Is this the southbridge or northbridge?

[Salo3750]

Hello i was wondering if this is the NorthBridge or SouthBridge
The mobo is an Acer EM61SM/EM61PM
So the heat sink on the bottom right, Is it a south bridge or north bridge
if its a north where is the south, and if its a south where is the north
(The heat sink gets kinda hot where i can only touch it for like 1-2 seconds)

I have a spare comp almost the same board with heat sink in the same spot
i removed it and this is what was under it (just in case this some how helps tell which it is)

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Thats the southbridge, northbridges are nearer the cpu socket to shorten communication times,*Edit ty emperus for mentioning that which I was leading to and forgot 😛)

and dont touch it, you burn your hand or zap it with static,
manual here
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/Motherboards/detail_overview.aspx?ID=en-us0000223
Moto

 

[Salo3750]

ok thanks still wondering where the northbridge is...
Other then that should i put a fan over it, or it wouldn't matter ? (like enlong the life of it)
im just wondering cause i got a perfect size fan for it, if cooling it helps it

I destaticed myself before touching it

 

[Emperus]

Is that an AMD64 based motherboard? If yes then there will be no northbridge as that functionality was moved inside the CPU chip by AMD. Intel did the same since Nehalem. Consider the image below. It shows the general northbridge placement.

www.computerhope.com/pictures/mb/mb.gif

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Cooling it can help it yes, not massively but at the cost of noise, if your happy with a 40mm fan whirring away, go for it man
Moto

 

[Salo3750]

Is that an AMD64 based motherboard? If yes then there will be no northbridge as that functionality was moved inside the CPU chip by AMD. Intel did the same since Nehalem. Consider the image below. It shows the general northbridge placement.

www.computerhope.com/pictures/mb/mb.gif

Yeah it's an amd64 based board i was wondering where the northbridge was cause ive seen most of the newer am3 boards having the northbridge with a heat sink, well thanks for the info on that

Cooling it can help it yes, not massively but at the cost of noise, if your happy with a 40mm fan whirring away, go for it man
Moto

ok, cool cause i got a gpu fan that i can put on it, noise isnt realy a problem my psu fan is louder then the small fan i have for it



Thanks Guys for the info!

 

[Salo3750]

Best answer selected by Salo3750.