MoBo Northbridge and Southbridge comparison.

[ytzerg]

I am building a new computer and trying to chose the best north bridge and or south bridge.
What would be your best choice out of these, and why?

North Bridge
Intel 945/955/975
Intel G31/G33/G35
Intel G41/G43/G45
Intel P31/P35
Intel P43/P45
Intel Q33/Q35/Q45
Intel X38/X48/X58
NVIDIA nForce 500
NVIDIA nForce 600
NVIDIA nForce 700
NVIDIA GeForce 7000
NVIDIA GeForce 9000
SiS
VIA


South Bridge
Intel ICH7
Intel ICH8
Intel ICH9
Intel ICH9DH2
Intel ICH9DO
Intel ICH9R
Intel ICH10
Intel ICH10DO
Intel ICH10R
NVIDIA MCP51
nForce 430
nForce 430i
nForce 610i
nForce 630i
SiS 966
VIA VT8237A
VIA VT8237S

 

[4745454b]

Ideally you'd get the newest and greatest. This would be the P45 and the ICH10/10R. You can safely ignore the X38/48, as they are overpriced for what you get. (PCIe 2.0 at 8x/8x power CF setups just fine, 16x/16x doesn't really bring your scores up.) If you can't afford the P45, I'd look to the P35.

Nvidias offerings aren't bad, but the chipsets can be buggy and not as good as Intels. Don't even mention SiS or Via, they are budget only.

 

[GhislainG]

You'll buy a CPU based on the chipset and not the other way around? The Intel X58 is a good choice for the I7 and the ICH10R supports several SATA drives and Intel Matrix RAID.

 

[ytzerg]

You'll buy a CPU based on the chipset and not the other way around? The Intel X58 is a good choice for the I7 and the ICH10R supports several SATA drives and Intel Matrix RAID.

You've got me lost here. I am buying a mobo bases on cpu socket.
Can you elaborate on what you meant. I am a new builder and would like to know what's the best way to look at it.

 

[GhislainG]

It would far easier if you told us what CPU you'd like to buy and then we could tell you know which motherboards (and indirectly which chipset) are best for that CPU. Knowing the best chipset for a given CPU socket doesn't really help you figure out which motherboards are best. You should also let us know what your budget is for the motherboard and memory (and how much memory you want/need).

Knowing that the X58 chipset is paired with a 1366 socket (Intel i7 CPU) and an ICH10R doesn't help you much.

 

[ytzerg]

I am guessing you choose mobo by FSB of the CPU (not sure what that is though) ? Am i right?

My budget is 600USD for both mobo and memory, and if i can squeeze a Video Card in there, that would be great.
These are the two that I've got in mind.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail . Which got FSB 1333MHz



Intel Core2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail. FSB: 1066MHz

P.S. Thank you for the help guys.

 

[4745454b]

I'm not saying GhislainG is wrong, but he's not 100% correct either. By listing the chipsets that you did, we know ~ what CPU your getting. Your just trying to find a good chipset for it. Yes, some motherboards are better then others, but that mostly extends to overclocking. All P45 chipset boards should perform around 3% deviation from each other. Same with the other chipsets. Unless your looking for a monster overclocking board, getting a P45 is what you want, don't worry to much about what board its on.

As for your choices, its hard to say what to get if we don't know what its for. If your gaming, you'll want a GPU. If your just surfing, the 7500 will be fine. If your doing video converting work, or working with large .jpg photos in photoshop, the 8500 is a better choice.

 

[ytzerg]

I'm not saying GhislainG is wrong, but he's not 100% correct either. By listing the chipsets that you did, we know ~ what CPU your getting. Your just trying to find a good chipset for it. Yes, some motherboards are better then others, but that mostly extends to overclocking. All P45 chipset boards should perform around 3% deviation from each other. Same with the other chipsets. Unless your looking for a monster overclocking board, getting a P45 is what you want, don't worry to much about what board its on.

As for your choices, its hard to say what to get if we don't know what its for. If your gaming, you'll want a GPU. If your just surfing, the 7500 will be fine. If your doing video converting work, or working with large .jpg photos in photoshop, the 8500 is a better choice.

Ye it's for gaming. Example: left4dead.
You say i need a GPU CPU? I didn't know They made CPU's with GPU's in them.

 

[unholyythunder]

If i can get in on this... Im also in a similar predicament. Im fair to say i have decent amount of knowledge to understand more in depth, can anyone direct me somewhere that tells me the differences between north/south bridges like table or maybe forum style. I would like to know diffrences in chips as well as why one is better for ex:games compared to ex:simple office or video processing. In lament terms: Special Features,Specifications

Also something thats been bugging me, if a gpu is built into the cpu, how does that help the on board mobos or video cards gpu, or is it completely different then what im thinking?

Sry i cant be of help.
Date:June22, 2009

Thx to your response