芯片组（Chipset）

What Is a Chipset | HP® Tech Takes
What Is a Motherboard Chipset? A Basic Definition | Tom’s Hardware

This essential PC component plays an important role in making everything work.

The chipset is basically the electronics on the motherboard that communicate with all the connected components.

Chipsets are usually comprised of one to four chips and feature controllers for commonly used peripherals, like the your keyboard, mouse or monitor.

Most importantly, the chipset determines compatibility between all of these other components. If any of the processors or memory cards don’t communicate with the chipset, they can’t send or receive information from the motherboard.

But in the past, there were smaller, individualized chips for each component. As time went on, chip functionality consolidated into two main chipsets, the faster northbridge that connects directly to the CPU and memory, and the slower southbridge.

Some functions are now absorbed by the CPU completely. The remaining components, which need their own communication bridge to the motherboard, use smaller and more efficient chipsets.

The chipset is a permanent fixture of the motherboard, but it must be compatible with the components or features you want to use.

芯片组的重要性

Expansion and chipset lanes
There are only so many “lanes” on a chipset, usually between 8 and 40, and these lanes are two-way, wired connections that send data back and forth between things like a graphics card and the chipset (and then on to the motherboard).

Each component may take up many lanes, and some even take up 16 lanes at once. If your chipset doesn’t have room for everything you want to connect, you can forget about the expansion. You have to make sure that both the motherboard and the chipset have the room to make your setup work.

Compatibility
That’s because not all older motherboards support newer lane formats, such as PCIe® 4.0 compatibility. If they don’t, you can’t simply buy new components and trust they’ll work. Most motherboard manufacturers have compatibility charts to help you know for sure, like AMD’s chart for the B550 chipset.

so when you’re buying a CPU, you have to consider that your processor will only work with motherboards using a specific chipset (and CPU socket).

Overclocking（超频）
If you decide to do it, the right (or wrong) chipset can be the difference between achieving those speeds you want and being disappointed.

Some chipsets simply won’t work, and others will only work after installing third-party firmware. Know what you’re getting into before you invest in a motherboard or CPU for the purpose of overclocking.

查看芯片组信息

When looking at the name of the motherboard, the chipset is the letter and number combination following the brand name. So, for an AMD 1st Gen Ryzen X300, the “X300” is the chipset.

You can also use your Device Manager to find it.
Type “Device Manager” into the search bar in your Start Menu
Click to expand “System Devices”
Look for any of the following brand names: ALI, AMD, Intel®, NVIDIA®, VIA, or SIS
The letter and number combo should be included in the chipset or motherboard listing

在 Linux 中，我们还没有找到查看芯片组的命令。当然，直接查询网上搜索笔记本的产品参数还是能搜索到的。