Slashdot Mirror
Shortcomings Revealed in nForce4 SLI Redux
EconolineCrush writes "Slashdot recently covered the launch of NVIDIA's nForce 4 SLI chipset for Intel processors, and although early reviews fawned over the chipset's performance, closer examination reveals several shortcomings that the initial wave of coverage failed to document. Problems with stability, drivers, and the chipset's oft-praised hardware-accelerated firewall and Gigabit Ethernet controller escaped the scrutiny of many reviews."
The same is true of anything. I saw a pre screening of Samuel Jackson in shaft and LOVED it. Why? I don't know now.
I believe he was referring to Intel's market, not AMD's (and supporting chipset maker's) competence. To put another way, relatively minor issues in Intel's market will be perceived as bigger, and potentially more critical, issues than similar issues in AMD's space. I don't agree quite, but that's what I get out of it.
Their brand of in-depth, hard-hitting coverage is probably why Intel conveniently passed them over for the first round of Dual Core reviews; can't have any bad press at release time.
What the hell does the incompetence of an nVidia chipset have to do with the performance and reliability of an AMD processor? You can simply not us the nForce 4 boards--how does this give the reviewer the right to bash AMD? Or is he just an Intel fanboy?
I'm shocked... shocked!... that hardware review sites would make a half-assed job of their review just in order to be the first to publish.
Whatever next!?!?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
AMD certainly has the most interesting x86 technology out there. From a PC gamer's perspective, AMD probably is the most important chip maker out there. The jury's still out on businesses' opinions, however, the Opteron certainly smokes everything intel has except itanium2, which it also might smoke but I'm withholding judgement until I read better comparisons than I've seen to date.
As for cutting edge tech, AMD wins hands down in the x86 world. They did a nice edge run around Intel's GHz GHz GHz mantra, and they're beginning to reap the rewards. The dual and multi-core chips coming soon should finish the job once they're out and in tester's hands. Intel's dual core will either burn eggs or perform sluggishly, and they're still regrouping from their P4 mistakes and trying to come up with a new tech. Their size and brand is the only thing keeping them alive at the moment IMNSHO.
If you want to see cutting edge technology, look towards things like the Power5 (that's not a G5 btw;) and the Cell processors. One's a multi-core powerhouse, the other, well, it's an interesting amalgam of a core with multiple DSP chips to speed things up. I'm looking forward to the PS3 and its capabilities. (There are others too, but these may be the most likely to be seen by average consumers in some form or another)
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I wonder why they escaped the attentions of the early reviewers. Perhaps because the shortcomings weren't included on the press release the early reviewers regurgitated.
Here
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Actually - I have to disagree. I think IBM are by far a more important chip maker. They do completely different things to Intel, they come up with completely new ideas - AMD just try to make chips that compete well with Intel (which they do very well at the moment)... But IBM actually try to do something different. I mean, come on, why do you think the Power5 is devastating all the opposition in the server market?
The reviewer seems to be contrasting the stability of the Nforce 4 chipset with the stability of the... lets say 925XE chipset, this isn't about processors. Intel produces realy rock solid boards lately, more stable than any 3rd party board even with the same chipset. (don't buy a Supermicro desktop board... trust me)
So... what he was saying is that an Intel user may be disapointed by the Nforce 4's shortcomings, but an AMD user is acustomed to this level of quality, still good just not the best.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
Incidentally:
It's hard to be both most important and second-most important at the same time. Yet this is apparently a feat both AMD and Intel have managed. I guess this is a byproduct of their research into quantum computers. ("Alright! We're on top! Oh shit, I just changed our importance by measuring it.")He isn't talking about the processors....... he is talking about the CHIPSETS.
I've found the one short coming of AMD based solutions has always been the shoddy 3rd party chipsets and motherboards out there. I have a dual Opteron system on my desk and it has been wonderful. However, I have ran into many people running Via or nVidia chipsets on brand-x motherboards that have had awful hardware difficulties.
I'm inclided to blame the mainboard manufactures more so then the chipset manufactures because companies like Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte never seam to have trouble putting out solid mainboards based on nVidia and Via chipsets.... but the fact of the matter is there seam to be a lot of other manufactures that build absolutely terrible mainboards for AMD processors.
'Paid reviewers skip the unflattering parts' - SHOCKING!!!!
The first review bunch of every hardware item is PAID ADVERTISING. Well, at least close to it. To get the product for such review requires signing of NDA and cooperation of the manufacturer. Trashing a product in such launch review ensures that you won't get the next shiny thing to review. Yes, some hardware reviewers are corrupt. Shocking.
The 'active armor' firewall has never worked right on the AMD64 NF4 either. Also on AMD64 NForce4 the gigabit ethernet has it's own problems - for example, many MMOs simply disconnect you (you go linkdead) if you have the Hardware Checksum Offload feature of the LAN chip in use.
And unsurprisingly when you compare ANY other chipset to the rock solid Intel chipsets, they look unstable. NF4 isn't the worst of the bunch, but it can't be helped. Last STABLE (rock stable) chipset on AMD platforms was AMD760. Yes, it was lacking features, but it WORKED. After that it's VIA this, nVidia that, SIS this - all suck more or less. Thankfully the suckiness has gone down over the years, and today I can say that KT800 VIA on AMD64 is usable. Still not perfect, but works. NForce 4 has bunch of quirks and unfinished drivers, but it's probably the best PCIe-based chipset so far.
Just because this article mentions that the nForce4 for intel CPUs is unstable and has issues doesn't imply anything about the AMD nForce4 chipset. There are many major server vendors (Tyan comes to mind first) that are using the nVidia chipset. These vendors don't just slap anything into their motherboards you know. A lot of validation and testing going into every part they use. I am very happy with the stability and speed of Tyan's boards. If Tyan says it's good enough for them, then it is probably good enough for me. I don't see why people would even say somthing like: "The nVidia shipset sucks on Intel, I guess it's ok for AMD because people in that market are used to crap!" It just doesn't work that way. The Intel and AMD nVidia chipsets are very different.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Anyone who jumped on the 939 bandwagon at the start of its release will see this for what it is, teething problems.
:)
This is not a fault of nVidia chipsets (they are very good imho) and its not a fault of intel chips (again, very good, just showing their age a bit now).
The stabillity problem smells heavily of the same sort of goings on gigabyte had with their initial flagship nf3-250 board, the k8nsnxp. Between bad temp sniffing (minor read error causeing the cpu fan to shut down because it thought the cpu was 20C below what it really was) and a huge problem getting the dual channel memory working, these boards were shunned. After much patching of bios' code they are rock stable and burning up memory benchmarks.
Lets give these things 3 months on the market to get the bugs out then see what they can do
...
I reviewed the new HP xw9300 for a print magazine. Didn't find any stability problems, though I tested it mostly against 3D apps like Maya. Not too many network tests. I ran it in production for a while and it was great. In fact it's still here sitting next to my desk.
We did request SLI, but HP sent a single card system because they told us SLI wasn't quite ready.
I have another system on my review schedule from another vendor, and when we suggested they ship us an SLI system, they backed off.
Looks like SLI isn't quite ready for prime time.