nForce2 Preview

An anonymous submitter writes "I noticed that a review of NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset has been posted here. From what I can gather the chipset contains two 10/100 ethernet controllers, six USB 2.0 ports, UltraATA133 support, three 1394 ports, five PCI slots, and an integrated GeForce4 MX core including NVIDIA's nView technology and a TV Tuner." Tom's Hardware and NVNews also have looks at it.

Comments

XBox

[CountBrass]

heh, wonder how many XBox owners are kicking themselves for buying a PC you can't upgrade (easily). Especially now that Halo is coming to the PC and Mac. I dont see this chipset being of much interest to slashdotters - personally I hate getting sound and ethernet on board. If I wanted a computer that was tough to upgrade I'd have bought an iMac ;-)

Re:XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the same amount of people that are kicking themselves for buying a PS2. Especially now that GTA3 is available for PC.

Here's $1US, buy a clue.

Re:XBox

[ergo98]

heh, wonder how many XBox owners are kicking themselves for buying a PC you can't upgrade (easily).

I doubt very many. My video card alone cost more than an XBox...

Re:XBox

[TheFlyingGoat]

You did read the article, right?

While the IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) of the first nForce has always been equipped with integrated graphics, the customer can now opt for an nForce2 withouth integrated graphics, namely, the System Platform Processsor (SPP). The SPP is a "pure" version of the Northbridge, without graphics, and therefore significantly lower in price.

Re:XBox

[CountBrass]

Yes, but a plain-old chipset hardly warrants /. space - it's interesting because of the geforce connection.

Re:XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Plain-old chipset? Take a look at the bus structure, heck if that's too complex for you just have a look at features you get.. all in a mobo that will be $150

Here's another $1US, buy another clue.

Re:XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

heh, wonder how many XBox owners are kicking themselves for buying a PC you can't upgrade (easily).

-1 flamebait

what does this have to do with xbox owners? why limit it to them? what about ps2, gamecube, dreamcast, etc. owners that cant upgrade their processor, memory...

oh yeah, i forgot where i was for a second

Re:XBox

[SpaceJunkie]

Ummm... I still fail to see your logic there..

You probably paid for such a high end card for a very good reason. But you still can change it, and your soundcard, and your OS.

Yes the X-Box is cheap, but not really when you could probably buy an old out-of-date machine being cast out by some company updating there network for about £50 which will be fully upgradeable and may even be more capable as-is.

I also know a few people kicking themselves for having bought them. Yes Halo is a great looking(note LOOKING) game, but then its not gonna be exclusive for all that long. I also object to the size of the thing....hehe

Re:XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see, Halo is expected when? 2003! No, I don't think they are kicking themselves. I played a bit on an X-Box a couple days ago. The graphics were quite good, and I didn't notice any real issues a small upgrade would fix.

Sure, a new, faster video processor would be nice, but you know what, in what I saw it wouldn't have made a significant difference anyway. (Not through a TV!)

Re:XBox

[ergo98]

The logic is that I can't "upgrade" my video card without throwing it out, just like an XBox person can throw out their XBox and buy a PC, or an XBox 2, when the time comes. Hell, I'll bet you that this motherboard alone, when it comes out (eventually), will cost as much as an XBox costs.

Sorry but your argument sounds like the argument of a vengeful, spiteful, jealous sideliner. i.e. "HA! I'll bet those stupid Geforce 3 buyers feel dumb now that the Geforce 4 is out!" "I'll bet those Athlon people feel dumb now that the Hammer is out!". Sorry, but I've seen that sort of self-justification far too long in too many message boards. I don't have an XBox (I do too much on my PC to neglect having a good rig), but I can certainly see the allure and logic of it.

Re:XBox

[SpaceJunkie]

But why throw out the entire PC when all you need to replace is the graphics card? Or sound card or even processor? Surely one of the key things about having modular PC's on a tight budget(or even a reasonably generous one at that) is that you can do incremental upgrades to various system components - which although being more expensive in the longer term, allows you to see the benefits of upgrading in the shorter term.

And you dont necessarily have to throw away your old GFX card. Used PC components and consoles have a pretty good used parts market. I let many of my old components go that way if I dont distribute them in my other machines. Though I have hung on to my old consoles.

Re:XBox

[wheany]

I would love to install a new Athlon XP processor on my current motherboard, unfortunately I can't. I have to upgrade my motherboard as well. And I better buy some new, faster memory too.

Re:XBox

[NickV]

But why throw out the entire PC when all you need to replace is the graphics card? Or sound card or even processor? Surely one of the key things about having modular PC's on a tight budget(or even a reasonably generous one at that) is that you can do incremental upgrades to various system components - which although being more expensive in the longer term, allows you to see the benefits of upgrading in the shorter term.

What are you refering to here? The costs related to just upgrading the video card to upgrading a console?

Let's see, upgrading from one console to the other "next-big-hot-thing" costs about $200-$300. Upgrading from one video card to the other "next-big-hot-thing" costs about $300-$400. Where's the cost savings?

And you dont necessarily have to throw away your old GFX card. Used PC components and consoles have a pretty good used parts market. I let many of my old components go that way if I dont distribute them in my other machines. Though I have hung on to my old consoles.

Your video card is COMPLETELY useless without another computer to plug into. The XBox isn't useless just because you get a new console. The XBox doesn't have to be thrown out when you get an XBox2, just like I didn't throw out my N64 when I got the gamecube. Oh yea, and the used Console market is very very very good (better than the used pc components market.)

So basically, you have no argument.

Re:XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't notice any real issues a small upgrade would fix.

I Do. A mouse and keyboard.

The games worthless without it.

Re:XBox

[Zeinfeld]

But why throw out the entire PC when all you need to replace is the graphics card? Or sound card or even processor? Surely one of the key things about having modular PC's on a tight budget(or even a reasonably generous one at that) is that you can do incremental upgrades to various system components - which although being more expensive in the longer term, allows you to see the benefits of upgrading in the shorter term.

What the guy is saying is that the premium you pay for the system being upgradable is much greater than the cost of considering the computer to be upgradeable.

Two years ago I spent $5K on a home PC. Today the only part of the system that is not obsolete is the video card which I replaced about 6 months ago because the old one was not supported by Windows XP (Vendor went out of business)

The nVidia chipset being discussed is targetted at what are likely to be low end machines, but with much better graphics than are ususal for that sector. OK so the graphics are not cutting edge for gamers, but they are probably better than the cards that ship with 90% of PCs today.

The real advantage to me of a system like that is that you could have a complete system in a slimline case without clunky riser cards, something that I might want to have in the living room next to my HiFi.

Now such a system might not be what I would buy for myself as a primary system but I am certain that my 17 month old son is not going to complain about the lack of performance.

If all you need to add is a processor, a case, memory and some disk you could have a complete system for $500 that you could trust to run unattended without fearing it would burn the house down.

MOTHERBOARD?

[Jucius Maximus]

According to the NVNews article, they have a reference motherboard?

Perhaps this has something to do with cooling ... if you look at the pic, the AGP slot is very close to the next PCI slot - perhaps the weight/size of cooling equipment makes the AGP slot impractical for the most powerful graphics chipsets.

Re:MOTHERBOARD?

[ocbwilg]

According to the NVNews article, they have a reference motherboard?

That's not what it says. If you read closely, you'll see that they tried to simulate the performance of an nForce2 mainboard by using an nForce motherboard with an underclocked GeForce4MX 460.

Why two ethernet controllers?

[Cutriss]

This chipset is designed to be used in OEM boards for good performance and enthusiast customers...not servers. I can't think of any legitimate use for *two* ethernet controllers other than in a broader network application (Firewall, for instance).

Perhaps you could use it to make a really stupid sort of bus network for LAN parties using nothing but crossover cables, but that's such a silly idea (performance/configuration issues) that it's probably true...

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[ThogScully]

It's for motherboards where space is limited too. I'd like a server motherboard that has the integrated video for instance, since I don't care about keeping latest-greatest video support there, but definitely don't want to waste space for a video card.

By building it into the chipset, they allow a variety of different motherboards for all sorts of applications to be developed using just one chip.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Xzzy]

> Why two ethernet controllers?

Why not? It's also said to have 6 usb ports, which is about five more ports than most people ever need.

If the cost of adding a second port is very small, there's no reason not to do it. Saves joe power user some time and money when he realizes he needs a second port, and joe average user will never be harmed by having it there.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a suggestion, but why do you need video on it at all? Couldn't you just shell or VNC into it? Sorry, I'm an auditor and anything people can do to limit direct access to server rooms always wins bonus points.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[jandrese]

Well, firewalls are becoming very important as more people get "always on" internet access. In addition the number of people getting a second computer is increasing. Plus, chances are they are going to use some RealTek POS chip on there, so the second controller is only going to cost a few cents.

Also, this might be useful at LAN/fireshare parties where people don't want to saturate the "gaming" network so they set up a second firesharing network.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[digitalsushi]

joe average user will never be harmed by having it there.

Til Joe Average pays 185 bucks for a tech support just to hear himself say over the phone, "other ethernet port? Oh!"

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[ThogScully]

Personally, I would be frustrated by any machine where I don't have the option to fall back to a local terminal when things go wrong. As rare as it may be, servers are a pain to troubleshoot if you for some reason can't get to them remotely.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[andyr]

I can't think of any legitimate use for *two* ethernet controllers other than in a broader network application

I can think of two.

• DSL modem (many of which use ethernet) and a regular LAN. I am told you can just put the modem on the LAN, but on my Linux gateway I could not make that work.
• Thin client - very handy even at home, use your clunky old PC as an X-Terminal onto a server, 100BaseT private connection de-congests the (maybe 10BaseT) LAN

• Cheers, Andy!

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[dattaway]

The "controllers" are just a few extra pins out of hundreds on the chip. A very tiny patch of real estate is lost if you don't use it. A great amount of circuit board real estate is gained if you do use it as it only requires a few tiny inductors and connectors to impliment it.

I'd want to see a few more controllers on the chipset myself. What's another milliwatt and a few more pins among friends? Imagine the clustering potential of these chipsets...

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[ergo98]

Actually, apparently nvidia makes the integrated Ethernet port (integrated in the motherboard chipset), and 3COM makes the integrated, but circuitry isolated, "add-in" card. 3COM makes superb cards and chipsets.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[SpaceJunkie]

Ummm Cable/ADSL companies that require you to use the provided one port router with only one active DHCP address - where you may need to set up one machine as a NAT and firewall.

This was certainly the case with NTL in the UK. I had one workstation, one lappy and another machine I use purely for downloads - I setup the download machine with two PCI ethernet cards for just this purpose.

However this was around 2 years ago, and currently you can now buy ADSL boxes with built-in DHCP, routing and NAT fairly cheaply(I think theres even one that doubles up as a cheap wireless access point).

Which still leaves the Firewall - have you ever seen how expensive an outboard hardware firewall is(given I already have PC's that could do this)? I could set up a seperate software firewall on each machine in the network - but what a pain in the behind when I can set up a machine in no time - then having two ethernet ports is a boon.

However in the case that the user has a standalone system all of this is redundant - but since it is so cheap, and any reasonable OS will allow either port to be used(saving the "Which port" on tech support) I cant see any problem with it being there.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible to have 'WinEthernet' cards? Is there anything wrong with integrated Ethernet or is PCI Ethernet superior?

Also, is it true that USB sucks up more CPU cycles than PS/2?

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunatly (to my knowledge anyways) you need the video in order to see the installation screens and all that, too my knowledge you cant just use "shell" into an oS less machine.

an interesting idea would be to have a "console port" on a mother board (like routers, at least the cisco kind) that would allow access to it during boot time... (of course that can all be done with a KVM switch, which requires video)

i dont know what im rambling on about now...

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[_Swank]

suppose this was used in an xbox-like device. currently you can connect 2 xboxen together for 4x4 gaming. wouldn't two ethernet controllers allow it to connection both online and to another xbox? this is certainly a very good thing.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, more like, "the other telephone-connector-type-thing."

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Hadlock]

yeah, anything USB will use cpu cycles, as USB is a "dumb bus", as opposed to fire wire, which is a "smart bus" that is completely independent of the CPU (you can connect two firewire cameras together and copy video between them with no computer in the middle managing the data). PS/2 is so old and simple that i'm sure all of it is controlled by a chip on the motherboard. it's possible to have win eithernet cards; microsoft is trying to push win wireless eithernet cards as we speak. depending on the PCI card, and integrated eithernet, one could be faster than the other. the nforce2 chipset uses 3com technology, so it'g going to fucking fly.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[linzeal]

You are fucking nuts if you just put the modem up on the lan. Even the firewall/router/soho bs. At worst go smoothwall, at best homebrew up your own but jesus h christ put the thing in front of something hard.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[duffbeer703]

I could think of plenty of reasons. Access to multiple lans (our shop runs an office lan and a network/server lan), access to controlled networks running IPSec, etc.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Becuase of the 3Com brand name that's etablished in the corporate world...

MikeC-nV News

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[zootread]

Unfortunatly (to my knowledge anyways) you need the video in order to see the installation screens and all that, too my knowledge you cant just use "shell" into an oS less machine.

Here's what you do:
1) Install video card
2) Install OS and setup remote access
3) Remove video card

Personally, I wouldn't do this myself and I think video onboard isn't such a bad thing. But running a PC without video is completely possible.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[The_Shadows]

Internet connection sharing. I have a Dual Port NIC in my system for this exact purpose. Sure, the box is firewalled too, but it's main function is to distribute one connection in, to the other two systems in the house via a HUB.

I'm much too cheap to buy the extra IPs or a router. I had the hub and the NIC sitting around (salvage sales - woo!) and it was an easy way to avoid paying $20 / month or $100 for an actual router.

I'd like this board on this grounds that it saves me a PCI slot or two. My machine is all filled up right now anyway. I couldn't put a second NIC in anyway. I was glad to have the dual port card.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[iceburn]

I have 2 ethernet controllers in my workstation. Why? I have 1 connected to the LAN. I use the other with a crossover for configuring firewalls, etc. Very very convenient. I can also just crossover to my laptop if I want to snag a few files, but I don't have an open port on the switch to plug in to. There are tons of uses for a second interface, and if it just costs a couple of bucks to add one, I don't see why not.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[ocbwilg]

This chipset is designed to be used in OEM boards for good performance and enthusiast customers...not servers. I can't think of any legitimate use for *two* ethernet controllers other than in a broader network application (Firewall, for instance).

Well, there's apparently a lot fo different uses for having a second ethernet port, and I won't bother to list them all here (as others have done so for me). My question is why two different ethernet controllers? If you've already got your own controller built in once, why not just duplicate it? Why license someone else's controller? Granted, 3Com makes pretty solid NICs (they're all I use) but if you're concerned that yours aren't up to snuff, why not just license 3Com's from the beginning? It would certainly simplify things from a configuration and support perspective anyway.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[mi]

• DSL modem (many of which use ethernet) and a regular LAN. I am told you can just put the modem on the LAN, but on my Linux gateway I could not make that work.

Works just fine here, although with FreeBSD. I'm sure it would work with Linux too, but don't know how exactly. On FreeBSD one network interface can have many addresses -- I have one external (assigned by the ISP) and two internal (10.0.1.x).

On Linux, you have to "clone" the interfaces to achieve that (eth0.0, eth0.1 ?)...

The DSL modem then goes into the switch together with the rest of your network, under the assumption, that the ISP is smart enough not to let the private-network packets through their routers, so noone can target your private LAN directly.

The firewall rules become quite complicated, though and by using two separate physical interfaces you aleviate both issues: having to rely on the ISP's wits and the firewall spaghetty.

I know, people think, the little NAT-routers sold by everybody and their brother are more secure, but they all have useability problems. Mostly their NAT implementations suck -- typicly, you can not ping or traceroute through them, sometimes ftp-ing is troublesome. Prolonged idle tcp connections sometimes get closed out of the blue, etc.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[be-fan]

Actually, OHCI chipsets (mainly SiS, ALi, and some others) are a lot smarter than UHCI chipsets (Intel and VIA). Performance with OHCI chipsets is significantly better too. In fact, OHCI is the programming model for computer firewire interfaces as well.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there actually going to be two network connections on each board? I read the article to say that there will be an option for both - I'd imagine some OEMs will want to pay a little bit more for the "extras" needed to use the 3Com port, and everybody else will just use the nForce one. I bet that we'll only have single-NIC nForce2 motherboards, for the most part.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[RpiMatty1]

Having 2 different manufactuares makes it easier to differentate in software.
I have 2 nic's in my current computer, and they are different brands so i can tell them apart when i set my ip address.

Also the article said the are targeting 1 nic for OEM's and the other nic for home users

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Jennifer Ever]

Most likely, the MCP and MCP-T southbridge chips are almost identical, and the MCP-T relies on external chips for its additional functionality. In this case, both the MCP and MCP-T have the nVidia ethernet controller built into the southbridge, but when they add the second controller to the MCP-T, it's something along the lines of a 3C920 ASIC.

Additionally, 3Com provides no support for OEM products, so yes, there're two different drivers, but no, you don't have to call two different companies for support.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[ocbwilg]

but when they add the second controller to the MCP-T, it's something along the lines of a 3C920 ASIC.

That actually makes sense. Thanks.

Additionally, 3Com provides no support for OEM products, so yes, there're two different drivers, but no, you don't have to call two different companies for support.

Yeah, actually what I meant was that it would be potentially more headache for whoever ends up supporting it, whether that is Joe Hardware at the screwdriver shop or someone troubleshooting their own system. I wasn't even thinking about manufacturer support.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[psamuels]

I can't think of any legitimate use for *two* ethernet controllers other than in a broader network application

Token-ring-over-UTP-Ethernet! (:

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? It's also said to have 6 usb ports, which is about five more ports than most people ever need.

Not necessarily true. OEM's are pushing for USB everything. USB keyboard, USB mouse, USB printers. 6 USB ports is a decent amount.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Hoser McMoose]

One little extra reason on top of those already mentioned might have something to do with the history of the nForce's integrated NIC. At least some motherboard manufacturers (Asus is the first that jumps to mind) didn't use this integrated NIC on their first nForce board and instead used an external ethernet controller on their board. The reason, apparently, was because nVidia did not (and I believe still doesn't) have any NT 4.0 drivers for their NIC (they do have Win98/Me and Win2K/XP, as well as Linux drivers available).

Using the extra 3Com ethernet controller would let at least one of the two controllers work under just about any operating system.

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[psergiu]

Please Mod Parent Up ! :D :D :D

Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[Joe Mucchiello]

6 USB ports, hmm. I have a keyboard, mouse, scanner, joystick, webcam and inkjet printer on my computer. Had to buy a 4 port USB hub to get them all to work. (mouse in keyboard). This would be so much nicer.

Two ethernet cards however makes no sense. if you hook up the broadband to this computer and then this computer to the rest of a LAN. Nothing on the LAN can get out unless this machine is one. In this case a Hub/Router/Switch/Firewall combo thing make much more sense and only one ethernet card in the computer.

nForce or Xbox

[beowulf_26]

"nForce Preview"
Read: The guts to a watered down version of Xbox2. (I presume nForce3 or whatever will power the X^2)

Re:nForce or Xbox

[JanusFury]

Bzzt, sorry, try again later.
This chipset uses a GF4MX, which is LESS powerful than the GPU used in the current XBox. Perhaps you should read the article instead of just the title.

Re:nForce or Xbox

[beowulf_26]

The current nForce chipset used in the Xbox by default would use the MX2 (I believe) which is FAR inferior to the current xbox GPU. Obviously, M$ wouldn't use the stock GPU in their next console, since they don't adhere to that now.

Also, if you read my (very short) comment, you will see I used the words, "watered down" implying not fully featured. Yes, I read the article. Perhaps you should pay attention to a one-line post...

Re:look at the other sites reviews instead

[Astrorunner]

Don't you *know* it. Who in their right mind uses the "Comic" font? Call me close minded, but I can't take any site serious that uses that ugly-ass font.

Chipsets with USB Ports?

[ajmarks]

When did chipsets start containing ethernet controllers, USB ports, PCI slots, and firewire ports in them? Last I checked, these are all contained in the motherboard, not the chipset.

Accuracy and Slashdot: Why do they never go together?

Re:Chipsets with USB Ports?

[SpaceJunkie]

Ummm... The physical slots, and ports are mounted on the motherboard(or through jumpers attached to them), but all of these things need controllers - which will be on the chipset....

Sorry to be pedantic but since you commented...

Re:Chipsets with USB Ports?

[Anonymous Coward]

First nForce had ethernet controller in chipset. nForce2 has two of them in the chipset.

Processor?

[hofer]

Do I need a processor for this?

Re:Processor?

[kawaichan]

Not sure you are meant to be as a flame or not, but yes you do need a CPU for this, an Athlon CPU to be exact.

IIRC, I don't think NVIDIA has licence for making Pentium 4 chipset, so they are pretty much stuck with AMD's processors for now (I think they are making chipset for Hammer as well)

I think nForce 2 is great but watch out for ATi's new chipset as well. (I smell a chipset super pricewar in the distant future!)

Re:Processor?

[SpaceJunkie]

Sorry to nitpic - but you mean an AMD processor -AFAIK a Duron would also work with it would it not?

You do wonder if this level of reintegration may mean that the option of buying throw-away single board PC's is being re-explored. Its certainly not what I want, and many slashdotters like me find the idea very repulsive. But it would generate great revenue for manufacturers, and your mother/non-techie PC user would probably love cheap smaller footbprint single board machines.

Does anyone here remember the appeal of the ZX81 being a single board computer?

Of course we must make sure that the hardware seperates market doesnt die....Otherwise what would I tinker with when bored?

Re:Processor?

[kawaichan]

I think Durn works fine too (Duron is just an Athlon with less cache and running @ a lower FSB)

Yeah, I used to think this way too, but think about it, Sound, Ethernet and ATA controllers are pretty much the same nowdays and NVIDIA's sound is pretty decent to begin with (I think they are using the same XBox's logic)

Onboard Graphics is a big turn off since it pretty much close off your upgrade path but I think NVIDIA is doing the right thing by including a lot of PCI slot and an AGP slot for future upgrade. Let's hope the board will get cheaper.

Other than that, I think it's an extremely attractive option for OEM people since you get a highly intergrated mobo with a NVIDIA brand right on it.

Re:Processor?

[vrmlknight]

"Onboard Graphics is a big turn off since it pretty much close off your upgrade path "

What about when it is no longer state of the art disable it in the bios and install a new one or better yet run dual monitors and have the 'new' one be the primary

Re:Processor?

[nil_null]

Actually, this looks like great set-top box material. It has a TV-tuner, Composite/S-video out, DVI out, is HDTV ready, etc. You could put it in a slim case and put it in the rack next to your audio/video components in your TV room. I'm going to consider this motherboard when I decide to build a PC for my TV (depending on what it costs).

Re:Processor?

[Datafage]

Can't use it as dual monitor, since the onboard uses the AGP bus and you can only have one AGP device.

Re:Processor?

[GoSpeedRacerGo]

Yes and no. In nForce, the integrated graphics is on a different AGP bus (it was 8x in nForce1) but when you plug an AGP graphics card into the slot on the AGP bus the integrated graphics is disabled. Also to be clear, the integrated graphics in nforce2 will drive two displays all by itself. VGA + VGA or VGA + TV. A good number of NVIDIA's GeForce4 cards (MX and Ti) will drive two displays as well and have TV out so if you upgrade the graphics, you will still have that feature (nView).

Re:Processor?

[Hoser McMoose]

ATI's chipset? Bleah!

Have you looked at the spec for ATI's chipsets? They're not at all interesting for the desktop. They have a couple chipsets that look GREAT for laptops (acceptable performance and low power consumption), but for the desktop there are TONS of better chipsets out there.

First off they're only using DDR266 (single channel) for their integrated graphics, which means performance is likely going to stink (integrated graphics performance is almost entirely determined by the amount of memory bandwidth and bandwidth reduction techniques used). Secondly their other integrated components look totally standard (virtually identical to what SiS, VIA and Intel have), and what's worse, right now they're still using PCI to connect their north and south bridges together, just after the very last of the companies (ALi) have moved away from such a setup. This will somewhat limit the bandwidth and performance for I/O on such a system.

To top it all off, it's not likely that ATI will improve the (rather pityful) driver situation with most current motherboards. If nothing else, nVidia has everyone else on the market beat in terms of the quality of their motherboard drivers (even Intel has caused me no end of troubles with their buggy drivers.. SiS was worse and VIA and ALi are worse still). Combine that with the significantly better integrated graphics performance (way more bandwidth due to the dual-channel DDR controller), top-notch audio and a handful of other neat tricks that the nForce brings to the table, and it's no wonder that it's quickly becoming the most popular Athlon chipset (all of the largest OEM customers for the Athlon use the nForce for many of their systems).

RTFA (article)

[carlcmc]

to quote: "Because the traditional modem is being replaced by more modern technologies, such as DSL, a network card is pretty much indispensable these days. However, a single interface is only sufficient if the PC is to be connected to either the Internet or a a local network, but not both. If you need to connect the PC to both, then you definitely need a second port."

for a home with more than one computer with a cable modem this makes perfect sense. For a couple dollars more, it would be stupid not to...

Re:RTFA (article)

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't. No one would use this motherboard as a firewall/gateway. The quoted statement itself is very stupid.

Re:RTFA (article)

[lucifuge31337]

Why is that informative? Who is going to build a router/firewall platform on a board with bad-ass graphics?

The last time I checked, the PC I'm writing this from had only one network card and is connected to my local network and the Internet. (wow...routers are so damn amazing....) Are they marketing this to higher end users, or mororns? I'm confused.

Or maybe its for uber-gaming....can you team the NICS for 200 MB of fraggin' bandwidth?

Re:RTFA (article)

[sparty]

Why is that informative? Who is going to build a router/firewall platform on a board with bad-ass graphics? The last time I checked, the PC I'm writing this from had only one network card and is connected to my local network and the Internet. (wow...routers are so damn amazing....) Are they marketing this to higher end users, or mororns? I'm confused.

Perhaps it's for people who currently have one PC and would like to buy another but keep the old one around for the kids / significant other / dog / garage / whatever and use the new, faster PC as the Internet sharing box? Especially with a two-PC network on Windoze platforms, this makes sense, IMO. It's obviously not as secure as having an actual firewall / router box between the workstations, but it does allow the fast box to have a routable IP (game server, maybe?) as well as allow the slower box to be usable for email and web browsing.

Re:RTFA (article)

[lucifuge31337]

I'm aware of what two NICs can do. I'm questioning the necessity, popularity, and demand of having them in a board which seems to be targeted at the higher end gaming audience.

These are people who PROBABLY know that a DSL/Cable router is the better way to do this. How much is a cheap-o cable router/hub combo now? $80. Probably even less if you look around and don't buy it as RatShack.

Re:RTFA (article)

[sparty]

From some of the other comments, this seems not to be aimed at the gamer audience--the on-board video apparently beats other on-board video but can't touch "real" video cards. For example, there's this comment trying to figure out what niche the chipset belongs in and this comment, quoting Carmack's .plan about the included video support.

Re:RTFA (article)

[ocbwilg]

From some of the other comments, this seems not to be aimed at the gamer audience--the on-board video apparently beats other on-board video but can't touch "real" video cards.

And from the articles, there are actually two different northbridge and southbridge chipsets available. You've got the "low-end" integrated solution for OEMs with integrated graphics, AC97 audio and a single ethernet port. Then you've got the "high-end" solution targetting at gamers without onboard video but with and integrated APU that does Dolby Digital 5.1 and has Firewire and dual network controllers.

Re:RTFA (article)

[swordboy]

No... This relates to Xbox2. Microsoft will be getting with cablecos in order to provide an integrated set top box/router so customers can have multiple PCs through a connection that can be managed/supported by the cableco. It is a great idea, if you ask me.

Xbox/Tivo/Router/Web Server - all managed by Big Brother and everyone will pay extra. MS and cableco will have a piece of the additional revenue.

Re:RTFA (article)

[ergo98]

There is no need for a specialized separation between "LAN" and "internet" connectivity (otherwise a lot of large corporations had better go in and retrofit their entire organizations: Apparently they need a second `internet' port on every PC): Most homes facilitate this by a single, usually low end (i.e. not nForce2), dual-ported machine, or alternately via a router. The idea that every PC needs two ports is ludicrous.

Pet Peeve: I'm getting bloody tired of all of the "READ THE ARTICLE!" BS on Slashdot. As is evidenced by the preceeding paragraph THE ARTICLE IS LARGELY WRONG. Articles are just "Slashdot postings" with perhaps a slightly higher standard of spelling and integrity : Just because some guy put it in an "article" doesn't mean it's right, or that it can't be questioned.

Re:RTFA (article)

[MisterBlister]

Actually nForce is largely for the lower to mid cost mainstream OEM PC market, not just gamers. So why should these people spend $80 when they could spend $1-2 more to get a second NIC in their nForce PC? It makes sense for a lot of people. Maybe not YOU, but the world doesn't revolve around you.

Re:RTFA (article)

[lucifuge31337]

Now see, that's where you're wrong.

Text of article

[billmaly]

NVIDIA is set to introduce its second iteration of its nForce series of integrated solutions soon. The nForce2, as it is called, will contain several features not found in the current line of nForce chipsets, and a few unexpected surprises. First a brief history of nForce is in order. NVIDIA released its nForce series of chipsets to gain market share and realize another venue for revenue. NVIDIA's chipset knowledge gained from developing the chipset on the XBox, and its familiarity with graphics enabled it to entice many motherboard manufacturers, OEMs, and even consumers. Today, the computer market has dried up, and NVIDIA must realize new revenue streams, and by taking a bigger piece of the chipset pie, which Intel and VIA both claim a high chunk of, they may increase their bottom line. With this in mind NVIDIA knew they had to develop a chipset that would not only sell, but would be state of the art, aimed not only towards the high end but the mainstream. With the nForce2 they may have done just that. First of all the graphics in the nForce should be discussed. Of course, NVIDIA being the graphic company they are, would certainly opt to include their own technology in this product. They chose to use the GeForce4 MX core, which should not be confused with a GeForce4 since it contains none of the Pixel/Vertex shaders, actually it should be considered a modified GeForce2. However, this chip does contain a few differences from a GeForce2. It contains the Light Speed Architecture - a bit toned down however for its needs, Accuview Antialiasing, a TV Tuner, and just like the GeForce2 MX nView will make a return. This covers the IGP, or the integrated graphics processor, contained in the nForce2. Interesting to note however, is that NVIDIA will provide a lower end model, very similar to the nForce2, except lacking this chip. Instead of forcing manufacturers to contain NVIDIA graphics they have opted to allow it not to be bundled with the rest of the chipset. Most of the time companies would not go for such a move, but NVIDIA already holds a dominant market share in the desktop graphics market and with the nForce it has one thing in mind -- to capture market share in the chipset business. The chipset business is seeing renewed interest, as competition has been higher than it has been in years in this market, but at least NVIDIA does not have to go up against Intel with this line which should make for a little bit of an easier time. The nForce2 will be fully compatible with AGP8x, making it highly attractive to consumers who are planning to purchase an AGP8x enabled video card this fall or for those who plan on purchasing a SIS Xabre graphics card. It will contain USB 2.0 support and double-data-rate SDRAMs at 266/333 and 400 MHz support, among a slew of other features. The MCP-T, NVIDIA's high end model of the nForce2 series, should contain two 10/100 ethernet controllers, six USB 2.0 ports, UltraATA133 support, three 1394 ports, and five PCI slots. This feature list should have most users salivating over it, but one thing to remember is that most of these features will become mainstream in most newer chipsets soon enough. A downsized MCP will also be available, which will strip the MCP of its 1394 and audio capabilities, and also strip the chip of one ethernet port. This one, like its big brother, will also feature 5 PCI slots.

Re:Text of article

[fdisk3hs]

Anyone else notice that this entire 'review' failed to mention if this chipset is for AMD, Pentium 4, or Motorola 68040 processors?
The Tom's Hardware review briefly mentions that it is an AMD board...

UltraATA133 support

[Anonymous Coward]

Hooray... ;(

Shouldn't s-ata be ready for the market soon?

Re:UltraATA133 support

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I believe so. I'm waiting on it before I think about upgrading.

I would get one but...

[teamhasnoi]

due to the newfound explosive nature of mice, I'm going to skip out on buying hardware for the time being.

Re:I would get one but...

[SpaceJunkie]

Exploding mice... Would you care to explain furthar? This sounds like the stuff of h2g2....

Re:I would get one but...

[ShavenYak]

It must be a reference to this article. "A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb". Sheesh.

Re:I would get one but...

[SpaceJunkie]

I already read that... I was hoping for a much more interesting story - life the exploding Cd rom story...

Some dude I know burned a music CD, then played it for a while in his PC(which I will admit was running pretty hot). He then took it out of the drive, and placed it, sans case on his desk. It then exploded(albeit more like shattered forcibly). I can only assume it was a heat thing.

Maybe an Intelli-eye went up in a shower of sparks....

Re:I would get one but...

[zmooc]

I remember at my work a collegue was using a CD-R in a 50 speed cd-rom drive. We suddenly heard a very loud click and then tried to open te CD-drive. It didn't respond. He continued his work until suddenly the drive opened and it spit out the CD-R over the guy in 100s of small pieces. He looked like he had been antiqued with goldpowder:)

remember: it's not a geforce4!

[imr]

On the topic of current Nvidia cards:

Do not buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom.

Nvidia has really made a mess of the naming conventions here. I always
thought it was bad enough that GF2 was just a speed bumped GF1, while GF3 had
significant architectural improvements over GF2. I expected GF4 to be the
speed bumped GF3, but calling the NV17 GF4-MX really sucks.

GF4-MX will still run Doom properly, but it will be using the NV10 codepath
with only two texture units and no vertex shaders. A GF3 or 8500 will be
much better performers. The GF4-MX may still be the card of choice for many
people depending on pricing, especially considering that many games won't use
four textures and vertex programs, but damn, I wish they had named it
something else.
(all this comes from carmack's .plan:
http://webdog.org/plans/1/ )

It seems nvidia is going the same road as intel and sis with their cheap video-on-board motherboard. All of them sucked! Good luck!

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[travail_jgd]

For the majority of home users (who aren't power-gamers), a GeForce 4MX is just fine. And there is an 8x AGP slot for the power gamers...

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[Hektor_Troy]

t seems nvidia is going the same road as intel and sis with their cheap video-on-board motherboard. All of them sucked! Good luck!

Except that their on-board video doesn't suck; granted, a GF4MX420 is not the top of the line, but would you really want a motherboard that costs an extra 400$, that is going to be wasted in 6 months? Didn't think so.

Compare the onboard video with any other on the market, and you will notice, it does anything BUT suck - it wipes the floor with them, and it can probably do the same with quite a lot of budget cards out there as well. Notice the "budget" in that sentence before you fly off your bat.

Not to mention, that you have the option of having dual vga/dvi output PLUS tv-out. I don't know about you, but compared to the "external" gfx-card I have now, that's a lot better! Not to mention that it's also a lot faster than my current GF2 MX400. No - I don't need to play Doom ]I[, and if I did, I wouldn't buy an mb with integrated graphics, and frankly - your idea that anyone would is an insult to their intelligence, no matter how appropriate such observations might be.

I think you need to hear three little words, that no one have told you in a long time:

GET A LIFE!

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[ocbwilg]

It seems nvidia is going the same road as intel and sis with their cheap video-on-board motherboard. All of them sucked! Good luck!

Hmm...maybe that's why nVidia also makes an nForce2 part that doesn't have integrated video. Oh wait, you'd have actually had to read the article to know that. Nevermind.

Seriously folks, integrated video is not always a bad thing. When I built a system for my father I used an nForce board because for $120 I could get a system with onboard video, audio, and ethernet. If I had bought a non-integrated solution it would have cost me over $200 for components of similar quality separately. Does my father need screaming fast graphics power or Dolby Digital 5.1 so that he can play Doom 3? No, an nForce was more than adequate. All he wants to do is browse the web, send emails, work on his geneaology database and VPN into work so that he can do his job (UNIX tools development for Lucent).

Now with the nForce2 there's another option for me. If I want I can get an nForce2 board without integrated video that still takes advantage of Dual Channel DDR400 (how many other mainboards have that?) and has high-end audio, USB 2.0, Firewire, and dual ethernet controllers built in. Then I can go out and buy a GeForce5 (or whatever they want to call it then) and have a screaming gaming system.

What would be really nice is to see this in one of the new Shuttle SS-series systems.

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[imr]

Well, to browse the web, send emails, work on his geneaology database and VPN into work so that he can do his job (UNIX tools development for Lucent), you just don't need 3D power to begin with.
A good pci card would be enough, but that's not the point.
Also that nVidia also makes an nForce2 part that doesn't have integrated video is not the point either.
There was 2 points in my post:
first/ they call geforce4 a video card that is not even a geforce3. That is not my point. It's carmack's point (let's give credits where it's due.)
second/ I did not build a cheap box for my father with an integrated motherboard for his emails and surfing. I built a chep box using spare parts, but real stable hardware. Why? Because I did work in a small compagny where we used to sell cheap boxes. And i had to help troubleshoot those boxes. And integrated sound was already bad (via chipset!!!), but integrated video was hell. To the point that we refused to build them anymore after a while.
So a real "good luck" to nvidia to succeed in delivering a good cheap product in this area. And a real "good luck" to all repair guys and salesmen and customers if they don't.
But this geforce4 name is already a bad start:
"why is my doom3 choppy? It's a geforce4 that's inside. That's what you told me when i bought it. whine. whine. complain. complain... more whine... more complaints...."
those were the points in my post, but I understand yours about building a good system for less money.

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[Aceticon]

Their TV-Out comes with Macrovision 7.1 - Big NO NO!!!

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[Hektor_Troy]

Well - yeah ... but why would you object to it? When you think about it, what are you going to use the TV-Out for:

1) Watch DVDs on your TV.
- do you want to record your DVDs onto VHS?
2) Watch DivX on your TV.
- do you want to record that onto VHS?

I'm no fan of Macrovision, but I can't for the life of me think of one good reason why I would object to it on my TV-Out device.

Maybe you can enlighten me?

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[qubit64]

Get a life means different things to different people. To many, it means get a good job and a significant other. To me, it means get a few new video games and maybe a better racing wheel for my f1 game...

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[GoSpeedRacerGo]

And guess what? You can put "a GF3 or 8500" in an
nForce2-ST (SPP + MCP2) system (does not have
integrated graphics) and have an awesome Doom3
system.

Better yet, you can upgrade that to a GeForce6
AGP 8x card with 256 MB of RAM on it (which
should be coming out just as Doom3 ships) for an
even more kick ass system.

Or you can go with an nForce2-GT with integrated
(DirectX7 level) GeForce4 MX graphics and play
98% of today's games as good as any other setup
and use the money you save for the GeForce6 Ti
card.

Advice to all the GeForce4 MX naming whiners:

Let it go man.

It has the exact same backend (memory subsystem,
zculling, FSAA, display subsystem) of a GeForce4
Ti and the fixed pipeline of a GeForce2 Pro.

WTF would you have called it?

I personally don't know but GF4 MX seems to make it clear to me.

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[GoSpeedRacerGo]

...and here you go:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020716/sftu013_1.htm l

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[nzhavok]

Seriously folks, integrated video is not always a bad thing.

I agree, infact I'm reading this on my onboard prosavage. Of course I wouldn't need to do that if my GeForce2 fan hadn't seized last week! Damn you Nvidia, Damn You.

I will still buy a GF4 thou :-/

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[Aceticon]

Have the signal from the PC go in through my VCR and out to the TV - just like the one from my cable connection. Unfortunatly, it doesn't work with Macrovision.

I use my VCR as the main channel selection device - i see no reason to stop doing it.

Also i have yet to aquire a standalone DVD player because of Macrovision and Region Coding (around here i can legitimately chip it, just think it's not worth the trouble).

But most important of all - how the hell can i record my extraordinary RTCW performance (yeah, right) to show off to my friends if the TV-Out has Macrovision??? 8-)

Re:remember: it's not a geforce4!

[alexo]

Now with the nForce2 there's another option for me. If I want I can get an nForce2 board without integrated video that still takes advantage of Dual Channel DDR400 (how many other mainboards have that?) and has high-end audio, USB 2.0, Firewire, and dual ethernet controllers built in.

First, let me point you to this NVIDIA nForce2 Preview from AnandTech. Lots of people (myself included) prefer Anand's articles to Tom's.

On page 3 of the article Anand writes:

Weve proved in the past that the dual channel memory architecture, which NVIDIA is now calling DualDDR, only provides a performance improvement in 3D games with integrated graphics enabled. The reason that adding more memory bandwidth doesnt improve overall system performance is because the Athlon XPs FSB is stuck at 133MHz offering up to 2.1GB/s of bandwidth between the Athlon XP and the nForce2 IGP/SPP. With a maximum of 2.1GB/s of data going between the CPU and the IGP/SPP, having twice or even three times that bandwidth between the IGP/SPP and main memory is useless without a memory bandwidth hungry device eating up the remaining bandwidth.

Load Balancing?

[soupforare]

Of course, I didn't read the article...
Is there any support, planned or actual, for load balancing the on those dual NICs? Like the old Znyx multiport NICs?

Re:Load Balancing?

[Ziviyr]

Is there any support, planned or actual, for load balancing the on those dual NICs? Like the old Znyx multiport NICs?

Sounds more like a software issue to me. But you're citing hardware, so what do I know? :-)

Re:Load Balancing?

[soupforare]

Well, the old Znyx drivers had built in load balancing.
You can get *buy* software progs that do it under NT/2k, but if it's in the drivers I don't have to pay for something twice, you know? :P

NVIDIA and AMD

[rattler14]

Is it just me, or is NVIDIA trying to it's damndest to piss off Intel? reading the news section on www.nvidia.com, it seems like every 5th sentance states how they are working with AMD to produce this, do that, etc etc. What about Intel? I personally prefer AMDs, but it seems kind of strange that NVIDIA would ignore the larger of the chip manufacturers.

Re:NVIDIA and AMD

[brsmith4]

Maybe because AMD is cheaper and working with them will entitle them to even cheaper AMD components? They may have to put up with the Intel Premuim if they decided to go with them. Why go with Intel (more expensive, less performance per GHz) when you can go with AMD (much cheaper, better performance per GHz)? The choice is clear.

Re:NVIDIA and AMD

[Anonymous Coward]

Their CEO has stated many times that Intel will not give them a license to produce products using Intel's bus.

Re:NVIDIA and AMD

[benzapp]

Intel has always been a little hostile to anyone else producing chipsets. I believe with the Pentium IV, Intel has forbidden any third parties from producing chipsets. They went after VIA hard over this issue. I don't think Nvidia wants to deal with that sort of bullshit.

I also believe that Nvidia realized something with their Geforce 3, the damn thing was more advanced than many of the CPUs available at the time.

We are at an interesting point in computer history here, with graphics chips being as advanced or more so than the CPU, it is only natural that the two be brought closer together.

AMD and Nvidia seem to be doing that, while Intel is not really paying attention.

Re:NVIDIA and AMD

[SpaceJunkie]

You know- there was a point when I wondered when we would be seeing a prewired VGA port(and other video out options) with a ZIFF socket for different GPU's much like we do our CPU's. There was once a time when a CPU was a whole board. Maybe we will also see graphics DRAM sockets as well... AFAIK the contacts on a CPU slot are much cleaner(both in real physical terms and in terms of noise) than AGP and PCI contacts - so this would be an interesting advance....

However- this could mean buying a specific Mobo and chipset may tie you down to one brand of GPU as well as the CPU ties we already have...

Re:NVIDIA and AMD

[NorthDude]

It depends if they would standardize the whole thing... Which I seriously doubt :(

Re:NVIDIA and AMD

[SpaceJunkie]

I dont half wish they would... One thing I miss of the socket 7 days was standardisation... Fine they can builder bigger faster chips and outdo each other in the internals, but why not have standard busses and socket interfaces for them? After all wasnt it concepts like that the made the whole microcomputer feasable in the first place?

S100 anyone?(I am not suggesting to use that - just as a point of historical reference).

Re:NVIDIA and AMD

[Hoser McMoose]

It's real simple actually. AMD let's nVidia (and VIA, SiS, ALi and ATI, and just about anyone else who would come along) to produce and sell chipsets for their motherboards for little to no licensing fees. Intel has more expensive licensing fees and has flat out refused to license several companies, including both nVidia and VIA. VIA is sorta skirting the issue, claiming that their acquisition of part of S3 gave their a cross-licensing agreement with Intel, though they're still in court. nVidia doesn't have that option.

At the start of '97, Intel sold over 95% of all the x86 motherboard chipsets. They had a larger market share of motherboard chipsets then they ever had of x86 processors. By the end of '99 their market share had dropped down to about 40%. They've since being doing their best to claw back up.

Well, good mixed with bad...

[Dark Nexus]

Good/decent expansion support with the PCI, FireWire and USB 2.0 slots/ports... And honestly, onboard NICs aren't THAT bad...

But a GeForce4 MX? Dear god! Any Ti model (that's ANY model, be it GeForce2, 3 or 4) would have been better!

Not that I'm one for integrated graphics anyway.

Re:Well, good mixed with bad...

[ThogScully]

On-Board video doesn't have to be expensive. It's never going to always be the most modern display technology - it's just best to make something that will function.

People will upgrade the video, but better to have something on-board than nothing especially for special uses where running the latest games is not the purpose of the machine. It's all about making the chipset more configurable for different purposes.

Re:Well, good mixed with bad...

[scott1853]

And then the board would cost $200 more. You want super duper graphics for gaming, then buy a real GeForce card. I'm sure they thought about this for 10 seconds and came to the realization that the increased cost would decrease their market significantly.

Re:Well, good mixed with bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting a low cost video card serves two purposes for nvidia

1. reduces the cost of productions of the system
2. Allows them to sell you a $300 graphics card

Re:Well, good mixed with bad...

[smashr]

Not that I'm one for integrated graphics anyway.

Exactly!! Anyone who cares about graphics enough that a GeForce4 MX is not good enough, will buy their own card to put in it. This is the sort of chipset you would put into a machine that will generally be not used for games, but when the need to play CS or quake3 comes around, a GeForce4 MX will be able to handle it. Yes, I am sure that Carmack doesnt sanction the GefroceMX line, however that is not the point. If you care that much, you will have your own GPU - the integrated grfxs are not for us!

As far as the dual network ports go, come on people, it costs the OEM no more than a dollar or two to add a second, and for those people who wish to hook up a cable modem, or DSL line, this is invaluable.

Flashing banner adds.

[autopr0n]

I tried to read that artical, but the flashing "you've won" advertizement was making my eyes bleed.

Now if Nvidia fully support this....

[Anonymous Coward]

on a Linux platform that would be nice. A mobo using this could make for a very cheap PC, but still give good performance.

Re:Now if Nvidia fully support this....

[Hoser McMoose]

FWIW I run an nForce 420 based system, and the integrated sound, ethernet and video all work in Linux. The sound support is somewhat weak (it treats it like a plain old AC97 codec, at least with the current drivers), but it works. This is all with drivers written by and semi-supported by nVidia (err, the sound driver is a slightly modified, open source i810 sound driver). Ohh, and USB works as well, using the standard drivers (can't remember off the top of my head if it's OHCI or UHCI).

MX Core?

[AAAWalrus]

*snip*
integrated GeForce4 MX core
*snip*

My question is this: who are they trying to sell this to? Not gamers, since a GeForce4 MX is a stripped down, cheaper version of the real powerhouse GeForce4 TI, which is the new bar for nVidia cards. Obviously, they're not selling this to power users who build their computers piecemeal, because, well... an integrated board by definition defeats that purpose.

Granted, gamers isn't where the money is. The money is in getting someone like Dell or Gateway to use this board in their corporate lease computers. By convincing big manufacturers that the overall cost of making a computer is lower by buying one big all-in-one solution board, they hope to break into new markets.

*snip (from review)*
aimed not only towards the high end but the mainstream
*snip*

There you have it. It's a great product, but if you're a typical slashdotter, you're probably not going to care because:
a) nVidia Linux support has been a bit shoddy (IMHO - although the fact that they have drivers at all is a positive note)
b) it's not high end - it's a glorified GeForce2
c) it's integrated, meaning hard to replace if something goes out and not customizable

Re:MX Core?

[Anonymous Coward]

That type of board is perfect for a lot of people, assuming all the components work well. (And if their video drivers are an example, they should work quite well! I replaced my ATI card with an Nvidia and have been totally impressed by the quality). The only outstanding issue I have is getting the Video In feature to work while in nView. (Does NOT crash the system, which my ATI card loved to do)

My gf is looking for a new computer, she would like to be able to play the latest games, but isn't big into 3D shooters. The GeForce 4MX could possibly be adaquate for her needs.

Re:MX Core?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure its integrated but if you ever looked at the n-force chipset you would notice that it still has an AGP port for an external card upgrade. If you don't want the GF4 MX core then you can always purchase the n-force without integrated video. The audio card which encodes dolby digital is the real reason I want an n-force.

Re:MX Core?

[ghjm]

I'm guessing that when you buy a computer, you aren't spending your own money.

The nFORCE concept is to capture low-end market share by providing much better specs than the alternatives, for people who are price-constrained. Suppose you had $400 to build a computer (not including the monitor). The nFORCE architecture is by far the best deal you can get. At this price point, a GeForce4 Ti was never in the cards anyway.

What nVIDIA has recognized is that the traditional price points for high-end ($3000+) or even midrange ($2000+) PCs have gone the way of the dodo. Ultra-cheap PCs are such a good deal for the majority of buyers that that's where most of the market share is going to be in a few years, if it isn't there already.

-Graham

Re:MX Core?

[ocbwilg]

The nFORCE concept is to capture low-end market share by providing much better specs than the alternatives, for people who are price-constrained.

I'm not sure that's the case. If it were, the nForce2 chipset would have more expensive higher performing optional components. Would you like your Southbridge to have firewire, dual nics or a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio processing unit? If not, they have a stripped down version for the cost conscious. Do you want your Northbridge to have a GeForce4MX core integrated, or would you prefer one without the integrated graphics so that you can choose your own card? Either way you're still getting Dual Channel DDR400 memory interfaces, a performance option only available on nForce boards.

Re:MX Core?

[Junks Jerzey]

Not gamers, since a GeForce4 MX is a stripped down, cheaper version of the real powerhouse GeForce4 TI

This is like saying "Why buy a 450HP car when you can get one that's 500HP?" Performance has gotten all but irrelevant. Price and form factor are what matter. If this will let manufacturers create smaller, cheaper, cooler running computers, then that's great.

Re:MX Core?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I am starting a new company where we don't release a product unless its cutting edge technology. We are going to be the best of the best. We will not attempt to penetrate the market with low end affordable products, but instead we will depend only on a niche market which will earn us next to nothing.

Re:MX Core?

[inquisitor]

Do you want your Northbridge to have a GeForce4MX core integrated, or would you prefer one without the integrated graphics so that you can choose your own card?

Actually, if nFORCE-2 is anything like nFORCE-1 you won't have this trouble; quite a few nF-1 boards (eg the Asus A7N266 or the MSI K7N420 Pro) have an AGP slot onboard, which overrides the onboard graphics if a card is inserted. With this, NVIDIA gives you a choice: you can buy integrated graphics now, but upgrade later when you need it. And that's why the nFORCE solutions are so unique in their market.

Re:MX Core?

[psamuels]

nVidia Linux support has been a bit shoddy (IMHO - although the fact that they have drivers at all is a positive note)

Do they? I know they have drivers for their video chips, but what about the ATA133 IDE? What about the USB 2.0 controller, or the auxilliary USB 1.1 controller to handle USB1 devices? What about the NV Ethernet (not the 3Com one, that'll work for sure)? What about the AGP bridge (not to be confused with the video chip)? What about the audio controller? What about miscellaneous features (if present) such as hardware health sensors, watchdog, random number generator, etc?

Do any of the nForce 2 chipset components, apart from the 3C920, support Linux? According to v2.5 kernel sources, the nForce ATA100 IDE chip is supported (and the ATA133 chip is probably similar, so will be supported soon), and the nForce audio (seems to be covered by the Intel i8xx audio driver - once again, nForce 2 audio is probably similar or identical, but who knows?) but I don't see any mention of the others.

Re:MX Core?

[GoSpeedRacerGo]

WOW! Someone that really gets what is amazingly cool about nForce. The only Dolby Digital 5.1
_encoding_ solution in this market (other than Xbox). Not via, not intel, not creative
soundblaster, not Playstation2, and not gamecube.

What happens when you play a game with your Audigy 5.1 hooked up to your dolby digital
receiver via coaxial/optical digital hookup???

Two channel stereo! Ha!

They talk 5.1 all over the box and conveniently leave out that it is for _decode_ of pre-encoded
material only (i.e. DVDs).

Re:MX Core?

[Hoser McMoose]

c) it's integrated, meaning hard to replace if something goes out and not customizable

Err, sticking a replacement card in the AGP slot is tough? Integrated graphics or not, there's still a standard AGP slot that you can use for an add-in graphics card.

Besides, if you REALLY don't want the integrated graphics, there is always the option of buying a board using the chipset that DOESN'T USE IT!

approximate pricing for the higher end board?

[millia]

looked at all three of the articles and darned if i saw more than a listing of the lower end board at $100, which would be about right. The higher end board would be perfect for a lan party rig, or a computer for your stereo, or some such, if the price was right.

nVidia to announce new features

[levik]

The upcomin nForce 3 chipset will include a built-in heat sink, firewall and a nifty solitare game.

Plans for nForce 4 (still some time in the future) include an embedded version of Java and/or Internet Explorer

Re:nVidia to announce new features

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah.. why stop there? Surely an nForce 4 would be able to run Linux all by itself. :-)

Re:nVidia to announce new features

[levik]

Given previous partnerships with MS, I would assume it comes with an embedded version of Windows 3.1 instead. Of course, this will probably drive the cost up by about $100 in licencing fees, but at least you would get a true cooperative multitasking system right in the chipset.

why just MX?

[Sideswiped]

I know the MX is more cost effective, but I really want to know if they're planing on releasing a more usefull onboard videocard(the mx is far from 8.1 complient) on one of these babies. If they had a geforce4 4200 on there I think might seriously consider buying one(my system is over due for an upgrade), but with that bottleneck on the system its not even an option.

))Sideswiped))

Re:why just MX?

[NorthDude]

The onboard video card is optional... Get the board without the integratedgraphic card and buy the card you want afterward...

editors, please, spellcheck!

[af_robot]

An anonymous submitter writes "I noticed that a review of NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset has been posted here"

It's the preview, not review.

Re:editors, please, spellcheck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you retarded? How the fuck could a spellchecker have caught that? "review" is a valid English word last time I checked.

Re:editors, please, spellcheck!

[Kredal]

They actually wrote "I noticed that a eval of NVIDIA's...."

Yahoo's code changed it for you.

(Yes, I know "a eval" sounds horrible... so sue me)

Mixed feelings.........

[Ride-My-Rocket]

I'm not sure whether to feel juiced about the fact that the nForce has USB 2.0, Ethernet, Firewire, TV Tuner (!!) and a bunch of PCI slots built in automatically, or unhappy that they've paired all of these great features with what amounts to a budget on-chip video card.

Re:Mixed feelings.........

[jafuser]

So get a better video card, install it in the AGP slot, move a jumper (if necessary), and get over it. If you like everything else that much, the extra $5 you spend because of a little unused silicon should be worth it.

See also at anandTech.com

[chrestomanci]

There is also a preview article at AnandTech.

See here (one long page for printing) or here 8 pages

everything but

[chromakey]

"...the chipset contains two 10/100 ethernet controllers, six USB 2.0 ports, UltraATA133 support, three 1394 ports, five PCI slots, and an integrated GeForce4 MX core including NVIDIA's nView technology and a TV Tuner."

What, no kitchen sink?

You missed one thing...

[cca93014]

a partridge in a pear tree?

Question for people who know more than I...

[Zelet]

How much better can a chipset make a computer?

When I bought my AMD thunderbird 1.0 gHz and skimped on the motherboard I have always been wondering if maybe I had cheated myself on performance.

What do you think? Would a more expensive motherboard increase my gaming performance enough to justify the cost of a new motherboard?

Parts list:
AMD 1.0gHz Thunderbird
256 MB DDR2100
Nvidia GeForce2 MX400
Soundblaster Live! XGamer

Re:Question for people who know more than I...

[altgrr]

Seems you skimped a little too much on the motherboard, as it's not even on the parts list. Perhaps if you had the crucial device connecting your CPU, RAM, graphics and sound cards together, you might get a little performance out of them. ;-) but seriously... Not sure what bus speed the 1.0GHz Athlon does (I think it's 200MHz), but more than anything else, it's bus speed that matters - of course, you need a board that can support high bus speeds to maximise performance, which, if you have DDR RAM, you should have. You'll still be needing a CPU with 266MHz bus to maximise performance from your current setup, though. Could be time to get an Athlon 1.4GHz, at least.

Re:Question for people who know more than I...

[CrazyDuke]

Get a decent motherboard. It'll make a world of difference. For me it was UDMA transfer rates from 5MB/sec to 27MB/sec and stable output to my SB128.

Re:Question for people who know more than I...

[Zelet]

What is a "decent" motherboard for a Socket A AMD Thunderbird?

Re:Question for people who know more than I...

[Anonymous Coward]

Epox makes some great boards for AMD. They also actually send email notifications when they update their bios, unlike other manufacturers who take your email and then you never hear from them again.

Re:Question for people who know more than I...

[CrazyDuke]

This may help you out some.

Personally, I'd go with a KT266A motherboard made by either Epox, Asus, or Abit.

missing something...

[Ubergrendle]

What? No open AGPx4 (or x8) port for my ATI 8500? ;)

Re:missing something...

[SpaceJunkie]

Umm... Didnt you read the article? I beleive it said there is an 8x AGP port as well...

So you are not stuck with the MX. And with the other features, its not a bad set-up. As long as the integrated GFX is not set up to use any of your system ram regardless to wether its enabled or not.

Re:missing something...

[afidel]

Sure there is, just get the version without the integrated video. Actually I built a system with an nforce1 that used a GF3 Ti200 even though the board had integrated video, the board without integrated video was like $3 more and the integrated unit had an AGP port so it made no difference. Dual channel DDR, actually good integrated audio, and all the other connectors will make it a decent board even if you don't want the integrated video.

Re:missing something...

[Ubergrendle]

I interpreted the article as the AGPx8 port would be integrated and used by the onboard graphics chipset. I don't think it will be coming with an open AGP slot, but then again it's just a motherboard spec so I guess it can be modified by other manufacturers. Of course, what would be the point...hence my joke..

Re:missing something...

[Anonymous Coward]

did you even read the article? One of the main points was that there were two versions. One with integrated gf4mx and one without a graphics chip onboard at all. Do you expect them to sell the board without the graphics chip without an agp slot? Read the fucking article.

Re:missing something...

[Hoser McMoose]

When enabled, the integrated graphics WILL use some of your system RAM, and a fixed amount (set in the BIOS) of it at that (unlike Intel's integrated chipsets which dynamically take what they need).

That being, I don't really miss the missing 32MB out of my 512MB of system RAM too often. These days RAM is so cheap, using 32MB for graphics isn't that big of a deal.

Of course, as soon as you plug an external AGP card into the board it automagically disables the integrated graphics and doesn't use any system memory.

Re:missing something...

[SpaceJunkie]

Fair enough... You see- I remember some on-board graphics cards which would still use 2-8mb when disabled. Yes okay its not much but it's still waste. I am good to hear that it will not use that.

When it is enabled, its not a problem - because from the way I understand it, this board uses memory bus technology that means the system RAM is fast enough for sharing with the graphics chip-that is - it doesnt slow down the Geforce. Other competitors with integrated graphics solutions just dont have this kind of edge, Making this chipset stand out far ahead of them.

The chipset?

[AppyPappy]

The chipset contains 5 PCI slots? I'm impressed. I had to buy a motherboard to get that.

Is it just me

[Raghead]

Or does anybody else think these are just press releases, not reviews, as listed??

One Word

[zenyu]

Mozilla

GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[Chris Carollo]

nVidia's marketing department should be ashamed; the name of this piece of hardware is blatantly misleading. Every other "mx" version of their cards contained the same featureset of it's GeForceX line, but had slower/less memory.

The GeForce4mx, on the other hand, is missing the priciple feature of the GeForce3, that being hardware vertex and pixel shader support. The GeForce4mx is basically a really fast GeForce2. It's a sham.

It screws developers (no longer can we say "GeForce3 and up", we have to qualify by specifically excluding the GeForce4mx). It screws customers by making them think they get a better card than they are. It's just bad all around.

When I talked to an nVidia rep at this year's GDC he acknowledged it's hatefulness and gave the impression that it would be going away shortly. Given the number of these cards I see in stores and this announcement, I'm starting to doubt him.

Note to nVidia: when your marketing department starts screwing developers and customers, we developers stop wanting to support your cards. You've been at the head of the pack for a while now. Crap like this isn't how to stay there.

Re:GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[Chris Carollo]

Ack, used an "it's" when I meant "its". I hate that. Apologies all around.

That's what I get for not using the Preview button.

Re:GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[Kuad]

It's not even a really fast GF2 in some circumstances. There are several benchmarks I've seen where the GF2Ultra beats a GF4MX. Always the 4200, usually the 4400 and occasionally even the 4600.

Re:GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[magic]

YES-- I can't express how much I agree with this post. NVIDIA marketing has been completely out of control for years, sitting on a superior product and yet creating total confusion instead of pushing their cards. Similar to the MX debacle, the Quaddro line fails to be distinguished from the GeForce line except for the price. Also, the GeForce2Go mobile line similarly lags the desktop line.

The GeForce4 Ti XXXX cards are the ones you want, and the XXXX number after is linearly proportional to the clock speed. Everything else is FUD and I have no idea why they do this. It's as bad as Apple changing the specs on iMacs and not giving them different version numbers-- developers have to say things like "our product runs on green and orange iMacs with DVD drives" because users don't know what the graphics card or RAM level is.

-m

Re:GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[diakonos]

nVidia's marketing department should be ashamed; the name of this piece of hardware is blatantly misleading. Every other "mx" version of their cards contained the same featureset of it's GeForceX line, but had slower/less memory.

The GeForce4mx, on the other hand, is missing the priciple feature of the GeForce3, that being hardware vertex and pixel shader support. The GeForce4mx is basically a really fast GeForce2. It's a sham.

And some of us remember (and still resent) Intel for differentiating bus width with 386dx vs. 386sx, then using 486sx to mean a 486dx without the numeric coprocessor.... (Or am I just getting old?)

Re:GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, then developers should just be saying "GeForce3, GeForce4Ti and up."

Re:GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[Animats]

Agreed. The GeForce 4MX name confuses users. It confuses developers, too. Does it mean that the hardware vertex and pixel shader support in all GeForce 3 and non-MX GeForce 4 isn't to be considered "mainstream"? Should developers starting on a new title assume their target machines will have that hardware? The Chameleon demo is gorgeous, but not much else really uses that hardware yet.

The Geforce 3/4 shader engine has a huge transistor count, around 57 million, more than many CPU chips. But the GeForce 2 and the Nforce family are much simpler parts. There's a real cost for that hardware. The NForce was supposed to be a low-end product. So it's not surprising that it came with GEForce 2 capabilities. But many developers were hoping that the old GeForce 2 architecture would be phased out in the next round. That's not happening yet.

NVidia's parts are fine; it's just their name confusion that's a pain. From a developer perspective, it means you can't just put "Requires GeForce 3 or better" on the box in big type.

Re:GeForce 4mx is an abomination

[qubit64]

nVidia's marketing department should be ashamed

yes they should, but shouldn't anyone who is in marketing? ;)

Intel charges $5 for each P4-chipset sold

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that producing a chipset costs over $10 and average third party P4-chipsets costs under $20, such licesing fee kills almost all profits.

Will there be micro or flex ATX versions?

[frankie]

The current nForce is available in small form factor mobos like the Abit NV7M. I'd be very interested in a tiny version of nForce2.

If you plan to use TwinBank (6GB/sec system bandwidth!) you only need/want two DIMM slots. With video, audio, network, firewire, usb2, etc, all built-in, you hardly need the PCI slots at all.

Fewer components should also mean lower power consumption, which means fewer/slower fans, which means blissful quiet computing. Hopefully.

Also, any word on the rumored Shuttle SS41 yet?

Re:Will there be micro or flex ATX versions?

[Brian Stretch]

Yes.

Gamers will buy nForce2 WITHOUT integrated GF4MX

[Anonymous Coward]

If you would read the arcticle you would notice that integrated graphics is purely optional. If you don't need it, just buy cheaper version of nForce2 without it.

Tom's Hardware

[AnimalSnf]

Is it me or are the lackies being hired at Tom's are getting dummer and dummer with time? I don't have time to run down the entire list of inaccuracies and errors in the article, but according to them DDR400 "corresponds to a performance level that SDRAM could only achieve at 400 MHz," and best of all, Nvidia was "Founded in 1997 by a handful of ex-SGI employees."

Re:Tom's Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it me or are the lackies being hired at Tom's are getting dummer and dummer with time?

That would be "dumber"..

Re:Tom's Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be you, but it also seems to me that slashdot posters are getting 'dummer and dummer' with time as well.

(I'm not claiming to be smart, as I couldn't figure out how to properly make fun of the 'are the lackies...are getting' grammar that made my head hurt)

Re:Tom's Hardware

[Pulzar]

DDR400 "corresponds to a performance level that SDRAM could only achieve at 400 MHz,"

Why is this inaccurate? DDR400 is DDR running at 200MHz, which is equivalent to SDR running at 400MHz.

Re:Tom's Hardware

[phoenix123]

Never underestimate the terror potential of CD-ROMs. And mice.

/me crawls in agony before the evil glowing red optical pickup waiting for the big bang

Re:Tom's Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it is true that it was _not_ founded by ex-SGI employees but they are everywhere now! (Along with 3dfx, ATI, 3dlabs, DP, etc. etc. etc.)

Re:look at the other sites reviews instead

[altgrr]

Never mind the detestable Comic Sans font, who in their right mind allows popup ads for Gator on their website?

I wish work would install Webwasher, I really do.

Anandtech's Article...much more indepth....

[GweeDo]

Anandtech's article This one is much more than just a "breif" overview...it is meaty :)

You expect a /. reader to read before commenting?

[SensitiveMale]

Surely you jest.

They don't ever read first.

Mp3 Car

[racerx509]

This would definately be a good car system. Integrated TV Tuner, Geforce 4 MX (I know, I know), 5.1 Sound, USB 2.0, dual nics? This would be great for an mp3 car

Re:Mp3 Car

[SCHecklerX]

That does look great for MM stuff...I'd put it in th e home theatre though...add a voice modem with callerid, AIM 'whoson' poller, etc.

For the car, I use my portable jukebox, which is a toshiba libretto, mounted using a radio-shack cd player holder (damping and everything). It cost me $390 on ebay for the computer (libretto 110CT), and $130 at a computer show for a 20 GB drive for it. It's a lot easier to just plug that thing into the speakers in whatever room I want to listen in (in the past I had a main server and just had speakers wired to it all over the house, but still needed another computer to control it anyway)

How does this compare to a 'workstation'?

[oingoboingo]

I know that a lot of people who use traditional Unix workstations like SGIs, Suns and Alphas have always looked down on PC-based systems, even when in recent times the straight-out benchmark speed of PC-based CPUs has roughly equalled or surpassed their 'workstation' counterparts (eg: Athlon XP 2100+ base SpecInt: 720, Sun Blade 1000 900MHz Cu base SpecInt: 470. Athlon base SpecFP: 613, Sun base SpecFP: 629)

The normal response is "a PC might have a fast CPU, but it's connected to slow RAM, slow buses and a slow architecture". Now we have something like the nForce2, which has a dual channel DDR400 memory controller, HyperTransport linking the two components of the chipset, AGP 8x port to a graphics board of your choice, and with an Athlon XP, a 266MHz interface to the CPU. How does a PC-based system stack up against a modern traditional Unix-type workstation like a Sun Blade or SGI Fuel? Is there still some major architectural difference in the design of those systems that still makes them superior to a modern PC design like the nForce2? Assume that all storage is equal, eg: SCSI, to get past IDE vs. SCSI arguments, and you're not using the built in GeForce4 MX core available in the higher-end nForce2 northbridge.

Re:How does this compare to a 'workstation'?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can quit karma whoring. It doesn't mean anything, and never did -- especially after the changes to the slashcode recently.

Re:How does this compare to a 'workstation'?

[oingoboingo]

i've got 50 karma anyway. i want to draw out a response from the workstation zealots. but thanks for your useful input all the same.

Re:How does this compare to a 'workstation'?

[Hoser McMoose]

Sweeping generalization mode = On

Generally speaking, a modern PC workstation will beat the pants off any of the modern Unix workstations unless you spend BIG-$$$. IBM just brought out some new workstations that use their Power4 chips, which would be a lot faster then PCs, and some of the Alpha workstation type systems that are hanging around are still pretty fast.

However, in the under $25,000 workstation market, PCs are the fastest platforms out there, usually by a reasonably large margin.
Sweeping generalization mode = Off

Now, that being said, the real key to many workstations is not the hardware but the software, and here the Unix workstations sometimes still have an advantage.

Re:How does this compare to a 'workstation'?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have new Quadro 900xgl/Intel workstations from Dell that are faster than our Power4 IBM Unix workstations within our environment (automotive/CATIA).

Encouragement

[Anonymous Coward]

.. your threats of taco snotting only make me want to mod you more!

blah stupid banner ads

[Mad Quacker]

WINNER! If flashing you've been selected to have a siezure! Click here to claim prize!

If you actually read the article...

[TobyWong]

...you would realize they releasing a verion with integrated video and a version without.

Different animal

[Johan Veenstra]

- The Alpha 21364 EV7 chip
- 152M transistors
- 1.75MB L2 cache
- 32GB/s interconnect bandwidth (between processors)
- 12.8GB/s of memory bandwidth

Some tasks just need some extra oooomph.

regards,

Johan Veenstra

Re:Different animal

[Anonymous Coward]

He said workstations. What workstation can you get the above alpha specs in?

e.g.
32 GB/s interconnect
12.8 GB/s of mem bandwidth

BTW, alpha workstations are history (It is sad in many ways but true).

The nForce2 can be considered a third generation of what the SGI O2 and SGI 320 were. In fact, I believe some CPD guys (was O2 then became SGI 320) are working on nforce. Although nforce was started before some of those people came over.

The nforce (and especially nforce2) kicks the snot out of O2 and SGI 320. There is still some cool things about O2 but with nforce2 the cool video I/O things about the SGI 320 have been eclipse.

Memory bandwidth is higher with nforce2, AGP 8x is much higher but even on the version with integrated graphics things are much faster now days. I/O is now better. The SGI 540 had 64bit PCI which nforce2 lacks in current implementations. The AMD processors are faster than what goes into the O2. Certainly faster than what was in the SGI 320 when it was selling (1 GHz PIII was the end of that).

As for OCTANE and Fuel, unfortunately I think the nforce system (including mem bandwidth and hypertransport) now eclipses what those awesome systems can do. They support multi-processor which nforce doesn't. Also the I/O capabilities of OCTANE/Fuel's Hub chip is beyond what PCI gives you (800 MB full duplex per port/slot) if I remember right. Graphics on OCTANE (Odyssey) can't keep up with Quadro4 900 XGL. There are some feature things (such as four channel out of one frame buffer) that you will only find on OCTANE/Fuel but you pay dearly for these ($30,000+ when featured out)

However, you will see people like Discreet finally able to start porting some of their compositing and editing applications that have been Onyx/OCTANE only to PC systems based on chipsets like the nforce2 and its ability to handle multiple HDTV quality video streams,
tremendous I/O, and market leading graphics performance.

The submitter said it wrong...

[wowbagger]

And should anyone at nVidia marketing read this - the license to use this commercially is Free Software Drivers....

erehem! <cough cough>

Six USB port
FIIIVE PCI!
Ge4MX
Three firewire
Two Ethernets
AND ATA-ONE-THIRTY-THREEEEEEEE!

PXE?

[Andy Dodd]

Does anyone know if the BIOSes for the nForce (and probably the nForce2 if the nForce has it) have PXE support for network booting?

ANY provision for network booting?

netbooting would make these into killer thin-client motherboards...

Not exactly accurate

[ocbwilg]

Intel has always been a little hostile to anyone else producing chipsets. I believe with the Pentium IV, Intel has forbidden any third parties from producing chipsets. They went after VIA hard over this issue.

Intel actually licenses the IP necessary to design chipsets for the Pentium IV. The reason that they went after VIA for making a Pentium IV chipset was because VIA didn't go to Intel to get a license for the technology. VIA claimed that when they acquired S3 they also acquired the license to utilize the Pentium IV bus technology (since S3 had a license), and it's been fought out in the courts since then.

Regarding Intel's hostility to third-party chipset makers, that only makes sense. After all, making chipsets for their CPU's is a large portion of Intel's business. By licensing their bus protocols to third parties Intel is making sure that they get a cut of every Pentium 4 chipset sold. They're also raising the costs of competitors chipsets to put them roughly in line with their own. Given the choice in that situation, most people would go with Intel.

Also keep in mind that controlling the chipsets also allows you to control the technology that is used in them. The Rambus memory fiasco is an excellent example of that. Rambus turned out to be an expensive dud on the early Pentium 4 systems, but Intel was contractually obligated to support only Rambus RDRAM memory and no other memory type on the Pentium 4 for a certain period of time. During that time VIA was producing a less expensive and better performing SDRAM-based chipset for the Pentium 4. Most people went for VIA chipsets on their Pentium 4 systems and that was hurting Intel's chipset business, so Intel of course attacked in any way it could.

This looks really, really good...

[MsGeek]

...except for one little consideration. NVidia has not released full drivers for Linux for the nForce. Are they going to be any better for nForce 2?

I am definitely looking at an nForce 2 based solution to upgrade a Windozer of mine, but this would be a splendid solution for Linux if they had the drivers for it. I hope NVidia gets on the ball this time.

Embedded...

[wowbagger]

Now, if somebody like Jumptec, Ampro, or any of the other embedded CPU board makers would use this! I'd love to have that for my embedded system - fast graphics for all the traces, USB 2.0 for RF control, two Ethernet ports for access...

I wonder if anyone could pursade nVidia to put one of these in there... They have everything else....

HEY don't knock it because...

[Anonymous Coward]

...now you can sound smart telling your friends to avoid the "MX" cards. nVIDIA provided you with the opportunity to find valuable information on slashdot AND impress your friends.

WTF?

[Junky191]

Why is this article posted to this dinky little uninformative review?

There's a Real Review over at Tom's.

Only reason I won't buy is (mark me anything)

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I own a 3dfx chipset (voodoo 3) video card. As only playing sims etc, its allright for me...

That EVIL company bought the f*cked up 3dfx, they didn't care to handover drivers to another company/guy...

Now MS takes care of our drivers (I donno how)... I can't install XP (I have to,no need for details).

They are evil, believe me... Stay away from them!

I am also happy with my Asus mainboard. I don't want those evil assholes go into mainboard business.

Careful of the gator plugin

[moroderzone]

Careful of the gator plugin on the web site linked in the story!

this is almost cool

[Salden]

I mean, if they seperated the gpu we could have motherboards without expansion slots. We'd have sockets for cpu, gpu, controller and slots for ram. Who needs anything else. They could probably implement a raid controller in the space the gpu takes up. I suppose motherboard manufacturers wouldn't like it though if you could replace chipsets since the board itself is basically a shell.

No, it's not.

[Inoshiro]

"since a GeForce4 MX is a stripped down, cheaper version of the real powerhouse GeForce4 TI, "

As posted many times by many people, the GeForce MX 4 is a GeForce 2 core with a higher clock speed. The only reason it has GeForce and 4 together at all is because the marketters at nVidia knew they could sell more parts.

Read Carmack's .plan about it: http://webdog.org/plans/1/.

Re:No, it's not.

[GoSpeedRacerGo]

This is absolutely wrong.

The GeForce4 MX and the GeForce4 TI have the exact same backend of the pipeline.

The same memory subsystem, the same display subsystem, the same z-culling and zbuffer data
compression, the same FSAA improvements and performance.

The Ti has a programmable, 4 texels per clock pipeline derived from the GeForce3.

The MX has a fixed, two texels per clock pipeline derived from the GeForce2.

What would you have called it?

They chose GeForce4 MX because their focus was on nview, FSAA, and performance which both the Ti
and MX have.

I think Ti and MX make it clear but I guess you feel that people which are less smart than you
can't figure that out and you need to protect them.

That is fine but at least know what you are talking about first.

Cool?

Re:No, it's not.

[GoSpeedRacerGo]

Oh my Lord, I had severe brain fade.

>The Ti has a programmable, 4 texels per clock pipeline derived from the GeForce3.
>The MX has a fixed, two texels per clock pipeline derived from the GeForce2.

That should read that the Ti's have 4 pixel pipelines that are two texels per clock and
The MX's have two pixel pipelines that are two texels per clock.

Sorry about that. Everything else is spot-on brilliance. :-)

This is not a good idea!

[Da_Monk]

the MX series of GeForce 4 GPUs are woefully underpowered, wait for the next revision of the motherboard that has a non MX GPU. This is such a scam and so many people are getting burned because they see a cheap Geforce4 card and think it is a great deal, when it is just a fast GeForce 2, spread the word!

Re:This is not a good idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a complete idiot, spread the word!

slightly off topic, but about USB

[romec]

Ok this board has 6 usb 2.0 ports.

rant
I have more than enough USB ports on the computer that i recently built. Maybe i missed something but whatever happened to the daisy chaining that USB promised when it was first introduced. If I recall correctly, theoretically 128 devices could be connected to a port. When i first heard about the standard i assumed that you wouldn't need a hub to connect devices, I thought that each would have a pass-through.

Did peripheral makers screw up by not including the "pass through"?
I just am tired of all the wires going into my pc. Maybe I never fully jumped on the USB bandwagon, but who needs 6 simultaneous usb connections. (printer,scanner,camera,joystick,dig camera, etc. USB is hot swappable; if you just put 2 on the front most people won't mind unconnecting a camera for a joystick. 4(2 front 2 back) makes some sense to me, front ports are convenient, but why the extra?
/rant

Re:slightly off topic, but about USB

[TeddyR]

The question is how many of those ports are shared.

Usually on a standard 2 port setup, each port gets 12mb or 480mb bandwidth.

If you plug a hub to first port, then all the ports on that hub share the bandwidth of that one motherboard port.. [so on a 2 port system, you can have one badly behaving device hog up all the bandwidth on that port; leaving little for other devices]..

If all 6 ports have individual controllers, then this WOULD be a good thing... and the more ports the easier it would be to segment your USB devices especially if you mix 1.1 and 2.0 devices... It also allows you to group your devices/hubs in such a way that sharing "Groups" between machines is easier.. [unplug groupA from main PC to connect to laptop] or [stuff connected to groupB not supported in Linux yet, so unplug port3 when booting Linux]

btw: I am a "USB power user" with close to 14 USB devices connected at once....

NOT a TV Tuner, a TV *Encoder*

[Namarrgon]

...and a TV Tuner.

This is incorrect. The chipset includes a TV Encoder, i.e. supports "TV Out" - S-Video or composite out to a TV. From the press release:

NVIDIA nForce2 Platform Processors offer a staggering array of features including:

* TV-encoder and HDTV processor for optimal visual quality

It does not include a TV Tuner capable of receiving broadcast TV. You'll have to add one yourself.

BTW, if you're wondering, the HDTV processor simply means it is capable of decoding HDTV-format MPEG2 video. You would still need an HDTV tuner/receiver to get the signal first.

Re:NOT a TV Tuner, a TV *Encoder*

[juventasone]

THANK YOU! I thought it sounded strange, so I searched the entire review for it, and found nothing.

A TV Tuner (even the chip-based silicon kind) takes up a huge amount of space (the size of a 462 socket, or larger). When I've looked inside TIVO's and such, they've always had analog tuners, not sure why... even the All-in-Wonders still use them (except one). Jason

Re:NOT a TV Tuner, a TV *Encoder*

[systemapex]

The simple reason is that the analog tuners on the market are still superior to the digital tuners as far as quality goes. It's [i]one[/i] of the reasons ATI reverted back to an analog tuner with the AIW Radeon 8500 128MB model after having debuted a digital tuner on the AIW Radeon 8500DV. The digital tuners are supersensitive and many people have to place a variable attenuator on their coax cable to help improve the picture quality.

Re:NOT a TV Tuner, a TV *Encoder*

[Anonymous Coward]

This informative comment combined with this biased drivel (#3708249) makes it a little obvious where you work. :-)

Thanks for the input on an additional weakness of 8500DV.

Re:NOT a TV Tuner, a TV *Encoder*

[the_great_being]

I just happen to use a motherboard with the predecessor (nForce 420) chipset, in fact a MSI K7N420. And IIRC there is some kind of TV encoder on the IGP, but the MSI guys want you to buy an add-on card to get it working. So the only innovative thig about the new chipset would be the HDTV processor? (to bad I can neither afford a new mainboard with nForce2 nor a HDTV-set - but wait - why do I need it again?)

Can someone please define...

[pjl5602]

From the Tomshardware.com article:

As a matter of fact, the nForce2 is a completely new product that harks on the technology of its predecessor.

Can somebody please give me a definition of "harks"?

Seriously...

Re:Can someone please define...

[Anonymous Coward]

hark: To listen attentively.

Complements of www.dictionary.com

EETimes coverage

[morcheeba]

The EETimes article covers a lot of the same ground. Some info from it:

Since Nvidia doesn't have a license to develop for the intel bus, this will interface to AMD processors (uh, despite that the xbox is intel-based). A version for the Hammer is "far along" and may merge north and south bridge functions into one chip.

Four Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers, including Asus and Chaintech, will use the chips

A future version for server line cards may include gigabit ethernet, routing capability, and a HyperTransport link to network processors.

Review that doesn't suck

[or_smth]

I see the majority of this discussion is pointing out the problems with Tom's Hardware. No complaints, as I completely agree with you.

Anyhow, if you want a preview that gives the facts properly try [H]ardOCP's (and if that link doesn't work, just go to the front page and click). They are usually opinioned to boot, but they know their stuff and post links to informative articles throughout the preview.

Legal Linux drivers?

[Mike_L]

I'm still waiting for Linux drivers that can legally be linked into the kernel. nVidia forces me infringe on the GPL when I use their nvnet driver. It would also be nice to have the nforce drivers in the kernel distribution.

-Mike_L

Re:Legal Linux drivers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you only violated the gpl by "distributing" your modifications to gpl'd code. You can build and rebuild and link gpl code to all of the proprietary code you want. As long as you don't distribute the resulting products to anyone else it is not a violation of the gpl.

evil webpage

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else notice that page redefining ESC to close mozilla, seems to also change all your mouse buttons as well.

Questions

[ziggy_zero]

Well, I was a little disapointed to see that it doesn't support Serial ATA (it's not a big deal, but it's something). When will mobos with support for Serial ATA come out?

Another question: do you think a dual CPU mobo with nForce2 chipset be produced/marketed? Because that, and I think many people would agree with me, would be quite sweet (barring the serial ata debacle).

Wow

[Xeo2]

I think nVidia has the right idea by combining EVERYTHING into one package. And we'll finally get onboard video that doesn't suck.

nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

Nvidia: A acronyme for: My penile implant.
Instead of making games more fun with sprites why not add even more marketing buzwords.
WarCrap 3 for example: Yeah lets make another wacraft, but instead of making it fun compatible and for more people than just the few 100 or so that have GPU's from reality monsters. Lets force them to blow 300 on our squandered programing, to have polygons yeah that's the ticket.
Oh next we'll make it 300 fucking dollers
Next we'll toss around some marketing words, here are a few of the best: Light speed aceleration!!, Charisma engine!!, embeded GeoForce MX (not just GeoForce),voltech enabled, polygon enabled, no pixel or sprites though did we mention it's POLYGON enabled, and uses the AGP port, IGPU(no duh this is a graphics card), USB 2.0 (not to be confused with USB.)PCI SIS, ACT, ATA, RTA, HIV, VD, PCP, RPM, DEB, BOA, XX, XXX, KKK, CLA,MLA, GOV, ACP, DNA,RNA, 2H1O3, enabled.
Holly shit nvidia! I got an idea, same "high end" product 30 bucks, PCI and Advanced Graphic Penile Implant Processor slot software compiled for both macs AND POC(piece of craps) on one board, that'll almost garun damn te you dominance, (note to you nvidea banker retards; that's thirty and not a fucking typo).
Now the rest of you mono processing penile implant needing bastards can go suck on Mystobia San's cock(Nvidea's CEO).

Re:nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak on it brother! I dub you: Preacher Anonymous

Re:2 ports is useless 99% of the time

[Anonymous Coward]

4 port routers are cheap and reliable. I don't want to have to boot up computer A so that I can access the network from computer B, nor do I want computer A burning power 24 hours a day for no good reason.

better Linux support than nForce 420?

[zardie]

I certainly hope this chipset has better Linux support than the earlier chipset.

I've had experience with a set of three nForce boards used in game servers and have had nothing but trouble. A board that costs a third of the price (the K7S5A) outperforms it. The integrated network controller stops responding if I'm not loading the network interface and refuses to update its ARP table. Graphics isn't worth the price difference - a K7S5A with a *GeForce4MX* would be cheaper and faster than an nForce with the integrated toys.

Given that they are including two NICs with this upcoming chipset, I hope their linux support is above par for this one.

What the hell was nVidia thinking?

[N8Magic]

So they decide to put an MX core in as the integrated graphics yet again. Don't they realize this is what crippled the original nForce chipset?

Put a true GF4 (or even a GF3 Ti500) core in there and learn from your mistakes.

Both the nForce and nForce2 were/are great chipsets with one blatant flaw... shitty integrated graphics.

Re:What the hell was nVidia thinking?

[GoSpeedRacerGo]

So, you want NVIDIA to put the graphics from a ~$200 graphics card inside a chipset for motherboards that compete against other products that cost in the $100-$159 range. Correct? Why shouldn't you be blown away and impressed that what you will get with nforce2 is a complete system architecture, multi-media platform, and GeForce4 MX 420 graphics that cost almost the same as a GeForce4 MX 420 graphics card does by itself? The answer to your question is simple, they don't put $200 graphics and (more importantly) the chip space required to implement those graphics in a motherboard chipset solution that has to come in at sub $150 for final customer products.

TV Tuner? I think not

[Dag Maggot]

Unless I'm mistaken I did not see anything about a TV tuner to go with this chipset in the Tom's hardware review. I think the other review may have mistaken "TV Out" with "TV Tuner". A TV tuner would be a different kettle of fish, and would be quite noticible on a motherboard, as it requires a faraday cage to protect it from EMR coming from the other components.

Problem with feature list.

[catwh0re]

Want to hear what annoys me? Then read on.

The problem rarely lays with the features that the chip can provide, one of Australia's largest suppliers currently has a slew of motherboards with chipsets that feature Firewire, Ethernet, 5.1 digital audio channelling and usb2.0.

The problem is manufacturers such as Asus(they aren't alone here), they will use these chips, then brand these desirable features as "Optional" components.

What Optional means is that in the unlikely event that you actually find a motherboard with all the chipsets features(pins on the mobo) enabled(this point alone is the hardest of them all to obtain via a vendor, as they aren't mass-marketable), you are then confronted that you must purchase a side order of special S/PDIF input/output connectors if you managed to obtain the Optional Audio component installed, special firewire connectors if you obtained the optional firewire component and so on and so forth, they specifically state this fact inside the packaging only(obviously for post-purchase viewing only)All this despite the manufacturers gladly parading the features with the word "Optional" on the box, in the feature list and on the web. Often they forget the word optional as well.

To me, if the board doesn't come with it, then it doesn't come with it, simple as that.

If I can't use a stated optional feature then it is clearly not optional at all.

No more of this dirty business where Motherboard manufacturers attempt to trick buyers into products simply because the chipset they use could support a list of features, if they bothered to include the appropriate wiring and mounts.

Thank you for reading my ramble.

-A Concerned Computer Builder.

[OT] Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[psamuels]

Works just fine here, although with FreeBSD. I'm sure it would work with Linux too, but don't know how exactly. On FreeBSD one network interface can have many addresses -- I have one external (assigned by the ISP) and two internal (10.0.1.x).

On Linux, you have to "clone" the interfaces to achieve that (eth0.0, eth0.1 ?)...

You're thinking "eth0:0" etc, and this is true only if you use ifconfig, which doesn't support "advanced" features. With Alexey Kuznetsov's ip utility:

ip addr add 10.0.1.1/24 dev eth0

(Meaning should be obvious..)

Re:[OT] Re:Why two ethernet controllers?

[mi]

Thanks for clarification. It may help that unfortunate Linux user I was replying to.

Count this as a flame-bait, but this IS the Linux' weak point. Once installed, you need to scramble around for tools like this.

And this is not a general purpose software, which is, understandably, maintained outside of a particular OS, but a Linux-specific tool, that, for some reason, is not available with the Linux itself.

No, I like my FreeBSD -- which is an entire OS, not just a kernel, where the existing kernel features quickly get the user-land hooks to use them... Yada-yada-yada :-)

Lower power consumption

[mmmbeer]

Well you'd like to think that the all in one solution would be more efficient on power and heat, but I have an nForce board now and I can tell you that's not the case. I bought the nForce board thinking that it slip inside a 2U case where it could quietly while away the hours as my Linux development machine. I can't exactly tuck it away, because I keep the top off of it to keep it running cooler. The onboard video does run pretty cool and only has a large heatsink (no fan). The processor is another story. It looks like the nForce chipset does not allow a bus disconnect on STPGNT. Basically this means that the Athlon CPU cannot go into power-saving mode at all so it runs at 100% power (read: 100% heat output) at all times. From what I've seen it looks like it doesn't even enable HLT detection.

I've tried to find technical information about the chipset to actually see if there's a way to get around my CPU running balls-to-the-wall all the time, but nVidia isn't exactly just giving that information out apparently.

I would get one if it had a G4...

[frankie]

Apparently I wasn't the only one who wished that Apple would team up with Nvidia.

If there isn't an expandable Mac around $900 by the time the Shuttle SN40 arrives, I'm getting an nForce2.