Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
ThenForce600series forAMDincludes onechipset, the680a,whichsupportsAthlon64
FX processors in Socket L1/1207. the 680a includes dual PCIe x16 slots, a PCIe x8 slot,
anduptoeight PCIex1slots.Itsupports12SATA3Gbpsdevices andfourPATAdevices,
and RAID. It includes HD audio, 20 USB ports, and four Gigabit Ethernet ports. For de-
tails, see http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce_600a.html .
The nForce 700 series for AMD includes six chipsets, the 720D, 720a, 730a, 740a
SLI, 750a SLI, and the 780a SLI. These chipsets include support for PCIe 2.0, SATA
and PATA drives including RAID, 12 USB 2.0 ports, and Gigabit Ethernet. For more
information about processors supported, PCIe slots, and RAID configurations, see ht-
tp://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/35382/LC_motherboard_AMD_Nov08_web.pdf
The nForce 900 series for AMD currently includes one chipset, the 980a SLI, supporting
processors in Sockets AM2, AM2+, and AM3, including Phenom, Phenom II, Athlon
X2, and Athlon. It supports PCIe version 2, has 35 PCIe lanes, and can support three-
way
SLI.
For
more
information,
see
http://www.nvidia.com/object/
product_nforce_980a_sli_us.html .
NVIDIA also supports SLI on AMD's 900-series chipsets.
Super I/O Chips
A third major chip once seen on many PC motherboards is called the Super I/O chip. This
is a chip that integrates devices formerly found on separate expansion cards in older sys-
tems. Newer motherboards lacking legacy ports have little need for Super I/O chips, and
features they once included such as the CMOS RAM are usually integrated into the South
Bridge chipset component.
Inmostlate-modelchipsets,theSouthBridgechipnowincludesthefunctionalityofSuper
I/O chips as well as providing support for the ports that have replaced the legacy ports
incorporated into Super I/O chips, such as USB, SATA, and IEEE-1394.
For more information about Super I/O chips, see โ€œ Super I/O Chips โ€ in Chapter 4 ,
โ€œ MotherboardsandBuses , โ€of Upgrading and Repairing PCs, 19 th edition, includedinits
entirety on the DVD packaged with this topic.
Motherboard Connectors
A modern motherboard contains a variety of connectors. Figure 4.28 shows the connector
locations on a typical motherboard. Several of these connectors, such as power supply
connectors,serialandparallelports,andkeyboard/mouseconnectors,arecoveredinother
chapters.
Figure 4.28 Typical motherboard connectors.
 
 
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