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NVIDIA Announces Intel nForce Chipsets Coming

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the going-up-against-ich dept.

ruiner5000 writes "NVIDIA has just made a surprise announcement about their cross license agreement with Intel to make chipsets. This means that the bragging rights AMD users have had about having the superior nForce chipsets is about to end, and it will also bring NVIDIA's superior Linux support to Intel users. We have a statement and press release from NVIDIA about planned shipment dates, and expected products NVIDIA will be aiming their chipsets at. With the nForce 4 NVIDIA is aiming for desktops, laptops, workstations, and servers."

11 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Good News for Nvidia and Intel by blueZhift · · Score: 4, Informative

    I guess this is good news for both Nvidia and Intel. This should help Nvidia make up for being shut out of the Xbox 2 graphics game, though they may have lost money on the original Xbox deal anyway. And this should bring some gamer cred back to Intel who may have been using some gamer sales to AMD because of the nForce chipset. Of the two though, I think Nvidia gets the best part of the deal since they will now have an easier entry into the wider PC market which is dominated by Intel based systems. Intel will only see marginal gains since gamers are not a big part of the market, though they do buy a good proportion of high end systems I would guess.

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    1. Re:Good News for Nvidia and Intel by MrWim · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't understand how it would affect the XBox deal. The XBox 2 will be based on the PowerPC architecture from IBM and will probably have little to do with intel.

    2. Re:Good News for Nvidia and Intel by blueZhift · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nvidia provided the graphics chipset for the original Xbox. Then they had some sort of falling out with Microsoft over how much they were supposed to be paid. This probably contributed to the Xbox 2 graphics chipset being done by ATI. So Nvidia will be missing the Xbox 2 party, but given that the Xbox deal probably wasn't good for them anyway, it may not be a big loss.

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  2. Re:Superior Linux Support? by marsu_k · · Score: 4, Informative

    I take it you don't have a nForce motherboard? Because they work quite fine out of the box with 2.6 .x kernels. As for the display drivers, yes, they take some extra fiddling upon install every now and then. While this is not ideal, at least you get good 3D performance (not like "that other manufacturer" in Linux ;-). And you can use the default X driver if you don't need 3d acceleration, which is open source.

  3. Re:meh by the+unbeliever · · Score: 2, Informative

    Soundstorm isn't really necessary anymore.

    And did you happen to notice the dearth of nForce boards with Soundstorm? It wasn't nVidia that killed it, it was the mobo makers. They didn't want to pay for it.

  4. Nvidia's Linux support superior to Intel by EvilGrin666 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Since when? AFAIK Intel publishes its sepcs and Nvidia doesn't. Hows that superior exactly? Granted Nvidia release drivers, but there performance and features pale in comparison to the windows version or indeed similar Intel hardware with open source drivers written from the published specs.

    1. Re:Nvidia's Linux support superior to Intel by AstroDrabb · · Score: 3, Informative
      but there performance and features pale in comparison to the windows version
      Just making things up to try to prove a point? The NVidia chipsets work out-of-the-box under Linux with Open Source drivers, no binary drivers required. For NVidia graphics cards, NVidia uses a unified driver that shares most code cross-platform. The Linux and Windows NVidia drivers are feature for feature compatible. The performance numbers are all about the same. I get just as good FPS under Linux with NVidia that I do on the same hardware under MS Windows. Even the installation is about the same. For Windows you run the executable and reboot. For Linux you just log out of X and run the executable without a reboot.
      --
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      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
  5. Re:Superior Linux Support? by bingo777 · · Score: 2, Informative

    well my nforce 2 works perfectly fine with 2.6x..it even has support for the integrated lan card n 6 channel sound... so what else r u lookin for???

  6. Re:Superior Linux Support? by ImpTech · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nforce boards do work OOB, its true... but AFAIK not any better than an Intel board. And up until relatively recently, the nForce's didn't work at all. Furthermore, since Nvidia's dumped soundstorm, I can't imagine why an Intel user would buy a nForce board over one of Intel's own.

  7. ...but it might not be the chipset that matters... by codefreez · · Score: 2, Informative

    I just read an interesting article last night that claims it is not chipset that matters so much, because the Intel CPUs stick to the traditional north/south bridge design that limits I/O, while AMD64 processors have multiple hypertransport interfaces on-chip. http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9408/sam0411b/041 1b.htm

  8. Re:Chipset drivers by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Informative

    Intel chipsets often don't need drivers but that's because basic drivers for Intel chipsets are usually included with Windows.

    With my current computer, Windows 2000 did not have an AGP driver, so my AGP video card was running in PCI mode. Chipset drivers also enable performance features. IIRC, Windows defaults to PIO modes, chipset drivers allow users to enable UDMA.

    Now, I'd probably never use a chipset with built-in graphics.