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NVidia nForce Reviewed

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the dolby-is-oh-so-yum dept.

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."

8 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Too much bandwidth? by doorbot.com · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Too much bandwidth? by cmowire · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Gentoo Sucks
  2. Very interesting.. by cmowire · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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. ;)

    --
    Gentoo Sucks
  3. Hmmm.... where have I seen this before? by DG · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

    :)

    --
    Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
  4. Re:seems nice, but... by cmowire · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!!! ;)

    --
    Gentoo Sucks
  5. Just wait by interiot · · Score: 3, Informative
    Time passes, processors get faster, bandwidth requirements go up.

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

  6. Linux support query? by wct · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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 :)

  7. This is a low-end part, people by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.