Gadgetory

today I want to talk about chipsets what they are and what they do and how to choose between them should you for instance consider this MSI be 150 a gaming Chrome on the board which uses the be 150 chipset as a home for your new skylake CPU or what a z170 motherboard that uses z170 chipset like this z170a gaming m7 be a better fit hi I am just itching to find out excellent I was going to show you guys 500 cool features of the fractal core 500 ITX case but that would take way too long so here are five its compact and sleep with a brushed front panel it has surprisingly good water flowing support it has big magnetic dust filters it supports full sized ATX power supplies and it has room for 170 millimeter tall CPU coolers click the sponsor link in the description for more information if you've ever picked out parts for a PC in the past you may have paused upon consideration of the motherboard after all when you're finding a motherboard for your build there's not just CPU socket compatibility to worry about there's picking the right form factor to fit your case whether it's ATX like this one Mini ITX or micro ATX and then you've got a pour-over all of the options within those parameters which can be pretty extensive of course you must ensure that it's got a bangin design and color scheme to match your sweet new graphics card and even beyond all that there's the huge daunting list of bandwidth numbers specs and port offerings that tends to be the most confusing part many of the things on that list are determined by what chipset your motherboard uses so to help understand what the chipset controls on the motherboard let's take a look at a lovely block diagram so this here is the generic 100 series chipset block diagram that Intel provides specifically in this case talk about the z170 chipset prepared with an i7 6700 K processor so up on top you can see the processor of course and then that connects up directly to for example the memory here on the top right ddr4 ddr3l depending on what the case may be it's a dual channel so you have two lines going over there also on the top left you'll notice PCI Express connection directly to the CPU and there's different configurations you can do with that depending on what you have plugged into it below the CPU you will notice a connection in this case D i 3.0 are direct media interface which connects to the chipset and then the chipset is where everything else connects up so you can see all the stuff branching off of that so that includes for example up to 20 PCI Express gen3 lanes those are grouped in clusters of four and those can be used to connect up m dot two ports for high speed SSDs for example also you've got USB 2.0 and 3.0 that are available again up to ten USB 3.0 up to 14 USB 2.0 these numbers all vary depending on what is connected because there's a there's a limit to the total available bandwidth but that's why it kind of varies a little bit from motherboard to motherboard for example you also have some other stuff down here like an integrated land some extra Intel features like management engine extreme tuning utility I'm not going to really go into those too much just to say sometimes they're there sometimes they're not and look them up individual if you want to see what they do over on the right you'll notice Intel Rapid Storage technology for PCI Express storage that will allow you to set up raid configurations and that's not available on all the chipsets also you have your SATA ports six is the standard SATA rev3 six gigabit per second ports and also Intel HD audio bear in mind again that this is the z170 chipset that we're talking about here and this is the top of the line of hundred series chipsets from Intel so you can imagine that all of the other chipsets derivative of this are going to have some arrangement of these features but they're going to have a reduced quantity or reduce speed in certain areas let's take a look at an AMD motherboard before we move on though here is a socket am3+ motherboard from AMD that is their CPU side that's not APU so you got a CPU and these all require discrete graphics cards but this is a GA 990 FX Aug 7 motherboard from gigabytes and it uses a 990 FX chipset you can actually see the motherboard on the left and then the block diagram on the right so there's a 990 FX and then there's also an AMD SB 950 said down below that yes kids AMD's mainstream am3+ motherboards have a north bridge and a south bridge - chipset that is like two chipsets for the price of one this actually used to be the norm for all motherboards until more and more stuff from the chipsets was moved into the CPU so here you can see for example the CPU up at the top does not directly control your PCI Express Lanes those are controlled via the 990 FX Northbridge so this means that the choice of Northbridge on AMD side can affect how much pci express connectivity you have so that's something to look into when AMD a.m. for platform and for platform comes out in 2016 they're going to be going to a single chipset design which is the same thing that AMD FM 2 platform uses and intel's platforms that we're talking about today use so the Northbridge and Southbridge chipset configuration will finally be a thing of the past that old computer builders reminisce about it's very nostalgic here's one more block diagram to look at I know they're incredibly sexy but I actually feel like they do a great job of sort of giving a visual of how everything's connected so this is an actual motherboard that you can buy this is again a gigabyte motherboard because they're very consistent was providing the block diagrams this is the GA one z170 X gaming 7 so you can see the CPU up at the top PCIe lanes are connected over here on the left side via a switch that determines again whenever whenever one is plugged into the other you get a single by 16 or 2 by 8 lanes and then also the memory over here and then you can see some more specific connections for like display connectors for the eye GPU the z170 chipset down here below has just an absolute crap ton of stuff coming off of it so that includes all of your SATA SATA Express MDOT two socket three up here on the top right a USB 3.0 hub that they've entered to give you additional USB ports although that is a hub not an additional controller a USB 3.1 controller from Intel to give you your type-c and your USB 3.1 here also your USB 3.0 and 2.0 connectors dual BIOS you've got your sound coming off here in the lower left and then you've got like for instance those little tiny PCIe slots those come off of the chipset not directly from the CPU so there's your by one slots and then you've got a switch here for your m2 socket 3 as well as a PCI Express by 4:00 in this little area and this is kind of something to keep an eye out for as you're looking at stuff is because this is a switch that means if use one and not you you can all use one or the other so that any again just something to kind of keep an eye out for and then motherboard manufacturers also have the ability to add stuff on that might not exist natively as part of the chipset but they can use the PCIe lanes coming off of it to connect them up so you've got like an AZ media chip over here that gives you a couple more six 806 ports you've got a a killer a 2400 LAN port here and then an Intel Gigabit Ethernet LAN that they've added as well so the main reason to get a chipset with a Z or an X on the front like X 99 or Z 170 and we're talking about the Intel side here is because it unlocks overclocking for corresponding CPUs with a K or an X on the end like the 6600 K or the 5960 X I don't think I can overemphasize how strongly I feel that if you get an overclocked Abel CPU with a K or an X you should get a motherboard that enables overclocking like a z170 if you're getting an on overclockable cpu though like a I 5 6400 and that's totally fine they're less expensive and not everyone likes to overclock you can then be more open to other chipset offerings so here's a list of them specifically for skylake you got z170 h 170 H 110 q 170 q 150 be 150 the q and the beet chipsets that are supposed to be for business use since they have some additional security features built in but as you can see MSI has had no problem slapping that V 150 into a gaming board and there are definitely other mother other manufacturers who have done the same note the chipset comparisons here but remember that every board might implement the chipset features differently just because the chipset has eight USB 3.0 ports available for example doesn't mean that they will all be there and available as physical plugs on the board by going with the lower numbered or not Z lettered and then also theoretically lower priced options that's usually the main benefit you're getting by going with the lower end chipset is they're just cheaper you're going to lose out on some higher-end features so you might not get SLI supports there might not be as much peripheral connectivity like USB and SATA ports and note this one specifically for the B 150 you don't get raid supports and that's something that I do kind of like to have so finally let's take a closer look at this MSI be 158 gaming pro the board itself is pretty definitely but actually we're going to start off by looking at the manual I know that's where the good stuff is here we can see standard PCIe set up 16x bear in mind there is no SLI also bear in mind this is a dual manual it's used used for both the h1 78 and the B 150 a versions of this board so even though both of these boards have six SATA ref three ports the be 150 again does not support raid that is kind of sad but I guess that's what the H 170 a is for if you don't want a reply bility but you do want raid moving on to USB they gave us all six available USB 3 ports and even made them all 3.1 compatible very nice msi only four of the available six USB 2.0 ports are actual plugs but they did make up for that by adding an as media controller for two more USB 3.1 ports so that makes up for it the board itself is black with red accents on the heatsinks a nice finish on the PCB and clearly some attention was paid to looks here since it has this mystic lighting feature with LEDs going up to the left and right side of the board all yeah it's dance party time I think case lighting is fun but kind of Impractical to be honest at least when it means paying more for what is really supposed to be a budget board comparing other be 150 board options even if we're only limited to msi boards there's a lot of sub $100 choices that might not light up but have very comparable features so to sum up the chipset choosing challenge I have three main points I think you should take away first always get a Z or X Series chipset or just an overclocking enabled chipset if Intel decides to change that ZRX thing in the future make sure it's overclocking enabled if you're getting an overclockable CPU second is give other chipsets a look if you're on a budget if you have a non overclockable CPU or if you just don't need as much I owe or fancy features like raid or SLI you're not planning on using them why pay for them third you should always reality check what motherboard yeah actually choosing even if you've researched the chipsets they don't always implement all of the features of any given chipset on any given motherboard so reality checking is definitely important ultimately I feel a little bit odd about the be 150 a gaming pro from MSI mainly due to the existence of the kind of blingy lighting features and a relatively high price tag it's a hundred and twenty dollars and for that much you can get a z170 board I am always one personally who will opt for more speed or more usable features over aesthetic improvements like LED lighting but I suppose it does have that USB 3.1 on there which is nice and there's someone out there who's on a very specific budget but who also really really wanted to add that touch of flair to their build and he can't get windowed cases for very cheap now so I suppose it is cool to have that RGB control but if I may echo a sentiment that I've heard many many many times since RGB lighting became popular in the last I don't know year please MSI and other manufacturers make the rest of the design color neutral if you have RGB lighting preferably all black all white might work too but these red accents on here they're pretty small but they're still red and I feel like that limits what colors you can actually use with RGB because you got to match them with the red that is all for this video though if you enjoyed it don't forget to hit the like button down below you can also use my amazon link it's down there in the description if you are shopping for sundries for yourself or for loved ones feel free to visit my store at store pauls hardware net where you can support me by picking up a shirt like this one here new designs 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