Board without a chipset
Board without a chipset
Hello guys, I was exercising a thought and it may be really stupid but, lets go. There's any reason to not build a AM4 motherboard without chipset? I may be completely wrong but today chipsets are exclusive to extend IO. If you get a picture of the AMD CPU + Chipset architecture you will see that AM4 CPU itself has a 24x PCI-E downlink, a 4x lane or 2x lane + SATA port and 4 USB 3 embedded. When you think big ATX or eATX boards having the chipset to split all of that make sense, but what about mATX and ITX? You can have a 16x link to the GPU (or 2x8 on mATX), a NVMe on 4x lane, two SATA ports + another NVMe, four USB 3.0 ports all direct from the CPU. Everything else can be spliced from the left 4x lane that would go to the chipset without actually going to the chipset, audio and network are already a independent circuitry even with the chipset, you will only need to add (if you want) a USB + SATA controller to add more ports, and even that is not necessary. All of that can run from a 2x link with spare speed. Leaving even 2x lanes to add two PCI-E 1x slots. Basically all that any mATX board have. The thought is, why dont do that? A USB + SATA controller (which is not even necessary) should be far cheaper and less complex than a chipset. And AMD did that for some SFX prebuilt MBs on the X300/AB300 series and then those boards where never seen before, so its doable. The question, why not doing it? It doesn't make sense on larger boards, but on ITX and mATX all resources from the chipset are wasted, its a kinda a useless complexity. I know if you go beyond the AMD and Intel realm SoCs are a thing, but the AM4 CPU isn't already by itself a (although limited) SoC? I'm talking AMD here only because I know a little more about the architecture and Intel doesn't use PCI-E to talk to the chipset. Its just a thought exercise and I'm probably missing a huge point that makes this unfeasible, but I'll like to hear your opinion.
However, when examining the overall design, it appears the chipset enhances USB, SATA, and PCI-E connectivity, which makes it hard to justify adding one to an mATX board. What additional functions does it provide?
It's more cost-effective to build an entire chipset rather than investing in research and development to divide the tasks, and using a single chip would greatly reduce the overall size.
Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm getting at. If you're not requiring additional USB and SATA connections—such as those found on ITX or mATX boards—why would you need them?
It makes sense from my perspective. With an ATX setup, splitting components is costly. However, with ITX and mATX configurations, you usually don’t need to break things apart—except perhaps for a few extra SATA or USB ports. Today you can find affordable controllers that combine both into a single, cost-effective and power-efficient chip, though it’s still not always essential, especially on ITX boards where the available I/O is limited.