NVidia nForce Reviewed

CtrlPhreak writes: "The highly awaited NVidia nForce is finally here. Anandtech has a review of an nForce 420 reference board. This is the one with integrated dolby 5.1 sound, a GF2 MX core at 6x agp, and dual-channel DDR RAM! Go check it out."

Comments

Too much bandwidth?

[doorbot.com]

The review seems to say that there's too much bandwidth available on the 420 series. Granted, it is used if you stick with the built in video, but won't someone paying a premium for the 420 most likely stick their own AGP card in? Maybe a Radeon 7500 or a GeForce 3...

At any rate, I'm wondering if the nForce is set for a multiprocessor future, especially since it offers so much bandwidth. One Athlon can't take full advantage of all that bandwidth, but I'll bet two could.

With nVidia positioning themselves as the bandwidth gurus on the AMD side, I wonder how long it will be before ServerWorks steps in and showers us with their chipsets (for AMD). My guess is ServerWorks will wait for AMD chips to support 4+ processors in a single box.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the artical? The 420 has an integrated GeForce 3.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[psavo]

Well, one Athlon can't saturate that bandwidth, two could.
What do you think, how long before nforce supports Hammer? There's twice as much width (64bit), so maybe, just maybe, even one Hammer could bring nforce down to its knees..

Anyway, I'd REALLY like to see NF with two athlons, although it's not really probable.. (It took AMD 3+ years to make 760MP and nvidia can't even make their video drivers work reliably in SMP). And please don't start mumbling about those things being like comparing apples and bananas. They DO relate.
Nvidia just doesn't seem to have processor SMP knowledge in-house. Maybe GPU-MP but not proc.
Hmm..
That makes me think. Didn't 3dfx had the "smp" of GPU's? yeas it did. And whos slave it's now? That's right, NVidia!!

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[cmowire]

Not sure. ServerWorks might be avoiding an AMD motherboard for the simple fact that Intel has been making motions of ceeding the high-end Intel chipset market to them.

i.e. ServerWorks doesn't want to loose a license to the Pentium 4 and Itanium busses. ;)

Regarding the 420 series and a built-in AGP card. It's likely that the cost difference between the two versions will be lower than the cost of a clearly better AGP card. This chipset is designed for a lower-end user. One who wouldn't be able to afford a GeForce 3 or a Radeon 7500, or at least doesn't want to spend the money on it.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

No it doesn't. It has an integrated GPU that nVidia says in comparable to a Geforce 2 MX 400, but Anand said wasn't quite that good. They did do some tests with GF3's.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[soulsteal]

I don't see any complaints about the bandwidth issue when the memory is used in conjunction with the dual-memory controller IGP-128. If you look at the integrated video scores, the 420 board loses a large chunk of speed due to the use of the memory bandwidth for graphics. So if you're planning on using this board, don't plan on using the intergrated video for stellar performance compared to a regular GeForce2 MX.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

How did this get modded to Interesting? If this guy or even the moderator had read the "artical" himself he might have noticed it was equivalent to a GeForce2 MX.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[doorbot.com]

Not sure. ServerWorks might be avoiding an AMD motherboard for the simple fact that Intel has been making motions of ceeding the high-end Intel chipset market to them.

i.e. ServerWorks doesn't want to loose a license to the Pentium 4 and Itanium busses. ;)

I have to agree with you there. I'm sure ServerWorks would love to grab Intel's high end chipset market, and I think we would all be better off if that happened. ServerWorks' chipsets are much better than Intel's (with cool things like ChipKill and hot-swap DIMMs.

But regarding your second statement, I'm a bit concerned. That's the kind of thing that will get Intel thrown in court. Remember when Microsoft said "If you sell non-MS OSes with your PCs, you will lose your reseller contract." That one ended up against Microsoft.

Granted, ServerWorks might not get new licenses from Intel (and that is unlikely, ServerWorks has a name for themselves in the high-end market). But for Intel to breach its contract and take away those licenses would be asking the Justice Department to make Intel's life a living hell.

If I were AMD I'd be pushing ServerWorks to build an AMD solution, or, alternately, to license some technology to AMD (and maybe some engineers) so AMD can do it themselves.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, Intel just sunk a bunch of cash into ServerWorks (buying 20% of the company, I think). That should preclude them from the AMD market.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you tried having sex once in your life you might understand a fuckin' joke when you see one.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[Namarrgon]

The CPU and integrated video aren't the only things using that bandwidth.

Everything on the MCP southbridge does too. The IDE drives can DMA up to 100 MB/s, the Ethernet chips in a bit, and the audio DSP can actually use a great deal of it when rendering audio effects (which it does to the system RAM - it doesn't have RAM of its own).

nVidia have said that the MCP southbridge can use over 500 MB/s of the available 800 MB/s HyperTransport link between the two chips, when you turn everything on. That bandwidth will also be coming out of system RAM. A shame none of Anand's tests covered that, though I guess he was a little limited in what he could make it do without an S/PDIF output on the reference board (why did they leave that off?!)

I would bet that the 420 will show a clear advantage over the 220 when doing disk I/O and heavy sound processing, even without using the integrated video. That's a good reason for enthusiasts to spend the extra on the 420, even with an AGP card being used.

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[cmowire]

See, there are ways that Intel can work around this.

For one, even if they can win in court over Intel, a legal battle is expensive and annoying and can do them in even if they win.

For another, Intel no longer has a monopoly. AMD owns a substantial portion of the market. IBM/Sun/HP/CompaQ own a bunch of the server market. It will be much harder to prove an Intel monopoly than a MS monopoly.

And finally, some companies just love to cosy up to a single platform, contractual issues beside it. Perhaps Intel has been very nice to ServerWorks in the past and present. Perhaps it isn't the explicit threat of trouble, but more a desire to not end up like Via and have a chipset they will have legal troubles shipping.

Granted, I'd absolutely LOVE to see a good workstation-friendly ServerWorks chipset for either the P4 or Athlon that was aimed at the high-end hobyist market. But remember what happened to SGI when they went from hardcore hardware to lower-end stuff, hmm?

Re:Too much bandwidth?

[AA0]

nForce uses AMDs hypertransport system, basically... nforce is the cheap model. AMD can massively scale up the bandwidth on the board very easily at any time, so the Hammer won't be running into any problems.

I use Word and Excel

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this help those apps?

Very interesting..

[cmowire]

It's very interesting to see that chipset out.

Definately not what I would consider a performance motherboard, but I'd rate it better than an i810 or similar in terms of a chipset that has everything integrated. I mean, really, if you look at the benchmarks, your average PC manufacturer can make systems that don't need ethernet, sound, or video cards. And because it's all done by nVidia, you can bet that people who were preprogrammed by the local geek to loathe onboard Intel video will break programming and pick up an nForce based board because nVidia has got to be good, right?

Of course, the much touted dual-bus DDR-SDRAM doesn't net you too much performance over a single-bus DDR-SDRAM motherboard, mostly because it is more bandwidth than the CPU can pump. But it does make an onboard video card suck slightly less than trying to make a video card share a single PC133 SDRAM chanel. ;)

Re:Very interesting..

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

"Definately not what I would consider a performance motherboard"

Why not? According to the review it pretty much shares the AMD performance crown with the KT266A. And knowing nVidia, there'll be plenty of driver releases to streamline things even more (though I'm not sure how much impact drivers have on motherboard performance). But I would definately call this a performance part. With a 1.5Ghz Palomino and an GeForce 3 Ti500, this thing'll make pretty much the ultimate gaming rig.

Re:Very interesting..

[cmowire]

Mostly because the KT266A will be cheaper for the same performance and advantages. The major advantage of the dual DDR-SDRAM channels is to make the onboard video bite slightly less. If you are going to stuff it with an AGP video card, etc. you might as well just get the KT266A.

Re:Very interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

but if you are even going to take advantage of the onboard sound and ethernet, but still stuff a vid card in, its still cheaper than kt266a solutions. if you dont use the sound or ethernet or video and buy it then you are a moron.

Re:Very interesting..

[Namarrgon]

If you are going to stuff it with an AGP video card, etc. you might as well just get the KT266A.

Except that the extra bandwidth is also needed for the onboard sound DSP processing, disk I/O, ethernet etc.

If you use any of that, particularly the 3D sound, the dual DDR will deliver higher overall performance. If you used a plugin 3D soundcard with its own onboard RAM, that'd eliminate most of the bandwidth drain, but it'd also push the cost of a KT266A well past that of an nForce...

Re:Very interesting..

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

Mostly because the KT266A will be cheaper for the same performance and advantages. The major advantage of the dual DDR-SDRAM channels is to make the onboard video bite slightly less. If you are going to stuff it with an AGP video card, etc. you might as well just get the KT266A.

Or, it makes sense to use the nForce 220 (single DDR channel) with a seperate video card, to get the benefit of the awesome integrated sound for (potentially) significantly less than the cost of a KT266A + SB Live.

You are right that the 440 makes no sense as a high-end chipset, only as a good mid-end OEM chipset (integrated video means lower assembly cost).

Re:Very interesting..

[mallie_mcg]

Mostly because the KT266A will be cheaper for the same performance and advantages. The major advantage of the dual DDR-SDRAM channels is to make the onboard video bite slightly less. If you are going to stuff it with an AGP video card, etc. you might as well just get the KT266A.

What i think will be most interesting is the quality of drivers released for this motherboard. Will they be (and i hope so) than the VIA drivers, will this chipset have "issues" with certain types of hardware? Will performance of nVidia video cards be better than the compeditors on this chipset. If the performance is comparable will it always be this way, and most importantly will there be any drivers at all available for linux in the source form? Or will we be in the current situation where to get decent performance, we need to add this, fiddle with that and install the NV drivers?

Really nice, but...

[mnordstr]

All that's really nice, but it doesn't increase my /. experience in any way. So why would I want it?

Good, but New

[Sierpinski]

A friend of mine got one of these recently, and although he said it was probably the best graphics board he's ever had, he had a bit of trouble getting all of his older stuff (mostly games, but some applications as well) and Xwindows on his linux partition to take full use of the new board.

It seems, that like most new hardware, that it will take some time for the driver community to catch up. Once that happens, it will be one hell of a board.

Re:Good, but New

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine got one of these recently, and although he said it was probably the best graphics board he's ever had

Then I guess your friend has never had a GeForce2 GTS 32MB DDR, GeForce2 GTS 64MB DDR, GeForce2 Pro 64MB DDR, GeForce2 Ultra 64MB DDr, GeForce3 64MB DDR, ATi 7500 or ATi 8500, eh? GeForce2 MX on-board video on the nForce doesn't even match stand-alone GeForce2 MX-based boards performance. And that's with it pumped all the way to 32 megs in the BIOS.

From an earlier post of yours - " Working where he does (which I'm not going to say), he tends to get stuff a little earlier than the rest of the public..."

Bullshit. Working where I do, I can tell you these are not being produced until October at the earliest. What that means is that they don't exist in the consumer arena yet. You cannot buy them. The only way you can get one is from The Company, and suffice it to say, they are only giving them out to reviewers and those that are manufacturing boards based on their design. So unless your "friend" is Anand or one of a few other people that got them (or one of the people working at the plants in Taiwan), he doesn't have it. Period. This isn't software, where you can make a copy and give it to their friend while they can smirk because they're special and know an insider. A very limited number of nForce boards exist, and they have not reached the public yet (and will not until November, most likely).

Maybe you got confused. Or maybe you're lying. Either way, now is the time to suck it up and admit that your above post does not apply to any nForce-based motherboard.

Isn't it ever too much?

[progbuc]

The dolby digital 6.1 is cool, but all of nVidia's new graphics stuff seems like overkill to me. Getting 130 fps in Quake doesn't really seem worth an extra $150. Past 60 fps, you really can't tell the difference anyway.

Re:Isn't it ever too much?

[Anonymous Coward]

130fps in Quake 3 = 30 fps in Quake 4.

If you don't want to upgrade hardware every time new software is release then, when you do upgrade, it is best to do so to something more powerful than the current software

Re:Isn't it ever too much?

[ergo98]

Is this a troll? Graphics technology is just touching on what it could be. For instance in Operation Flashpoint it's one of the very first games to actually have forests, yet to have the forest the trees are very simplistic boxes, and of course trees outside are several polygons jutting out with a tree texture on them. The reality is that the only situation where current 3D cards are visually adequate is simplistic indoor situations, but if you try to visually model the outdoors even a GeForce 3 Titanium is woefully ill equipped. I dream of "OpFlashpoint" in the future when there are ditches, better foliage (despite the fact that it already has CLEARLY the best foliage of any game yet created, though years ago people were already saying that computer grpahics had gone as far as they need to go), a deformable world, etc.

Re:Isn't it ever too much?

[thegrommit]

There is more to gaming than Quake (thankfully).

However, for the truly competitive players, higher fps makes a difference. For the rest of us, higher resolutions at playable fps is a nice to have.

Re:Isn't it ever too much?

[almightyjustin]

Depending on your monitor, past 80fps or so and you can't even refresh the screen that fast, let alone see a difference.

Re:Isn't it ever too much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, buying hardware now for future software sounds like a way to go broke in a hurry.

I guess the point is that the integrated GF2 MX isn't really "overkill". It's 2D quality looks like poo was smeared on your monitor, and it's 3D quality is pretty much bottom of the barrel as far as gaming cards go nowdays.

The NForce is nice for the gaming industry because it will allow Gateway and other home boxpushers to make "Quake 3 compatible" PCs on the cheap, rather than dumping low-end ATI or i815 chips on the poor ignorant consumer. The real gamers will find a AGP card as always.

Re:Isn't it ever too much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but if you can get 130fps in Q3, there are two advantages: First, you can run the next-gen game that much better, hopefully without needing to upgrade the computer. Second, you get bragging rights. Ask just about anyone who plays Quake 3 (I know a few), and they'll brag about their 100+fps framerates... just cuz they can. (standard my dick is bigger than your dick, just replace "dick" with "framerate")

Look at the Max Payne benchmarks they did and you'll see my first point; 80+FPS with a GF3, but the NF only got around 30.

Re:Isn't it ever too much?

[rtaylor]

Yeah, but keep in mind thats 80fps on average.

Generally that means it'll dip to 40 during the rough spots. Perhaps you don't notice it so much -- but it's there when it's a tight battle which is exactly when you want a high refresh and low ping.

6x....heh.

[Anonymous Coward]

The person who submitted it made it sound as though nVidia had made a new spec or something for AGP 6x. Maybe they should have added that all they did to AGP 4x was bump up the clock speed to 100mhz instead of 66mhz. *shrug*.

seems nice, but...

[turbine216]

...it lacks the typical "punch" that nVidia products usually carry. It's odd that nVidia, a company that has always been a leader in its field, would introduce a fairly plain-vanilla product. There really aren't any truly exciting features built into the "all-in-one" board. But at 120-150 dollars, i guess it's fairly decent.

The really odd thing, i guess, is that nVidia didn't try to integrate a GeForce 3 chipset into the equation. Then this board would have been truly awesome, even if it cost $300-$400.

Re:seems nice, but...

[cmowire]

Naw, it's smart business.

Consider all of the laid off ex-dotcommers who don't have large disposable incomes right now. ;)

Playstations for the poor!!! ;)

Re:seems nice, but...

[Mifflesticks]

Um...yeah. nVidia hasn't always been a leader in the field. They have publically said that their first video card was a complete and utter failuer, because they chose to accelerate quadrilaterals instead of triangles, and triangles became the standard.

Why bother with a GF3 though? Yes, it has some more features that alleviate bandwidth some, but it would have made a larger die, and therefore cost more, and only given marginally better performance (though admittedly, the quality would probably have been better). But, given that the integrated video is already bandwidth limited why should they stuff a bigger, more expensive core in there that wouldn't perform much better?

Re:seems nice, but...

[turbine216]

so nVidia hit a bump in the road with their first product. Who cares? They're still the industry leader, without question.

And as far as using a GF3, I chose that particular chipset for the sake of forward-compatibility. I'm saying that they should have at least made a "top of the line" version with the bleeding-edge chipset, and performance enhancments to accommodate it. Doing so would have been more in tune with their current trend of innovative products.

It seems you missed the point of my post completely.

Re:seems nice, but...

[freelance ninja]

Microsoft paid nVidia $100 million to create a motherboard with an integrated GPU for the XBox. The GPU for the unreleased XBox will be better than the GeForce 3.

Microsoft allowed nVidia to sell the technology that was developed (the nForce), as long as they didn't sell it with anything higher than a GeForce 2, because then there would be no reason to buy the XBox. In short, nVidia can't sell the nForce with a GeForce 3 because that would violate their agreement with Microsoft.

What time is it?

[spudwiser]

I'm sorry, but it has to be said. It's 4:20!!

Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[DG]

Something about this motherboard seems strangely familliar.....

- On-board, highly-advanced graphics processor? Check.

- On-board, highly-advanced sound processor? Check.

- On-board, almost every other connector and whoosit you could want in a PC? Check.

Oh my God, they've invented the Amiga!

:)

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[Junks Jerzey]

Oh my God, they've invented the Amiga!

Or a Commodore 64 or an Atari 800 (the latter of which was released in 1979).

It is interesting to note that the blitting capabilities of an Amiga can be emulated in software on a 486 and still be significantly faster than the Amiga hardware. It wasn't _that_ fast.

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[JollyTX]

Amigas rule, and always will!!! ;)

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[tcc]

Exept the "chipmem" isn't running at 100+ns :)
and it won't take an eternity to redraw a 1027x768 window hehe :)

Still... I'd say "true... true..."... Now I need a beer :)

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[at_18]

It is interesting to note that the blitting capabilities of an Amiga can be emulated in software on a 486 and still be significantly faster than the Amiga hardware. It wasn't _that_ fast.

The Blitter, yes, that can be emulated in realtime. But the Copper, it's an entirely different story.
The Copper (it stands for CoProcessor) was a very simple processor, that executed simple statements trigged by the SCANLINE POSITION of the monitor!!! With the bang-the-hardware programming model typical of the Amiga, you could do some terrific tricks without ANY main processor overhead:

- at position 10,30 change the background color from black to yellow
- at line 125, change SCREEN RESOLUTION (!!) from low-res to hi-res

...and so on
It was widely used for graphical demos. I had UAE (an Amiga Emulator) installed on my K6-2 300Mhz, and some scenes of "State of the Art" couldn't go faster than 9 fps (they were 50fps on a 7Mhz Amiga). I didn't try on my 850Mhz Duron...

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[Namarrgon]

IIRC, the blitter copied bitmaps (and also drew lines) at 1 million pixels per second. Small bickies by our current gigapixel standards, but for comparison, the Macintosh at the time could barely manage 110,000 pixels/s. (PC? Hah! Pixels? What are pixels?)

I seem to recall that outran some dedicated graphics machines of that era.

And of course, as other people have pointed out, there was also the copper, the sound & sprites hardware etc etc. The 2090A disk controller had a Z-80 CPU on it, and even the keyboard was driven by a 6502 variant...

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[Christopher Thomas]

The Blitter, yes, that can be emulated in realtime. But the Copper, it's an entirely different story.
The Copper (it stands for CoProcessor) was a very simple processor, that executed simple statements trigged by the SCANLINE POSITION of the monitor!!! With the bang-the-hardware programming model typical of the Amiga, you could do some terrific tricks without ANY main processor overhead:

Hmm. This is a really neat-looking piece of hardware, but I think I see a sneaky way of emulating this functionality quickly.

It was widely used for graphical demos. I had UAE (an Amiga Emulator) installed on my K6-2 300Mhz, and some scenes of "State of the Art" couldn't go faster than 9 fps (they were 50fps on a 7Mhz Amiga).

It should be possible to do better than *that*. Now you've got me all curious about the implementation problems :).

Do you have links handy for the UAE emulator (ideally source) and for details of the amiga hardware (ideally complete)?

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything about the UAE is here:
http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae/

Re:Hmmm.... where have I seen this before?

[at_18]

Do you have links handy for the UAE emulator (ideally source) and for details of the amiga hardware (ideally complete)?

For UAE, you can go here:
http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae/

UAE is released under the GPL, and full source is available.

Fot the amiga hardware details, I don't know any web sites with details. I have the Amiga Hardware Manual at home, which explains almost everything.
I googled out this reference:
amigarealm which seems to have the complete book online, on .txt format. The book looks more pretty :-)

And the market asks:

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought a G4 Dual 800 with a GeForce 3 card.

Should i be kicking myself now? If so, *how* badly?

(Ignore, for the moment, the question of the G5s.. should i be kicking myself for paying the $200 extra for the GF3, or for not waiting, or...

Re:And the market asks:

[Anonymous Coward]

Considerign you bought a mac for about three times the price of a comparable pc, you should be kicking yourself up your ass as hard as you can take it, knowing you're experienced at that.

Re:And the market asks:

[class_A]

You should be kicking yourself for not waiting until January or at least until after Phil Schiller's keynote today...

Unless you're running Maya you probably won't see the benefit of a GF3 on a Mac 'cos nobody makes any games for us :-)

Ah well...

I'm building a computer...

[KjetilK]

Wow, this comes in at the right time... I'll Ask /. this:

I'm going to buy some stuff and build a computer. Actually it is going to be my first personal (it took me 15 years to get my own...). I want a quite powerful box, but I don't care too much about the graphics on the screen or the sound. What I care a lot about is that the manufacturers I buy from are Good Guys. Also, everything I buy has to be well supported on Linux (I plan to get Debian Woody on it). I plan to get a 1.2-1.4 GHz AMD chip and 512 MB of RAM.

Now, what do you think, is this chipset something I should go for? Would it work well with Woody, do think? Are the NVIDIA guys Good?

I was looking for this stuff on Saturday, and I came up with the following stuff:

• CPU: AMD Thunderbird 1.2GHz Socket A 266MHz
• RAM: DDR SDRAM 2100 2 * 256 MB Socket A
• Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 7200 RPM 40 GB
• Motherboard: Asus A7M266, AMD761-chipsett, Socket A
• Sound Card: Creative Soundblaster Live! 1024
• Video Card: Matrox Millenium G450 32MB DDR-Ram, Bulk
• CRT: Samtron 96P
• CD-ROM-drive: Creative 52x IDE

Does that sound like something good to use with Linux?

Re:I'm building a computer...

[psavo]

>Now, what do you think, is this chipset something I should go for? Would it work well with Woody, do think? Are the NVIDIA guys Good?
> I was looking for this stuff on Saturday, and I came up with the following stuff:
> CPU: AMD Thunderbird 1.2GHz Socket A 266MHz

AMD is GOOD.

> RAM: DDR SDRAM 2100 2 * 256 MB Socket A

RAM is GOOD

> Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 7200 RPM 40 GB

Big HD is GOOD.
WD SUCK. WD fail to report their "extensions" to ATA standard, and sometimes screw your data bad. Not only in linux.

> Motherboard: Asus A7M266, AMD761-chipsett, Socket A

ASUS is GOOD.

> Sound Card: Creative Soundblaster Live! 1024

Creatise SUCK. There's still no active support for linux. At least they opened specs. Or didn't.

> Video Card: Matrox Millenium G450 32MB DDR-Ram, Bulk

Matrox is GOOD.

> CRT: Samtron 96P

Big CRT is GOOD.

> CD-ROM-drive: Creative 52x IDE

Any ATAPI CDROM does it.
If you have any money left, opt for SCSI.

Re:I'm building a computer...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd recommend a generic $50 Geforce2MX over the matrox, has nice OpenGL support. (but binary only, from NVidia).

Also, might as well get a 1.4Mhz Athlon

Re:I'm building a computer...

[DamienMcKenna]

> CPU: AMD Thunderbird 1.2GHz Socket A 266MHz
> RAM: DDR SDRAM 2100 2 * 256 MB

Cool.

> Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 7200 RPM 40 GB

Get a cheap Maxtor 40gig instead - faster, more reliable and standards compliant.

> Motherboard: Asus A7M266, AMD761-chipsett,

Not one I know about, but sure :)

> Sound Card: Creative Soundblaster Live! 1024

Either stick with the onboard audio, get something that Linux has OS drivers for, or an Audigy.

> Video Card: Matrox Millenium G450 32MB DDR-Ram, Bulk

Pretty good card, if you're not after the latest games. If you are, get a Radeon.

> CRT: Samtron 96P

CRT? Pah. Get the Planar 17.4" LCD instead - 25ns refresh, DVI+analog. Have a look at Anandtech Forums for some comments.

> CD-ROM-drive: Creative 52x IDE

The Liteon 24x is possibly the best drive on the market, especially if you want to be able to make backups (for legit use).

Damien

Re:I'm building a computer...

[Anonymous Coward]

all that stuff looks good... it actually describes my system to a tee... (except I have a 1.3 ghz machine). I don't have any problems with sound in linux or any problems with windows (once I got all of the amd hotfixes and bios upgrades).

Re:I'm building a computer...

[bharath]

* CD-ROM-drive: Creative 52x IDE

Get a DVD drive instead. You can get a toshiba/hitachi for just 10 bucks more.

Re:I'm building a computer...

[bartle]

I upgraded to a machine very similiar to this a few days ago. I'm running Windows 2000 and part of my focus was on games, so my decisions may not be relevant to you.

CPU: AMD Thunderbird 1.2GHz Socket A 266MHz

It's only a little extra to get a 1.4. Athlons run hot, I like the idea of being able to underclock my processor if things get a little too toasty.

RAM: DDR SDRAM 2100 2 * 256 MB Socket A

RAM here is tricky. Notice that most DDR boards only support 2 DIMM slots, you're cutting off an important future upgrade route. I went with a high performance 512MB from Mushkin.

Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 7200 RPM 40 GB

Maxtor seems like the best bet currently. I'd lean towards them.

Motherboard: Asus A7M266, AMD761-chipsett, Socket A

This is the motherboard I got. I really like it, but note that it's pricier than most of the competitors. It's nice to have a motherboard that just works.

Sound Card: Creative Soundblaster Live! 1024

I like my SB Live and generally recommend them. Note that they do have a problem with the VIA 686b chipset, which is the southbridge on the ASUS A7M266. I haven't experienced any problems, but others have.

Video Card: Matrox Millenium G450 32MB DDR-Ram, Bulk

If 3D games are in your future, I recommend going with an nVidia Geforce 2/3. I tossed my Matrox G400 a few months ago because I got few up with it. Matrox's do have great 2D support though, and I can't speak of their reliability under Linux.

The rest isn't worth commenting on. Sounds like you're on the right track, good luck.

Re:I'm building a computer...

[MyAss]

CPU: AMD Thunderbird 1.2GHz Socket A 266MHz

good

RAM: DDR SDRAM 2100 2 * 256 MB Socket A

good, but how can you get Socket A ram

Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 7200 RPM 40 GB

I've had bad exp with Western Dig....

Motherboard: Asus A7M266,

too expensive, Sis735 cheaper and performs better. KT266A is even better if you can wait

Sound Card: Creative Soundblaster Live! 1024

sb live is well supported, just dl the drivers from creative's site. (kernel drivers aren't as good)

Video Card: Matrox Millenium G450 32MB DDR-Ram

I would go nvidia here, easier to get 3d working well (unless 3d is not as important)

Re:I'm building a computer...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have any ideas about mixing IDE drives and SCSI eventually on this board you might want to think twice. I have an A7M266 and an Adaptec 19160 SCSI controller and the CDROMs don't always work properly (before it loads an OS, after booting into either Windows or Linux they work fine). Don't count on getting any tech support from Asus either (I sent 3 separate emails one week apart each and never got so much as a peep from their support department). Shame too, as their boards have served me well in the past (had one survive getting a soda spilled in it as it was running and it kept chugging happily along :)

Re:I'm building a computer...

[Miles]

My Matrox G400 under Linux works great for both 2D and 3D (not as good as a GeForce, obviously, but well enough). Just run the lastest X.

Re:I'm building a computer...

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW THAT'S FAST! I can make 1000x as many typos with 1.4Ghz.

Re:I'm building a computer...

[freakonaleash881]

It seem everyone here has had bad experiences with Western Digital and love Maxtor, but my experiences have been the exact opposite. I have had two Maxtors (a 20 GB and a 40 GB, both at 5400 RPM) crap out on me for no reason whatsoever. My Western Digital has never given me problems.

Re:I'm building a computer...

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM 75 Gb Deskstar, it's the only way to be sure (that your drive doesn't suck ;)

Re:I'm building a computer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out for the radeons, actually. I've had my fair share of trouble trying to get it work with the accelerated server.

This is the VE though.

Re:I'm building a computer...

[KjetilK]

Yeah, but IBM is a BSA member, and BSA is on my boycott list...

Re:Furst Poste!

[Guns n' Roses Troll]

"I can't HEAR YOU! Sound off like you've got a pair!"

YES DRILL SARGENT

Um, it's not a graphics board

[complexmath]

It's a mainboard with an integrated GeForce 2 MX and Dolby audio processor as well as some other nifty features. It's nVidia's first forey into the realm of mainboards and looks quite promising.

Wohoo ...

[halftrack]

... integrated.

We all know what history has done to integrated.

The reason I'm using a PC is that there is nothing integrated. Unlike a console, or obviously a future nForce based motherboard.

Re:Wohoo ...

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

Integrated motherboards have been around for quite some time. It's just that before, most of them sucked. If you don't like the integrated stuff, then you can still install 3rd party parts on an nForce. I'm planning on getting one and installing a GeForce 3 Ti500 (probably). You could throw in your own sound card if you wanted too. Or ethernet or pretty much any other standard PCI card. So in this case, the integration doesn't really prevent you from playing with things.

Re:Wohoo ...

[geomcbay]

That's how I used to feel...BUT,

Considering how much CPU socket/slots and memory standards have been changing, the reuse value of a lot of PC components has been dropping quite a bit. The last 3 systems I built, I only reused harddrives and CDROMs from older systems...Considering this trend, integrated motherboards aren't quite as bad as they once seemed. I'd rather buy an integrated kick-ass solution once a year than buy all new parts and deal with the associated incompatibilities...So, if PC makers must continue with these upgrade-forcing standards-obsoleting changes, I'll probably start going integrated...

Will this thing be juiced with an Athlon XP?

[yesman]

Will the Athlon XP make any better use of that extra bandwidth?

Re:Will this thing be juiced with an Athlon XP?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a page in the review devoted to that question.

Re:Will this thing be juiced with an Athlon XP?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Athlon XP only runs Windows XP, and you need an extra License for it.

Any attempt to run an open source OS on it will result in a system shutdown, and your name and address are sent to Micro-Soft and entered in thier database of people who are automatically not allowed to use Windows XP.

Re:michael

[TheMidget]

No. "nifty"

Not Bad.

[Liquid(TJ)]

Well, it isn't the killer performace piece I was hoping for, but still not a bad chipset. I'd like to get one just to get rid of my God damn SBLive card, if nothing else!

It's isn't really meaningful until we're looking at the end product from the mobo manufactures. Still, I wouldn't mind picking up one of the 220-D chipsets, a nice cheap thunderbird, and some of that fancy Dance Dance RAM. I'd just drop my GF1DDR in there until the GF3's got nice and cheap.

Re:Not Bad.

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

I'm right there with ya on the SBLive. I also really like the all-in-one driver situation. Saves a lot of trouble. And nVidia have a pretty good record with drivers. I'm getting really sick of trying to figure out which of the Via 4-in-1 drivers I'm supposed to be using, and which ones will make the machine unstable and such. When nVidia makes pretty much everything that needs a driver, life'll be much easier. Well, as long as I can still buy somebody else's stuff if nVidia does get complacent and starts sucking.

Just wait

[interiot]

Time passes, processors get faster, bandwidth requirements go up.

For the same reason, rambus will become more desirable as time passes.

Re:Just wait

[steveha]

Rambus has latency issues. It's great for accessing lots of data sequentially, but for random access you keep tripping on the latency. DDR memory doesn't have this problem.

So, for some applications like cranking through a pile of video frames and compressing them, Rambus is great; but for many typical desktop computer operations, it's not so great.

The nForce chipset that runs two 64-bit wide buses in parallel has more memory bandwidth than an Athlon can use right now. That's a lot of bandwidth. If bandwidth is why Rambus could become more desireable than DDR memory, it won't happen anytime soon.

steveha

All Your Al Queda Are Belong To Us!!!

[rygarsdad]

For infinite justice!!!

A perfect match

[say]

"nForce supports a robust new feature set designed specificallyfor the new capabilities of Windows XP, including: digital music, DVD playback, 3D graphics, Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, networking, and more. The pairing of nForce and Windows XP is a perfect match--the world's best platform processor powering the world's most advanced operating system."

I don't know about other people, but those kind of statements do not exactly encourage me to buy. Actually, I decided to buy something else instead. A cake, for throwing.

My opinion

[methodic]

First of all, I'm 100% against any on-board chips, but the nForce isn't 'bad' for a first computer. From what I read, the memory bandwidth benched very high, and the audio benched very VERY well, but the gfx weren't so hot. I'd still take a Via KT266A anyday of the week over the nForce. And as far as the 4.2gig of memory bandwidth, although very nice on paper, doesnt really matter because 10 other things start to bottleneck. All in all, its a nice chip for manufacturers like Dell and IBM to start putting on their systems (as we all know, their integrated stuff SUCKS), but that's as far as I would go with it. I cant see the nForce taking off in the hardcore-user arena.

Re:My opinion

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

"I cant see the nForce taking off in the hardcore-user arena"

As a pretty hardcore user who is dying to get my hands on one, I'm gonna have to disagree with you. Its performance is comparable to the KT266A (so they're tied for best in the pack), and some of the integrated stuff could be pretty useful. I'll be pretty damned glad to get the SBLive out of my system. The special ethernet streaming stuff (not mentioned in the review...check out the preview) sounds pretty cool too. And if you want to use your own hardware, you can still install it. Most of the first round of nForce boards are probably going to be full ATX form factor with plenty of PCI slots plus AGP and that thing I didn't recognize (looks like a backwards PCI slot). And it's not really all that expensive. In fact, if memory serves, it costs less than an Abit KG7-RAID. So, while I don't like not having the option to install my own parts, in this case I don't see any real drawbacks of the integration. And I do see a few real benefits.

Re:My opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

10 things start to bottleneck? name 3? the north to southbridge communication is actually 2x that of the precious kt266a (for the record 800mb/sec vs 400mb/sec).

Re:My opinion

[JavaFox]

Is there any particular reason you think Dell would manufacture a PC with an nFORCE in it?

Re:My opinion

[Namarrgon]

I'd have to disagree too - this baby will sit in a muffled case in my lounge room, connected to the TV & 5.1 sound system, possibly with a Radeon 8500DV in it.

The bandwidth performance is up there with the best, the low-latency ethernet is a bonus, the integrated video provides a decent fallback if I decide to relocate the main gfx card, but I'd buy it for the high-performance Dolby Digital sound alone. A single connection to the amp, and I get full 5.1 speaker support in all my games :-)

Well worth a little extra, for the enthusiast. There's a lot more to this board than the integrated video!

binary drivers

[smunt]

Is the driver source available. Open source or not, I may want to use my own exotic OS.

Fast for it's time....

[DG]

Not to get drawn into a huge Amiga-zelotry argument over a joke, but the Amiga was screamingly fast _for its time_.

Remember that we're talking about a computer who's first iteration was 1985, its second 1990, and its third 1992.

Given that the 486 et al were a generation (hardware wise) later on, it's not at all suprising that it was superceded.

DG

Re:Fast for it's time....

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading about bugs where software didn't expect the processor to be done before the blitter on later incarnations of the 680x0. I've also seen software giving the option not to use the blitter at all and do processor blits instead, because they were faster on the higher numbered 680x0. But of course the blitter gave home programmers first hand experience with a true multitasking environment: Two chips doing different things at the same time. And the copper was a true enlightenment over the C64 method, which burned processor cycles with timing-NOPs. I'm getting carried away...

what about support for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will NVidia produce or release spec that will allows the needed kernel modules and X servers to be written? See that a lot of the engineering on that board is going to be considered trade secret by NVidia - like the whole south bridge.

Re:what about support for Linux?

[datpeter]

I don't think so.. They haven't done so for their graphics adapters, why should they release specs for the audio controller, IDE controller? I wouldn't recommend it for linux users. Better buy via chipset / ati/matrox or if you want 3d-performance: nvidia / SBlive.

Re:Furst Poste!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just trying to prove a point: You are no less anonymous than I am right now, therefore it is wrong to criticize others for their anonymity. It seems as if you are the one who is becoming irate. Concede my point and we can end this without any more of this futile bickering.

-The AC Avenger

ACR?

[Malc]

What is an ACR slot?

Re:ACR?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anal Crack Reamer, similar to the FUFME addon sexual device.

Re:ACR?

[dsb3]

Advanced Communications Riser

Re:ACR?

[MindStalker]

ACR, stands for Advanced Communications Riser.
I'm not sure if its like the old modem risers that used to be on motherboards (which was a bus for ultracheap software modems). Hopefully this will be used for good, like dolby digital sound output, instead of evil, cheap sound/modem/ethernet output.

Re:ACR?

[Malc]

Ahhh. So the card would have outputs for each of the devices supported by the system. I guess that would mean that each of the motherboard manufacturers would have to supply their own ACR card based on what features of nForce they support?

BIG surprise

[Harbinjer]

Now, I'm ready for a big surprise from AMD when the new Palomino desktop processors can support a faster bus that can take full advantage of nForce. After all, why are they waiting so long with desktop Palomino? That would be great, but I'm not real hopeful.

Re:Looks cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Alan Cox already had a look at it, and without specs, the answer is no.

Look forward to more buggy binary drivers, only now, its your core logic chipset instead of just video.

If NVidia captures the motherboard market, open source x86 pcs are doomed, since NVidia isn't going to release specs to ANYONE any time soon.

I like the model number

[Anonymous Coward]

420, hmm i wonder what that could mean. Buy an nForce, and with the money you save, you could buy a sack of dank nugs!

Lacking a bit for the home theater...

[alexhmit01]

Forget the do-it-yourself Tivo, and this still could have a role in a geek's home theater. I'm looking for a solution to use my home theater for gaming. I don't necessarily need earth-shattering Quake scores, but I need something that will look good on my high definition-ready monitor and sound good on my surround-sound system.

My fiance wouldn't like the TV becoming a gaming console for 1st person shooters, but for more communal games, it would be nice. I'd love to play group games like Heroes 3 on a TV with a wireless RF or IR mouse/trackball and keyboard. While playing audio CDs, running visualizations, etc.

The support for Digital Output without the connection is kinda silly. I haven't been able to find what video-out (if any) is supported because of slashdotting. Component Video out supporting 480p is a minimum, and 720p and 1080i would be useful as well.

This could make it possible to make PC-based stereo components, supporting gaming, integration with your home LAN (wired or wireless), etc., but it needs to support all the desired options.

Alex

Re:Lacking a bit for the home theater...

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to play a video game while playing a CD with visualizations? Do you always need to be over stimulatedlike this?

Also, if TV output is soooo important to you, why don't you get a TV out card?

Re:Lacking a bit for the home theater...

[StaticEngine]

My fiance wouldn't like the TV becoming a gaming console for 1st person shooters...

Sounds like you need a new fiancee.

Re:Lacking a bit for the home theater...

[alexhmit01]

Laugh...

My biggest concern with hooking up a computer is my fiancee taking it over to play The Sims...

Good bye movies, hello "Blah, blah, blah, blah..."

Alex

Re:Lacking a bit for the home theater...

[NerdSlayer]

The support for Digital Output without the connection is kinda silly. I haven't been able to find what video-out (if any) is supported because of slashdotting. Component Video out supporting 480p is a minimum, and 720p and 1080i would be useful as well.

You're asking for technology that doesn't exist. You need a dedicated TV out card, and it'll look like crap anyways, since even an HD ready TV has odd verticle resolutions (720, 960 and 1080).

As a refresher course, let me remind you that 720i means interlaced, while 720p is progressive scan... and I know you don't have a 720p capable TV. My Toshiba doesn't even do it. Don't forget that component video is not digital.

Only with Linux XP

[Atomizer]

Only with Linux XP, or is that GNU/Linux XP?

Um, no kidding Mr. Holmes

[Sierpinski]

Excuse me, I called it a 'graphics board' I guess I should have said 'A motherboard with an integrated video adapter' for those of you who can't read anything in context.

Armored Cavalry Regiment?

[wiredog]

(N/T)
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)

Re:Armored Cavalry Regiment?

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case, I got it (figuratively) stuck in my ACR slot about 10 years ago when I worked for 2ACR on the Czech Border.

If you ain't Cav, you ain't shit.

How about dual displays?

[c.r.o.c.o]

I keep reading that it is possible to use another AGP card with this mothergoard. What I would really like to know is wether I can hook up two displays to the box. One on the nForce output and one on a card of my choice.

I know it should be doable with an old PCI card and the nForce, or even with an old PCI card and a new AGP card (circumventing the nForce completely).

The one reason I can find (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the nForce is already an AGP card, and there can only be one such card on the mb. Is that true?

If it's possible, then I would have no problem buying a mb based on the nForce as soon as it becomes available (my dual Celery466 + TNT2 M64 is getting a bit too long in the tooth). Otherwise, for me at least, it would be a better option to go with the AMP chipset (is it the 760), which is probably cheaper. and just go with a GForce3 (which I would get anyways)

Re:How about dual displays?

[wct]

You can't use the integrated video and a separate card for dual display unfortunately. I read that in a preview somewhere.

Re:How about dual displays?

[cymen]

Technically it should be possible to use the builtin chipset as one display and a PCI card as another. But would you really want to? The 2D display quality of a nvidia chip pales compared to a Matrox G4xx. If you want stunning 2D go with Matrox or someone else...

Just my 2 cents - I've used a Geforce2 32mb and a TNT2 16mb (both AGP) extensively. The 2D quality just isn't as good as a G200/G400/G450.

Re:How about dual displays?

[ameoba]

I don't know the specifics of the board, but I can tell you that since AGP is defined as a port, not a bus, you are only allowed one connection to it (and IIRC AGP is wired into the system in such a way that only one port is possible), so an off-board AGP card would have to disable the onboard one. As far as a 2nd vid card on the PCI bus goes, unless they've gone out of their way to disable such functionality it should work like any other system.

Re:How about dual displays?

[Namarrgon]

The Register (I think?) said recently that inserting an AGP card disables the integrated video completely. No dual displays that way.

However, they also said that this was planned for the next revision of the nForce chipset.

Re:How about dual displays?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?

Tolkien lovers unite (if that be the Elbereth from the Silmarillion) =)

Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo...a star shines on the hour of our meeting

Linux support query?

[wct]

I really don't want to sound like a zealot or anything like that, but I would like to know if the integrated peripherals (sound, video, NIC) will be supported under Linux. It seems like a no-brainer for the video, given NVIDIA's commendable (though closed) Linux drivers. I remember jumping out and buying a TNT2 when they announced Linux support for the card, then waiting a year for the 4.X drivers to finally arrive. Now that I'm finally going to upgrade my computer, the nForce features are attractive, but I would like to know they are supported at the time of purchase instead of having to while away months wishing I'd bought products with existing support.

Really, this isn't a whinge about NVIDIA. Any company that supports Linux to the parity of their Windows releases deserves respect (are you listening ATI? Cirrus Logic? Guillemot? Creative?) After a few initially iffy driver releases, the very latest versions have been pretty much perfect for me. I just want to know if the features of this chipset will be supported off the bat this time. A kernel module for the NIC is probably not a major issue, but a closed sound-card driver will be hard to reconcile with the ALSA project, set to be the new Linux sound standard in 2.5.x. But any support is better than none, as they have proven in the past.

Flame away zealots :)

Re:Linux support query?

[cymen]

Nvidia basically writes only one driver for all of their video chipsets. I'm sure there are depends in the code for different chipsets but the download is one file. Basically the graphics chipset in this motherboard chipset is already supported by the existing nvidia drivers so no new drivers will need to be written (nor likely tweaked specifically as the Geforce2 MX is sold on regular AGP cards too).

Best PCI video card?

[brer_rabbit]

what would be the best choice of card I could get for a box that doesn't have an AGP slot? I got a dual P3-800 from a former employer; the motherboard (Asus CUR-DLS) has a server chipset without an AGP slot. Anyone know of a PCI version of the GeForce 3?

Re:Best PCI video card?

[Anonymous Coward]

you should be beaten to a bloody pulp for even asking that

Re:Best PCI video card?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 32MB SDRAM PCI ATI Radeon is the best you'll be able to do. It's about the speed of a slow GF2MX, but when you've only got PCI - it's what you gotta live with. It has pretty good TV out for DVD and DivX ;) playback...

What I'd really like...

[powerlinekid]

As posted above... it definitly seems that the nforce is going to be a dual or could we say quad board. Now that would be a hell of a machine. I'm currently using a dual pIII 1 gig on a Vp6... and its a great box, however the single memory bus with pc133 is a pretty decent hit. We may find that this chipset will be the one... quoting the matrix in regards to taking AMD to a new level of domination.

Re:500MHz Video Card

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesse was a friend...You know he was a good friend of mine...

Fire DMCA... for great justice!

[rygarsdad]

How are you gentlemen?

Re:No!

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's no drivers for the hardware, nVidia will lose out on some of the sales. I think it would be to their benefit to release some open source drivers. I don't see how this would help nvidia's "competition".

Also, you're not releasing the PRODUCT if you release some drivers. The product is the hardware itself, which is PATENTED.

Oh for the days...

[weslocke]

that we railed on the impersonal juggernaut that was 3D-FX, and cheered the peppy little underdog that was known as nVidia.

.ahem.

Re:Oh for the days...

[linzeal]

Up with Powervr and Kyro down with the evil nvidiots !!! They bought 3dfx killed glide and refuse to release win xp drivers for 3dfx.

Um, still...

[UnhandledException]

How did he get his hands on one? The article said they were going to start producing them in October.

Re:Um, still...

[Sierpinski]

Working where he does (which I'm not going to say), he tends to get stuff a little earlier than the rest of the public...

Re:Um, still...

[Anonymous Coward]

Trolls R Us, I'm guessing that'd be. By the way, I work for the CIA, so I know your friend is really just a pot smoker without a job.

b-day

[dollargonzo]

bah...most ppl dont realize the 4/20 is just hitler's birthday; i know it seems to carry a rather different conotation, but nevertheless...
it sounds rather dumb when ppl scream it out as done in the parent of this post...;-)

Re:b-day

[Anonymous Coward]

no dufus- he meant it was 4:20 in the afternoon. 4:20 is the International Weed Smoking Time.

You know what sucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what sucks?
The fact that us BSD users will not be able to take advantage of this chip.
nVidia has a bad habit to release binary-olny drivers, and only for Linux.
So much for freedom, now would be a good time for you so-called "freedom loving" Linux users to show your true colour, tell nVidia that they should support the BSDs too!!!

Good

[Krellan]

Good that it's nearing release. I check almost every day for "A7N266" on Pricewatch. Still no hits so far, but hopefully it should be close.

My PII-450 is getting quite sleepy. I've been wanting to upgrade for some time, but have been holding out until the PC market stabilizes on a decent stable platform. There's just been too much change recently.

I'm looking forward to building a system with GeForce3, nVidia nForce, DDR 266 memory, and a 1.4GHz or better Athlon... there's never been a better time to upgrade, because with this economy, it's a buyer's market!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the review? It looks to me like its a waste of money to buy this chipset as a performance platform if you are going to use a separate video card. What you want is a KT266A! As an added bonus, it's cheaper and only requires 1 DIMM!

Heat problem

[beanball75]

Unless they work out heat problems:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/index .html

I can't think of a circumstance where I would want to trust a 4-way server to an AMD chip. Love it for my desktop though.

Re:Heat problem

[Aegaeon]

Certainly AMD processors have heat problems if you YANK THE HEATSINK OFF while running a processor-intensive Quake3 demo, as the Tom's Hardware boys did.

For his next article, maybe Tom Pabst should rip out the radiator of a car driving through Death Valley in the summer, and then blame the car manufacturer for having "heat problems" with their engines...

Build-it-yourself supercomputer

[coats]

Forget about the GEForce2 vs. GEForce3 issue, but remember all that memory bandwidth and the off-loaded high performance connects for networking and disk access.

I want a cluster of Palomino'ed 420's running Mosix scalable linux clustering (see http://www.mosix.cs.huji.ac.il/) to do my meteorology/air quality forecasts (see http://envpro.ncsc.org/projects/SECMEP/secmep.html with.

Re:Build-it-yourself supercomputer

[ameoba]

Don't you mean :

Man... just imagine a BEOWULF *cough* *cough* of 420s, it'd be, like... WAY COOL, yo..

Good job Nvidia, but...

[tcc]

Now you need to make a "real interresting product", if you wanna make cash, go attack against the 760MP chipset. I mean, I won't pay an extra 50% on a motherboard for 10-15% better performance, if I can pay 75%% for doubling it (without counting the price for the extra cpu) (prices of the cpu are so cheap right now anyways :)).

I won't buy a single cpu motherboard in these times, with the hammer around the block, and the fact that I know I'll be outdated rapidly, my next syste1m will be like my current: Dual cpu, overclockable a bit and will last me at least 2 years, well hopefully :) (I am using it primarely for 3d rendering so you see where I am going).

My current system is a BP6 (dual celery 366->550). I am waiting for the "next BP6". I thought about dual durons, but now the price of Athlons is so cheap that I am just waiting for the 1.2GHZMP to take a small drop, and the Tiger MP to get a competitor so it reaches decent level (like the BP6 was). At least with that, I won't cry out when the Hammer will come out with a bigger price tag and 3x the performance over a single processor machine, I'll be on par and over the barrier on the price/performance issue (at least for a good while).

Somebody had to say

[Anonymous Coward]

Force this nVidiot!

unified driver(s)

[green pizza]

What I'm looking forward to with the nForce is only one set of drivers to worry about. In my job, I simply need to use at least one Windows machine and this chipset and its drivers will make that one burden significantly smaller. Looking forward to the commerical boards and long-term stability reports with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. As for Linux, I'll keep rolling my own systems with a plethora of components.

Don't forget RAM

[Anonymous Coward]

There are good guys there too, here I gotta put in my plug for Micron/Crucial (although I don't have any experience either way with Mushkin).

Having a friend that works at Micron, I'd have to put them on my Good Guys list for sure. First, they have been at the forefront of DDR technology, and one of the main opponents of Rambus, pushing an open standard for next-gen memory development, which has undoubtedly helped the consumer via competition. In fact, several DDR companies succumbed to Rambus pressure to pay royalties for DDR instead of pursuing lawsuits. Fortunately, Micron and a few other memory companies have successfully defended themselves from Rambus's greediness.

Also, Micron is number one or number two in RAM worldwide. Even with this last year's economy, Micron's CEO has done everything it can to avoid any layoffs, at least here in the States. Contrast this with HP or even Intel (reneging on college offers) and you can see how rare this is in large tech companies.

Test Procedure

[Wicked_Will]

According to Anand's system specs it looks like there was just a single DDR266 memory module used in the nForce board. According to the nVidia information I've read the proper configuration for a 256 MB system would be to use 128 MB in Bank 1 and 128 MB in Bank 2. Otherwise the system is only using one bank, which would explain the marginal bandwidth increase (3%) over the VIA KT266A. It would be nice to see the board with one and two memory modules installed to see how the second bank inhances bandwidth and overall performance.

Re:Test Procedure

[ZZane]

It was posted later in their forums that the 420-D (or 440-D or whatever :) was indeed tested with 2 128MB DDR-SDRAM chips.

-Zane

ati on nforce

[chris_oat]

wow, the ati radeon7500 performs almost as well as a geforce3 in those performance reviews. pretty sweet considering the 7500 is basically free when compared to the price of a gf3!

Re:ati on nforce

[Namarrgon]

Not in many other reviews. And no vertex or pixel shaders...

That's why I buy ATI

[iserlohn]

Suck on that NV. However, ATI driver leaves much to be desired. I want T&L and FSAA!

Re:That's why I buy ATI

[Anonymous Coward]

and that's why I like drivers that work on my linux box the first time I put them in

Re:That's why I buy ATI

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but then you have to put up with linux :(

Why MX??

[catseye_95051]

Those comparing this to other cards should keep in mind that MX is the cheap version of the nVidia cards.

A real graphics speed test should be done v. a Geforce2 GTS.

I don't udnertand why nVidia made this card with an MX unelss they were trying to keep its cost down.

Re:Why MX??

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they want to compete with their already established market? Expect them to use the lowest one they can get away with.

Re:Why MX??

[rocketsauce666]

if memory serves...In essence the on-board chip is just a plain Geforce 2. In video card terms,the MX only accounts for the amount the chip is clocked(chip clocked to 175mhz instead of 200), and the bandwidth/memory constraints put on it.(128bit/166mhz)

It could theoretically hit the performance level of a geforce 2gts depending on memory speeds, etc. yet with the overhead created by the rest of the system it can only reach the level of an mx. i think that's why anand used the MX to compare the two. Of course, that's just my understanding of it. feel free to correct me.

Daily ritual of evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but why at 4:20? To celebrate Hitler's birthday.

after market component sales?

[motherhead]

Does anyone remember Diamond back in the good old days before S3 bought them and immediately turned one of the finest American component companies to shit?

Remember that Diamond specialized in taking reference boards and just tweaking the crap out of them and then crowing it all with rock steady drivers? Whether it was Voodoo, Nvidia, Aureal or whatever. Diamond products where as solid as bank vaults and then raised the bar for everyone else. (The Soundblaster Live! Turned out as good as it did because Diamond was the first company to release a PCI audio card that was not only magnificent, but could be found at your local Best Buy, unlike Turtle Beach products, which were also excellent but not as widely or as well distributed. Since the Soundblaster AWE was Ubiquitous and still an ISA part. This kinds of terrorized them)

Okay my point. Not only am I somewhat excited by the potential of the nForce, but I am kind of giddy to see that NVidia groks audio as well as it does video. I am not happy Soundblaster has a lock on Audio peripherals (though the Hercules Game Theater XP is pretty hot) and would love to see real geeks with solid parts and solid drivers up on those same shelves.

Has anyone heard if NVidia is thinking about releasing the audio end of the nforce as a separate PCI part? Does NVidia have any plans to enter into the aftermarket component market?

No one has yet to fill Diamonds shoes, It would be fun to see Nvidia try.

When can I get one?!?!?

[cca93014]

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for the nForce to reach production quality, and it seems that it hasn't been worth it! Looks like the KT266A is the one to go for. Especially as it looks like nVidia is selling you a gfx card that is pretty much redundant.

The question that no-one seems to answer is: When and where can I get one?!? The Via 266A chipset was reviewed a long time ago, yet no-one seems to have them available. Can anyone help me here?

Pwerstrip 3.0

[alch]

Many of the newer boards DO support HDTV frequencies.

There is an application called Powerstrip that is made for just that - you just need adapters (and Windows .. not a perfect world). Many HDTV's also come with a VGA-in plug.

As well remember that the X-Box will output to HDTV as well and the core is .... what ... can't hear you ... the nForce you say ?

This is a low-end part, people

[Animats]

Some of you don't get it. This isn't a part for high-end systems. This is a part for low-cost systems. Low parts count, 4-layer boards, and very likely slotless PCs in a compact form factor. After all, if you have audio, networking, disk interface, USB, and more graphics power than a business PC will ever need, why have slots? Most PCs are never opened after they leave the factory.

I suspect we'll see some nice-looking desktops for business, and low-end machines for the home, based on this. The big push for businesses will probably be lower cost of ownership.

A virgin says what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, my sides appear to have split. Oh the agony caused by excess laughter. Truly you are the 21st centuries greates comedian.

Sorry, did I say comedian? I meant shithead.

Good job dickhead, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

...no-one cares how small your penis is.

NVidia still proprietary...

[cyrilc]

At least, they will never see me buying one of their cards until they release the source of their drivers for inclusion in XFree 4.x !!

Is their anyone at Nvidia who can read and pass on the essay from RMS (esp. the appendix from the Magic Cauldron) :
Why Closing Drivers Loses A Vendor Money

Re:Furst Poste!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohhh Trollman, your dick is sooo hard!

...and how do you get it so far up your own ass?

Does this spell the end of the DIY system..

[levinas]

It the past there was a strong hot rod culture, where people would activily take apart there engines etc etc. However with modern cars, due to the invention of things like overhead cams, this has all but died. The reasion for this is the almost total intergration of part's into cars nowadays. Now couldn't the same thing be said to be happening with computers.

With almost all the components you need and no doubt in a better box why would anyone assemble a computer today is beyound me. Now with it all one the main board it is starting to seem more and more "hardcore".

It seem's to me that we are witnessing the end of a era, wheather this is good or bad I leave up to you guy's.

DVD industry

[KjetilK]

Well, yeah, this is a very interesting issue.

The reason I chose this CD drive is that it was the cheapest one I could get that reportedly worked under Linux. I'm not sure I want a DVD drive at this time....

It looks like the whole DVD industry is busy abusing consumers as much as they possibly can. Obviously, you have the DVD-CCA, I would certainly not want any of my money getting into their hands.

But you have zoning and stuff too, and while I hear it is easy to work around it, and that it is probably even legal to do that here in Norway, I still don't feel like it. As long as the industry doesn't respect their customers, they should not exist.

That's why I figured I would just get a cheap CD-ROM drive right now, and get a DVD drive or whatever later, when the industry gets a clue.

However, I might be barking up the wrong tree, I guess, so if anybody is aware of a manufacturer who aren't in on this, I would certainly consider it.

Re:DVD industry

[Aceticon]

I haven't yet bought a DVD-ROM drive for exactly the same reasons as you stated above.

Still, a couple of months ago i searched for a Region Free DVD-ROM drive, and what i found was the Asus DVD E612 (which i don't even know if it's still manufactured).
Apparently the drive comes with Region Code active. You just change a jumper and "voilá" - a Region Free drive. Anyways, i never bought the thing, so this is all hearsay.

Oh yes, in most of the world (except the US), there is (yet) no DMCA, so changing that jumper doesn't break any law.