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As a rule, one can choose different motherboards based on various chipsets for one and the same processor. There are currently only four manufacturers of desktop chipsets worthy mentioning in the Intel platform sector (Intel, VIA, SiS, ATI), and also four manufacturers in the AMD sector, but the combination is different (VIA, SiS, NVIDIA, ATI). You can easily notice that VIA, SiS, and ATI "wait on" everybody, Intel does not make chipsets for AMD processors, and NVIDIA is not yet into chipsets for Intel processors, though it may start to do it soon (a remark to know-alls familiar with the word "X-Box": this article is about computers, or to be more exact, about the desktop sector of this market, i.e. about PC). Choosing a chipset is one of the most difficult problems when you buy a motherboard. There is more in this problem that meets the eye: as it often happens to homo sapiens, who invented logics only to immediately give it up, the most difficult problems for us are traditionally those, which don't really exist. That's natural: they just cannot be solved, period. This problem is one of them...
I shall not go into the analysis of performance differences between chipsets: all I think about chipset performance and motherboard performance on the whole will be given in the chapter "I need a fast motherboard!" But now, let's talk about "compatibility" and "glitches". Where is the truth? The truth is out there:
Besides, it won't hurt to remember:
There can be only one conclusion from the above said: Strange as it may seem, chipsets generally work as they should, and besides they are approximately similar in functionality. Does the "chipset choice" problem really exist? Personally I don't see this problem for a common regular user, who just needs "thread and thrum". Forget about the chipset. We have a motherboard. It has certain features: support for a certain CPU type, memory, drives, video cards, connectors for external devices, etc. Does it matter how this functionality is implemented in a given motherboard? If a chipset supports 8 USB ports, but a motherboard has only 6 of them – de facto we have 6 ports, no matter what this chipset is capable of. If a motherboard is based on i865, but it supports processors for Socket 775 – it means that designers managed to realize this support, despite the formal lack of it. Most functions supported by a chipset are given in specifications of motherboards based on this chipset. If some feature is not mentioned – it means that this motherboard most probably does not support this feature. If there are some additional features – it means that they are implemented outside the chipset. So let's evaluate a given product instead of its chips. Let these chips be evaluated by engineers who design this motherboard.
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