Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
down to one. The remaining South Bridge chip has the same functions as what Intel previously called
the ICH, but to differentiate it from previous designs, it changed the designation to PCH (Platform
Controller Hub) instead.
Figure 4.24
shows the block diagram of a system with a socket LGA1156 Core i Series processor on
a motherboard with a P55 chipset. In the diagram you can see that the functionality of the North
Bridge is now part of the CPU, reducing the chipset to a single South Bridge (now called PCH)
component.
Figure 4.24. Block diagram of a system with a socket LGA1156 Core i Series processor and a
P55 chipset.
By building the external video interface directly into the processor, Intel is also able to produce
processors with integrated graphics processing. Several of the 5x series chipsets (such as the H55,
H57, and Q57) support the FDI (Flexible Display Interface), which requires a Core i Series
processor with integrated graphics. Using FDI, video signals are sent from the GPU in the processor
to the PCH, which then implements the physical interface to the display (that is, DisplayPort, HDMI,
DVI, or VGA).
Table 4.26
shows the 5x series chipsets for socket LGA1156 Core i Series
processors.
Table 4.26. Intel 5x Chipsets for Socket LGA1156 Core i Series Processors
