Oddly enough, it’s one of those terms of a new bill that sort of substitutes another for a tour, which also has a convulsive history.
An insurmountable bottleneck if there was no change between CPU and motherboard
PCH as such is the acronym for Platform Controller Hub and was introduced as such by Intel in 2009 when it realized that a new chip concept for motherboards and their processors was needed to coming years.
For this reason, and after years of work, she launched PCH as a natural substitute for the South Bridge, also called Chipset to acquire the relevant functions. The North Bridge was also dropped to include its functions in the processor, leaving a simpler motherboard architecture and reduc ing overall costs as well.
But unlike these two bridges, PCH and CPU, the tasks and characteristics were shared. For example, the PCH always has the System clock, former FSB, now includes the DMI and the IDE, in addition to the MEI which is so important to Intel.
On the other hand, the PCH does not acquire the main functions of the system as its predecessor would in the past. the BMI has been included in the CPU as well as the PCIe tiles and its controller, the I / O registers and the System Agent. In the end, what Intel did was the path that AMD took shortly thereafter: unify and distribute tasks closer and closer to the CPU and in a simpler way.
Different capacities thanks to TCP
Obviously, this has a double game on the table, and that is that with PCH being so important, Intel and AMD can segment their lineup, thus launching different motherboards by manufacturers.
It goes without saying that the PCH is still commonly referred to as a chipset, but it should be clear that technically this is not correct, although in general it carries a lot of weight. So when we refer to the chipset right now we are really talking about the PCH and as such Intel and AMD are leveraging their skills for different lines of cards.
As expected, the largest of them will have all the capacities, while as we reduce the PCH model these will be reduced, for example losing the ability to overclock, the possibility of having more GPUs , faster PCIe lanes or similar.
Another ability that many do not take into account is that the number of SATA on board directly depends on what the TCP allows. So as AMD and Intel do not advance on this term in general we find at most and with the exception of the WorkStation 6 SATA 6 Gb / s versions, which are gradually replaced by NVMe M.2.
The acquisition of the PCH in terms of South Bridge functions also includes new and old USB keys, since it generally includes versions from 2.0 to 3.2. These are limited based on the PCH that the motherboard has in number, where the higher range allows more Usb
Network cards, security, Wi-Fi and more
As it was logical and over the years, the PCH acquired more and more functions which in contrast left the secondary chips in the background and in many cases ended up disappearing. But also, if Intel or AMD wish to include a first level technology as a novelty, they must go through PCH yes or yes, either by supporting it via firmware, or by directly providing it with this capability in future improved versions.
For example, Intel’s support for Optane It goes directly through PCH and it is cutting edge technology which, although it is not widely used, is really interesting. As if that wasn’t enough, all non-personalized audio technologies are also included in the PCH, having in the case of Intel sound High definition sound which also gives life to HDMI of your iGPUs.
The personalized audio of the plates are separated, since they have CNA
Finally, everything related to security except for external clients with specific chips is also covered by PCH, so it is easily upgradeable with a firmware update on the motherboard. The power management of the CPU and the board in general is intended for this component, so it can also be updated to improve or correct errors, as well as with drivers for Windows.
So given the importance of PCH at both Intel and AMD, it was to be expected that the greatest innovation of these is the link with the CPU. In the case of Intel, this is called DMI and in the case of AMD Infinity fabric, where the improvements instilled in them completely change every scenario.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of the features we’ve named above have a common thread to connect them to each other, and it’s nothing more than PCIe across its lines. Therefore, with each new version of the same one tries to assign the greatest number as well as the highest available speed of the bus, which complicates its creation and design for obvious reasons, since its speed and architecture are not even the same. like a CPU can have, but it’s just as necessary.
