North Bridge Question

[Aegis]

Does the north bridge/south bridge affect the performance of a processor?

[LiquidSage]

Northbridge handles the processor, mem, L2 cache, and PCI bus + AGP.

Southbridge controls I/O (usb, serial, etc).

A better N/S chipset does make a difference for a mobo's highest possible potential.

IF you have a processor that has more features (HT, EE, faster bus speed, etc) and is not supported by your mobo's N/S, then you will be missing out on those features or there might be compatability issues.

[oofki]

Yep. Buy a motherboard with a sis chipset then one with an nforce4 chipset and you will be surpised in the difference. CPUs are not the only factor in speed.

[Aegis]

So is the performance impact great enough that I should pay a $20 premium to get an nForce4 Ultra over a VIA K8T890?

[Maleko]

Defo go nFORCE

[oofki]

Oh god yes. Via was still a little bit faster than an nforce3 but all the new nforce4 boards should be way faster. BTW that is if you are going to build an AMD system. I do not do a lot of intel builds so I am not sure what is best for them ATM.

If you need help pickin out a board id also be happy to help. It will be an asus though :-p