What does chip-set really mean?

Hi,

I was in the process of buying a new motherboard for an AMD AM3 socket processor. However the available motherboards are classified under four different chip-sets.

I was wondering, what difference does the chip-set really have on the final performance / life-time of the motherboard?

Regards,
Sim085

Would be easier if you linked the motherboard you had looked at.

For a small overview of what chipset does, take a look at wikipedia

In short, there are two main chipsets (north- and southbridge) that control the communication between CPU and all the devices. Each chipset has its own (dis)advantages

For general use, you should not worry about the final performance / life-time of the motherboard when looking at the chipset alone.

For example, what is the difference between these two:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-MA785GT-UD3H-AMD-785G-AM3-DDR3-1066-1333-1800-SATA-3Gb-s-RAID-ATX-VGA

and

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-GA-790XTA-UD4-DDR3-AMD-790X-DDR3-1866%28OC%29-SATA-6Gb-s-and-3Gb-s-RAID-USB-30-and-20-ATX

Apart from HDCP (which I do not know what it is), I do not see much difference.

Ok, I think I found out the difference; one is SATA 3GB and the other one is SATA 6GB...

A number of integrated circuits designed to perform one or more related functions. One chipset may provide the basic functions of a modem while another provides the CPU functions for a computer. Newer chipsets generally include functions provided by two or more older chipsets. In some cases, older chipsets that required two or more physical chips can be replaced with a chipset on one chip.