A+ Certification/Exam Objectives/Hardware/Basics/Motherboard/Architecture/Northbridge

 Northbridge 

In Northbridge and Southbridge chipset architecture designs, the Northbridge is the chip, or collection of chips, that connect a Central Processing Unit (CPU) to memory, the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, Level 2 (L2) cache and Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) activities. The Northbridge chip communicates with the CPU through the Front-Side Bus (FSB).

The Northbridge chip is one of two chips that control the functions of the chipset. The Northbridge can consist of more than one discrete chip unlike the Southbridge which is typically only one discrete chip.

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