What is a motherboard chipset? How to find out the motherboard chipset: all possible ways

Chipset motherboard a computer or laptop is a whole set of chips that are responsible for the coordinated operation of all connected components, including the processor, video card, RAM, hard drives and any other peripherals. Knowing the chipset model, you can set the maximum capabilities and set of functions of the motherboard. Most often, this information is needed when upgrading, for example, to select a new, more powerful processor. But how can you find out the markings of the installed chipset?

Conventionally, the chipset is divided into two components:

• north bridge;
• south bridge.

The first is responsible for the proper and coordinated operation of the processor, video card, RAM (this set is conventionally called “logic”), the second is responsible for all other connected devices and peripherals.

Note! More modern motherboards, and especially laptops, use combined bridges called multicontrollers (or “hubs”).

Knowing the chipset model, you can find out which processors the motherboard supports, the maximum amount of RAM, as well as the allowed number of USB ports and drives. Today the most famous chipset manufacturers are Intel, AMD (a few years ago Nvidia was also in this field, but later the company focused on video adapters).

If you want to know in more detail, you can read an article about it on our portal.

How to find out the chipset model?

Most the right way find out the chipset model - visually inspect the motherboard. But for this you will need to disassemble your PC or laptop (which many people may have problems with). The name of the chipset is indicated on both the north and south bridges. As a rule, the chips themselves are soldered (BGA socket) and covered with a small heatsink (the chipset in most motherboard models does not heat up as much as the processor or GPU).

An easier option is to use specialized programs. The best in this regard are AIDA64 (or more old version Everest utilities), as well as CPU-Z.

AIDA64

You can download the program on the official website https://www.aida64.com/downloads (trial version, working for 30 days, then you need to buy a license key). You should download the Extreme, Engineer or Business edition (their functionality is identical, the only difference is in the form of customer service support).

1. Go to the official website, select the program version, click on the “Download” button.

   

2. Click the mouse to launch the downloaded file.

   

3. In the Setup Wizard window, click Next.

   

4. Accept the terms of the agreement, click “Next”.

   

5. Check the appropriate options and click “Next”.

   

6. Click Install.

   

7. Check the box so that the program starts after installation, click “Finish”.

   

8. To find out the chipset model, just go to side menu in the section “Motherboard” - “Chipset”. The marking is indicated in the description of the south or north bridge device (one or two letters followed by 2 - 4 numbers, for example - HM76).

   

Note! This instruction also suitable for the Everest program (visually they also look the same).

CPU-Z

CPU-Z can be downloaded from official page project https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html.

After installing and launching the program, the chipset model can be found in the “Mainboard” section, the “Chipset” or “Sourthbridge” item (depending on whether bridges or a combined multicontroller are located on the board).

Where can I get drivers for the chipset?

In 99% of cases, there is no need to install drivers for the chipset - they are already integrated into Windows. If something doesn't work correctly (USB works on minimum speed, the processor frequency is too low, the video card is not recognized properly), then only then the drivers should be installed. But be sure to download from the manufacturer’s website (or laptop), and not from the AMD or Intel websites!

For example, for Asus laptop X55C with HM76 chipset driver can be obtained as follows:

Step 1. Go to the official ASUS website (asus.com).

Step 2. Enter “Asus x55c” into the search form.

Step 3. Click on the required model and go to the review section for this model. Next, select “Support” - “Drivers”.

Step 4. Choose required version operating system.

Step 5. Find the item with “Chipset” and download the required file.

How to find out the capabilities of the chipset?

Data on the specifications of certain chipsets can be found on the official websites of AMD or Intel. For example, to get information about the HM76 (Intel) chipset you need to:

Step 1. Go to Google, enter in search bar"Intel HM76".

In total, you can find out the brand of the installed chipset without disassembling your PC or laptop.

Important! But it’s worth considering that not all chipset capabilities are always used by manufacturers. Detailed specifications must be clarified with the company that produced it.

Video - Motherboard chipset

The word “Chipset” comes from the English “Chip Set”, which translated into Russian sounds like “Set of chips” or, more correctly, “Set of chips”. In other words, a Chipset is a special chip designed to collaboration in order to perform a set of specific functions, combined into one set, usually structurally implemented in one housing. On the motherboard of a computer or laptop, the Chipset plays the role of liaison, which combines RAM, processor (CPU), into one single “organism”, hard drive, input/output devices, etc., and also ensures the joint functioning of PC subsystems. Chipsets are used not only in computer technology, but also in tablets, smartphones, TVs, game consoles etc.

On a modern motherboard, the chipset consists of two main parts.

Chipset logical device:

Input/Output Controller Hub (ICH)— input/output controller that provides interaction between hard drive, IDE interfaces, SATA, USB, PCI and PCIExpress cards with central processor CPU. It is also called “South Bridge”.

Memory Controller Hub (MCH)- memory controller. This chip allows the processor to communicate with RAM and a video card using a special FSB or HyperTransport bus. Its second name is “Northern Bridge”. IN latest versions modern processors it may already be integrated directly into the CPU.

Moreover, in recent years, you may encounter the fact that on some motherboards MCH and ICH are combined into one chip - System Controller Hub or for short SCH.

Main manufacturers chips for motherboards:

1. Intel 2. ATI/AMD 3. nVidia 4. Viva 5. Sis

How to determine the chipset model on a computer or laptop?

You won’t be able to just look at the brand and model of the chipset on the motherboard in Windows 8 or Windows 10. To do this, you will additionally need to install special program, which shows basic information about components computer. For example, Aida64 or Everest. In it we open information about the motherboard - “Motherboard”:

Find the line Motherboard Chipset. For example, in my example the chip is used X58 families Intel Chipset Family.

- today we will look at how to find out the model of the motherboard on a computer. Updating drivers, checking hardware compatibility, and purely out of curiosity - ... using the methods given in this article to check the motherboard model is much easier than disassembling the computer and studying the stickers inside the system unit.

You can simulate quite a lot of situations in which it is very important to know the model of the motherboard: a banal driver update, buying new hardware (find out what can be added to the system and whether there are the necessary slots for this, for example, to expand RAM)…

If you still have the documents that were issued with the computer (or individual items for components, if you selected the components yourself), you can find out the answers to your question there. It's probably even best way, because you can check the compliance of the real situation with what is indicated in your documents.

As a matter of principle, I will not tell you how to find out the name of the motherboard by opening the system unit - in current situation this is absolutely unnecessary, because software methods will give information more than just a visual inspection of the motherboard.

Of course, I don’t deny that you can recognize the model by looking at the board itself (I’m not so stubborn as to say that this should never be done), and an advanced user probably knows where and what to look... but for us, I recommend using the simplest and most correct methods

Method 1. Find out the name of the motherboard through the command line

If you enjoy using command line Windows, then you can easily find out the motherboard model using powerful tool WMIC Microsoft.

With WMIC we can perform a baseboard query to check the motherboard and several additional parameters such as serial number, revision and other detailed information about your motherboard. Let's try, using an example, to find out the manufacturer of our motherboard, model and serial number using WMIC.

The program is in English, but this will not be a problem for us; we are specifically interested in the line Motherboard - this is the name of our motherboard.

Despite such a small size (less than 1 megabyte in archive) the program can tell you a lot about your computer, but I wouldn’t recommend using it... find out what kind of motherboard is on your computer - it’s great, for everything else there are more convenient analogues.

Method 3. AIDA64 - find out the motherboard model

There are several editions of AIDA64, which suits us perfectly Extreme version Edition (the application costs money, but the 30-day version is suitable for us trial version, indicated on the download page as TRIAL)

After installing AIDA64, launch the program and find the “Motherboard” icon on the left side. In the window that opens, the second line “Motherboard” will display the manufacturer and model of the motherboard. As you can see in my computer the name of the motherboard is Asus P8H67.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the window, you can find a link to the page for downloading the latest BIOS (Line “Download BIOS updates”). This may be useful if the goal is to determine the motherboard firmware new version BIOS firmware

Method 4. Piriform Speccy - a good program from the developers of Ccleaner

If you have ever used CCleaner program and she left you with only positive emotions with her result, then the question of how to find out the motherboard model will be answered by a small Speccy program from the developers of the same Cclener (Piriform). As always, you can download it from the official website:

Launch the application and on the left side go to the “Motherboard” tab. On the right side in the “Model” line there will be an answer to our question - in our case it is P8H67 (LGA1155)...

Not only did the program correctly determine the name of the motherboard installed in the computer, but it also showed its socket (1155) and many more useful information(such as voltage, BIOS version and system temperature)

Method 5. CPU-Z - will tell you not only about the processor

CPU-Z is a very popular utility for identifying a processor, but it is perfect for identifying the motherboard model on a computer. The program is absolutely free and does not require installation, just download current version from the official website

After launching the utility, go to the “Mainboard” tab and in the “Model” line there will be the name of the installed motherboard. On my computer motherboard P8H67 (for now readings all applications are the same)

For many, the BIOS block will be useful; the firmware version and manufacturer are displayed here...

Method 6. HWiNFO32 - detailed information about the motherboard

To download the program, go to the official website (there are several versions of the program - HWiNFO32 for 32-bit systems and HWiNFO for 64-bit). In my case I downloaded HWiNFO64.

After installing the appropriate version of HWiNFO, launch it (launch may take for a long time collecting information about the components of your computer). The program will automatically display the "System Summary" screen, where the motherboard model will be shown in the "Motherboard" section

By the way, please note that HWiNFO correctly identified the video card... I should add it to the note about video cards

Method 7. Sisoftware Sandra - an underrated program

When I was looking for information on how to view the motherboard on a computer, I never came across such an application as Sandra Lite in the reviews (this is what we will use, since specifically Lite- distributed free of charge). As usual, you can download it on the official website, avoid left-wing sources...

After installing Sisoftware Sandra Lite, launch the program and go to the “Devices” tab. In the window that appears, double-click on the “Motherboard” icon and wait until the utility collects all necessary information. Detailed information about your motherboard will open in a new window, in the “Model” line and there will be an answer to the question: How to find out the model of the motherboard?

This section displays not only the name of your motherboard, here you will find a lot of other useful information about your motherboard. For example, you can find out how much memory and how many slots there are for it... or the model of the chipset on which your system is built

BONUS! Information about the motherboard in the HTML report

This application is called LookInMyPC and you can download it from the developers website (in English, there is portable version no installation required)

http://www.lookinmypc.com/download.htm

After launch, you can choose what exactly to generate a report about, but we leave everything as it is and click the “Generate Report” button... all you have to do is wait for the report to be generated - it’s quick.

The report file will open in any browser, in the “BIOS Information” block in the “Board Product ID” line and there will be the name of our motherboard.

In fact, the report contains quite a lot of interesting and useful information, and as for English language — Google Chrome translates everything wonderfully.

The report generates quite a lot of data about the software part, and you can view it at any time without the program itself - this is very convenient

What have we learned about the motherboard? — Conclusions

Friends, we have looked at several ways to find out the motherboard model. As you understand from the note, this is quite possible to do without disassembling system unit- there are more civilized methods.

What to do with this information? - even if you need to visually look at your motherboard, it is quite possible to find its image and specifications on the official website by the model name.

Any computer component is connected or integrated into the motherboard. Each of the components is created to perform its function: the processor calculates, the graphics adapter displays an image, network adapter– connects to the network.

Appearance Intel chipset H 170 without radiator

Chipset (from the English Chipset) is a technical term (Chip - chip, microcircuit; Set - set, installation), meaning a set of chips that connects independent components on the motherboard.

Why do you need a chipset?

The main chip on the motherboard is the processor (CPU), it issues commands to other devices, but cannot do it directly. The chipset connects the CPU with other systems: random access memory (RAM), input/output system, adapters and controllers peripheral devices. Communication is carried out via a bus system.

General diagram of the motherboard chipset

To connect with different components different tires serve:

• with processor – system bus;
• with memory – memory bus;
• with graphics adapter – PCI, PCI-Express or AGP;
• with LPT, PS/2 devices – Low Pin Count bus.

The chipset only controls the interaction of systems, but does not interfere with their operation.

Chipset defines:

• number of components in subsystems: possible number of processors, memory slots, graphics adapters, expansion slots and ports on the motherboard.
• bus frequency and bit depth through which it communicates with the subsystem;
• Is it possible to increase the characteristics of individual subsystems: clock frequency processor(s), memory voltage;
• technology support by subsystems: dual operation mode of video cards – CrossFire and SLI; dual memory mode – DUAL RAM, caching on SSD – Smart Response Technology.
• support for interaction with special or legacy controllers: RAID, PCI, AGP.

The chipset provides: performance, expandability and stability in different modes computer.

How the chipset works

The chipset consists of one two or more microcircuits. The microcircuits are called bridges (since 1995). The traditional chipset is dual-bridge. In the dual-bridge segment, the chipset is divided into a north and south bridge.

North connects directly to the processor and memory. South on one side - with north through the internal bus, on the other with peripheral controllers: slots PCI extensions; controllers of women's SATA drives,IDE; Ethernet controller, Audio controller and EEPROM (BIOS).

Dual bridge chipset circuit diagram

At the heart of each bridge is a controller hub.

The northern one is a memory hub that is connected to the CPU via the system bus (FSB for Intel processors, HyperTransport for AMD) and enables communication between the CPU and memory. Sometimes a graphics subsystem is added to this bundle, which is connected to the chipset via PCI-Express.

The southern one has an I/O hub. It communicates with the CPU through an intermediary - the north bridge. Manages the interaction between the CPU and controllers hard drives(SATA, IDE, SCSI), solid state drives USB.

AMD 760M Dual Bridge Chipset

Maternal MSI board on a single-chip configuration of the Intel H110 chipset

More modern model chipset - single-bridge or single-chip, where the north bridge is combined with the processor. By combining:

• production becomes cheaper;
• frees up space on the motherboard, which is occupied by the server bridge chip;
• energy consumption is reduced;
• The heat dissipation from the chip is improved due to the powerful processor cooling system.

How to find out the motherboard chipset

If they brought you a computer from the store, connected it and set it up, and you are simply curious, then go to the device manager of the operating system and open the list of system devices.

The line with the word Chipset will be your chipset:

Chipset name in Device Manager

If no drivers are installed, another way is to read the technical documentation for the motherboard and read there. You can also read it on the box. The “name” of the chipset in the full product name comes after the manufacturer’s brand:

MSI H110 VD-PRO, ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7, MSI 970 GAMING.

If the box is lost, and the instructions and technical documentation If you light the stove on a cold night, you can open the system unit and look at the motherboard. The name of the chipset on the motherboard is hard to miss.

The easiest option is to use the AIDA64 utility. Download the program from, install, launch from the desktop shortcut.

Open the “motherboard” tab. Select the “motherboard” item and voila:

Chipset name in Aida64

If you wish, you can go to the chipset tab, but the program is paid and will not allow you to find out complete information.

A free alternative is the CPU-Z utility.

Download and install (English and Chinese). Launch the utility from your desktop. Go to the "MainBoard" tab

Determining the chipset model in CPUZ

Information about the chipset is in the ChipSet line. ABOUT South Bridge– in the SouthBridge line.