The Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets, make up the core logic chipset of a computer.

They are the biggest and most centrally positioned components on a motherboard.

Let’s talk a bit more about the history of motherboards, which will help you understand how Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets came to be.

Older computers had a lot more individual chips on their motherboards.

Memory controllers, bus controllers and even keyboard controllers had their own separate chips.

But as engineers had to make faster and more complex computers, they started condensing  multiple chips into what we call chipsets.

A chipset is a collection of chips.

The key functions that were performed by smaller and individual chips, were condensed into the Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets.

This allows for computers to be faster because the components that make up a computer, are now more closely linked.

Now that you understand how they came to be, let’s talk about what the Northbridge and Southbridge chips actually do.

The Northbridge chipset is essentially the memory controller hub.

It is called Northbridge, because it is generally located at the top or north of the motherboard.

When a computer is in use, it has to retrieve saved data or memory, which then has to be transferred to the CPU for processing.

This happens when a user opens a Word document that they want to edit or when they play a game on their computer.

When a user is done, the memory or data is different and has to be taken from the CPU and stored away again as memory.

This entire process happens, thanks to the Northbridge chipset.

It connects other chips and components with the CPU. It runs all the processes required to save, retrieve, and operate memory on a computer.

Today, we tend to do a lot more with our computers, compared to 10 years ago.

… People play more complex games, super computers are used for complicated processes, and the average user could be editing multiple documents at once.

Which wasn’t possible in the past.

So most computers now have cooling systems such as fans, because Northbridge chipsets have evolved to do more processing which can raise the internal temperature of a computer.

Now let’s talk about the Southbridge!

When it comes to the Southbridge chipset, it is much easier to remember what it does. This is because it simply does everything else.

Yes, it is actually that simple!

The Southbridge is the central manager for connections to peripherals, hard drives and even your BIOS. It also controls all ISA, PCI, IDE and Legacy processes.

Like the Northbridge, it is a central hub. But for all input or output processes other than memory related ones.

And that’s that!

But… computers have different brand chipsets.

Popular examples are AMD and Intel.

Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets are actually named differently by these companies.

On computers with Intel chipsets, the Southbridge is refereed to as the IO Controller hub (ICH)

AMD calls its Southbridge the Fusion Controller Hub (FCH).

While Intel uses the name Northbridge for the Northbridge chipset, AMD uses the name Memory Controller Hub (MCH).

Unlike the Northbridge, the Southbridge actually has no direct link to the CPU.

The Southbridge interacts with the CPU through the Northbridge chipset.

Which goes to show how important the Northbridge actually is.

Probably more important than the Southbridge.

But, a computer needs both of them to execute the core functions it needs for us to use it.