nForce4 Intel Edition

[Rugger]

Read the <A HREF="http://www20.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050406/index.html" target="_new">THG nForce4 IE article</A>. Seems odd that in the final SLI benchies, that they didn't include the comparative AMD benchmarks. I know the article was meant as a comparison for nForce vs Intel chipsets, but it would have been nice to see those numbers. They also didn't state the AMD setup in the test setup portion. You have to assume that the benchies were done with all the other eqpt being the same. :/ The only gamin benches were at low res - I wonder what the perf comparisons are at higher res? I still thought it was interesting to see the performance numbers that close between AMD and Intel, but you have to look at the numbers with a skeptics eyes without setup info for the AMD. Putting that aside the nF4 IE seems to be doing a head stomp on the Intel chipsets...

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

 

[TheRod]

THG is not the reference anymore in terms of reviews. The only good reviews, in my opinions, are the VGA Charts.

Here you can find what you want :
<A HREF="http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzU1" target="_new">http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzU1</A>

-
GA-K8NF-9 / <b><font color=green>Athlon 64 3200+</font color=green> @ 3800+</b>
Infineon DDR400 (CL2.5) 2x512Megs
<font color=green>GeForce 6600GT 128Megs</font color=green>
<A HREF="http://www.getfirefox.com" target="_new">Firefox</A>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

It's nice to see nVidia <i>finally</i> do another Intel chipset. It's good to see that they haven't lost their touch with memory controllers. (You know, since AMD's chips dont need a memory controller on the mobo anymore and nVidia had been doing primarily AMD chipsets, I'd kind of been worred that they'd forgotten how to do memory controllers for CPUs with graphics cards being so different in architecture lately.)

What I really liked about the nForce4 Intel Edition however was the onboard RAID 5 SATA. Granted, an XOR engine in the chipset would have been <i>much</i> better, but even still, it's about <explitive never entered> time that <i>someone</i> finally did this. It gives me hope for the future that maybe an AMD nForce5 will have this too. I'd <i>much</i> rather build a system with a 4 disk RAID 5 than a 4 disk RAID 0+1, and I don't think I'll ever build another system without redundancy.

I also like the nForce's hardware firewall. Granted, Zone Alarm is cool and all, but doing it in hardware is faster.

So now that Intel systems have nice nVidia chipsets again, I wonder if Intel is going to make a low-heat high-performance CPU and sell it at a reasonable price. Has anyone checked the temperature in Hell lately? Old Lou might be iceskating to work even as we speak. 😉

One other interesting consideration too, is that the nForce4 Intel Edition is available because of a cross-licensing agreement between Intel and nVidia. I wonder if this means that Intel is considering nVidia's memory controller to put on the die of a new CPU core? :O

<pre> 😱 <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'. 😱 </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

 

[Rugger]

Thanks for the link!

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

 

[Rugger]

It looks to be a sweet chipset. If they can break into that market, then their net chipset sales will skyrocket. They appear to have a good product. Now if their marketing/sales people can make the sales. Intel may pressure some of their bigger customers to stay away or feel the consequences...

I wonder if Intel is going to make a low-heat high-performance CPU and sell it at a reasonable price. Has anyone checked the temperature in Hell lately? Old Lou might be iceskating to work even as we speak.

He's probably in a snowball fight with some minions at this point...

I wonder if this means that Intel is considering nVidia's memory controller to put on the die of a new CPU core?

Now that would be an interesting proposition!

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

In reply to:
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I wonder if this means that Intel is considering nVidia's memory controller to put on the die of a new CPU core?
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Now that would be an interesting proposition!

I wouldn't be surprised to see it, and it would be damn cool, but I'm not exactly expecting it.

I mean to me it makes a lot of sense. nVidia has some darn good GPU memory controllers, and they just proved that they have some darn good northbridge memory controllers. Intel might not bother spending the R&D to design their own CPU controller, but if nVidia can provide one with minimal effort and at the mere price of allowing them to compete in the Pentium northbridge market where Intel is dug in quite well...

And in fact, in a long-term sense it makes even more sense to Intel. I mean what is one of the biggest advantages that the nForce chipsets have over Intel chipsets? Their memory controller. And what advantage do these chipsets provide then over Intel's if Intel suddenly has an ondie memory controller?



So to me it makes perfect sense, and it would be pretty cool.

In reality however, things that make sense rarely happen. So while it makes sense, I have no expectation to see it happen anytime. **ROFL**

<pre> 😱 <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'. 😱 </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

 

[Rugger]

Makes TOO much sense... :lol:

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

nVidia probably got a sweetheart deal for a couple reasons: Intel is still mad-as-hell with VIA, and Intel wants more share of the gaming market.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Intel is still mad-as-hell with VIA

Yeah, well, given that Intel's reputation is stability, I can't really blame them for hating VIA. Chipset licensing qualms aside, what VIA chipsets did for the P3 and earlier alone should be enough for a long term <font color=red>burning hatred</font color=red>. :O

😱

Wasn't Intel also pissed off at nVidia for some spat during the X-Box development though?

<pre> 😱 <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'. 😱 </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

 

[Crashman]

That was just a pricing spat, MS was trying to cut prices on X-Box while Intel was trying to raise prices on CPU's and nVidia got caught in the middle.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Heh heh. Leave it to <A HREF="http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050218" target="_new">Microsoft</A>.

<pre> 😱 <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'. 😱 </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!