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Hybrid NVIDIA Chipset Motherboards Launched

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the little-bit-of-this-little-bit-of-that dept.

MojoKid writes "Filling the price gap between the high-end nForce 680i SLI and more affordable 650i SLI chipsets, without sacrificing any advanced features, motherboard manufacturer Asus has created a hybrid motherboard chipset in cooperation with NVIDIA, dubbed the "Dual X16 SLI". Designed for the Intel platform, the chipset combination employed on the P5N32-E SLI Plus motherboard offers true, dual PCI Express x16 electrical connections for graphics, dual Gig-E LAN support and a slew of other features found on high-end 680i boards. HotHardware pits the P5N32-E SLI Plus against an nForce 680i SLI to see if Asus' hybrid chipset approach truly offers all of the performance of the more expensive 680i SLI for a fraction of the cost."

11 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Slow news day by Animats · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Manufacturer announces slightly different model of thing at lower price. How did this get in? Slow news day?

    1. Re:Slow news day by Barny · · Score: 2, Informative

      I believe you are looking for the nforce 410, 420, 430, 440 chipsets, all include integrated graphics (vista aero capable) and all have a spare pci-e 16x slot, that can run in addition to the on-board (handy for NAS boxes, can slot a pci-e raid card in there).

      If you were trying to be funny, well you missed your mark ^_^

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    2. Re:Slow news day by Silver+Sloth · · Score: 3, Funny

      I hope there a graphics bard built in it. So, whatt do you want, pictures or sonnets?
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      init 11 - for when you need that edge.
    3. Re:Slow news day by julesh · · Score: 5, Informative

      Manufacturer announces slightly different model of thing at lower price. How did this get in? Slow news day?

      To be fair, this is a rather unexpected announcement. Usually new motherboards only come up when the chipset manufacturers release new chips. What Asus have done here is to use the existing chips in a way that they weren't originally designed for. And they've come up with a stunning offer: they're beating the price of the next cheapest motherboard on the market with the same feature set by nearly 50%. These things are available now for about £90+VAT; their closest competitor is £140+VAT. For a geek news site, I'd say that's a pretty important story.

  2. And the answer is? by geekyMD · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is just an advertisement manifesting as news! Was there any info in the slashdot summary other than a new product has been released?

    Even a simple, yes/no/sort of would have been more helpful than nothing.
    TFA is interesting and all, but it should have a summary. Not a teaser!

    Very simple marketing tactics. I would have expected better from slashdot.
    (oh wait, nevermind, thats what I have come to expect from slashdot. silly me)

    1. Re:And the answer is? by Barny · · Score: 3, Funny

      Get over it, new motherboards (particularly budget line with lots of features) is geek news.

      As a worker at an OEM who has some input into buying decisions these sorts of things are handy to know, and also I am pretty sure you forgot the bit where this is only a geek blog ;)

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  3. What is 'hybrid' about this? by jkrise · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And I thought... like, it's a cross between a chipset and a motherboard, genetically engineered by NVidia!

    Just some more inane marketing speak.

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    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    1. Re:What is 'hybrid' about this? by julesh · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's hybrid because it uses the northbridge from one chipset and the southbridge from another. Sounds like a reasonable use of the word to me.

  4. To proudly go where no man has gone before! by Fizzl · · Score: 4, Funny

    dual PCI Express x16 electrical connections for graphics

    Now that I call progress! Holy shit! Electrical?!?
    None of that old fashioned, noisy, pneumatic video signalling for ASUS!
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    Bot Assisted Blogging
  5. Re:What they mean is by mattmacf · · Score: 3, Informative
    Close, but not quite. I think you have your definitions backwards. Replace "electrical" with "physical" and "lanes of signaling" with "electrical lanes" and you've got it. The Wikipedia article explains it better that I would be able to.

    A connection between any two PCIe devices is known as a "link", and is built up from a collection of 1 or more lanes. All devices must minimally support single-lane (x1) link. Devices may optionally support wider links composed of 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, or 32 lanes. This allows for very good compatibility in two ways: A PCIe card will physically fit (and work correctly) in any slot that is at least as large as it is (e.g. an x1 sized card will work in any sized slot), and a slot of a large physical size (e.g. x16) can be wired electrically with fewer lanes (e.g. x1 or x8) as long as it provides the power and ground connections required by the larger physical slot size. In both cases, PCIe will negotiate the highest mutually supported number of lanes. It is not possible to place a physically larger PCIe card (e.g. a 16x sized card) into a smaller slot, even though the two would be signal-compatible if it were possible.
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  6. Re:Only one feature I really care about.... by Emetophobe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nvidia will come out with decent open drivers when you can convince them that ATI will not steal their driver tricks/optimization. Likewise, you must convince ATI that Nvidia will not read ATI's open source drivers... Good luck with that!