What is a chipset?

[Craig Burke]

I'm looking at a motherboard from Intel that says it has a Chipset: Intel
865PE. What does this mean? This is the first computer I've tried to
build. I just want to make sure that the board and chip are going to be
compatible before I order them.

Thanks,
Craig

 

[Ewan Sinclair]

I'm looking at a motherboard from Intel that says it has a Chipset: Intel

865PE. What does this mean? This is the first computer I've tried to
build. I just want to make sure that the board and chip are going to be
compatible before I order them.

You can find reviews and comparisons of various chipsets here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/index.html

The rest of the site is a good resource for someone trying to build an
optimal PC, everything is tested, benchmarked and compared.

Ewan