lot easier.
Thank you for explaining computers. You make good videos.
Good morning yet again from the US! Thanks for another great "Explaining ___" video. ❤️
Thanks for the crystal clear explanation Chris.
Greetings Chris. :)
Thank you, for this good video. I like this comparision. I learned a lot from it.
Thank you so much for that video it was so informative my all Time Favorite. Continue the good work I wish you well.
again, amazing video lots of detailed info which was unbelievably useful and refreshing to the mind, when you think you know a lot there's always more to learn...I thank you very much for all the work you've been doing here, I'm a huge fan of this channel may god bless you and help you make more of these great videos.
Thanks for your kind feedback. :)
I didn't know anything about chipsets or how important they are for the motherboard to function, as long as everything worked all was well with the world. Thank you for the informative video, I continue to learn more every Sunday, loved the graphics to. :)
Amazing! Thank you for the dive into chips. I did not know most of it before. Working as sales at IBM I got the performance tech info of new v/s old and different ways new chip managed work flow. EMENSE THANK YOU!
I like to think I am quite knowledgeable on the subject of computers but I always learn something new after watching one of your videos. Thank you for the great content.
I am from India & iam in rural area... I am interested to know about computers from my childhood... I have watched many of your computer explaining videos... The way of your explanation and your msg conveying is really excellent👏👏 keep doing it in your way... & thanks for all of your videos... You means a lot 😊😊
Very helpful, thank you!!
Thankyou sir I was waiting for this since months I loved the video and you cleared all of my doubt. love from India ❤
Well explained. Thank you
Jolly perfect, again. Thank you for this and all of your content. 👏👏👏 👍👍 So many useful pieces of information here.
. . . Cordially request a follow-on video one day on the topic of laptop chipsets and in particular, which of their principal design/engineering/commercial considerations have driven the trend toward ossified, sword-in-the-stone cpus and ram as the default build in this cherished format. Warmly yours.