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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.
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...
due to the newfound explosive nature of mice, I'm going to skip out on buying hardware for the time being.
On the topic of current Nvidia cards:
.plan:
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
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!
I can think of two.
Cheers, Andy!
Andy Rabagliati
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...
Plans for nForce 4 (still some time in the future) include an embedded version of Java and/or Internet Explorer
Ñ'
What, no kitchen sink?
The chipset contains 5 PCI slots? I'm impressed. I had to buy a motherboard to get that.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
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.
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
...you would realize they releasing a verion with integrated video and a version without.
- Toby
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 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.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
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.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
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).