NVIDIA: New nForce4 Chipsets
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on January 17, 2006 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Our Take
Motherboard shipments with the new chipsets are expected in the next few weeks. The introduction of these new nForce4 chipsets into the marketplace will offer competition across the board to Intel desktop chipset offerings. The only area in the desktop market not addressed by NVIDIA in the new chipset line is integrated graphics. We can only wonder at this time if NVIDIA will release an integrated video solution into the Intel market space to complete their product lineup, or whether there may be agreements in place that will exclude NVIDIA from the Intel integrated video segment. Intel has recently entered a partnership with ATI for integrated video products, and any new introductions by NVIDIA in integrated video has the potential to impact both ATI and Intel sales.
Since NVIDIA has talked for months that their Intel offerings were "top-end only", these new mainstream chipsets challenge Intel's dominance in the chipset market for Intel processors. It is difficult to see how Intel would welcome this move by NVIDIA. This could also impact the ongoing negotiations between Intel and NVIDIA for Intel licensing of SLI. Currently, Intel has a licensing agreement with ATI to provide ATI Crossfire support, but there is no licensing agreement for NVIDIA SLI. This could set up an interesting showdown between Intel/ATI Crossfire and NVIDIA SLI in the Intel market, in addition to the developing ATI Crossfire and NVIDIA SLI war in the AMD market. NVIDIA owns the current AMD chipset market, but the upcoming RD580 chipset and the introduction of the new AM2 socket could change these dynamics quickly.
From the perspective of the end-user, this looks like good news on the surface. It has been quite a while since Intel has had a real competitor in the chipset market. With NVIDIA charting new Intel CPU motherboards from $89 and up, there could be price competition in the Intel segment again. All of this assumes that the NVIDIA chipsets are worthy competitors to the Intel chipset line. Based on the performance that we have seen with the current NVIDIA chipsets for Intel, we would expect the new NVIDIA Intel chipsets to be very competitive. Motherboards are expected in the next few weeks and we look forward to comparing NVIDIA's new Intel line to motherboards based on Intel's chipsets.
Motherboard shipments with the new chipsets are expected in the next few weeks. The introduction of these new nForce4 chipsets into the marketplace will offer competition across the board to Intel desktop chipset offerings. The only area in the desktop market not addressed by NVIDIA in the new chipset line is integrated graphics. We can only wonder at this time if NVIDIA will release an integrated video solution into the Intel market space to complete their product lineup, or whether there may be agreements in place that will exclude NVIDIA from the Intel integrated video segment. Intel has recently entered a partnership with ATI for integrated video products, and any new introductions by NVIDIA in integrated video has the potential to impact both ATI and Intel sales.
Since NVIDIA has talked for months that their Intel offerings were "top-end only", these new mainstream chipsets challenge Intel's dominance in the chipset market for Intel processors. It is difficult to see how Intel would welcome this move by NVIDIA. This could also impact the ongoing negotiations between Intel and NVIDIA for Intel licensing of SLI. Currently, Intel has a licensing agreement with ATI to provide ATI Crossfire support, but there is no licensing agreement for NVIDIA SLI. This could set up an interesting showdown between Intel/ATI Crossfire and NVIDIA SLI in the Intel market, in addition to the developing ATI Crossfire and NVIDIA SLI war in the AMD market. NVIDIA owns the current AMD chipset market, but the upcoming RD580 chipset and the introduction of the new AM2 socket could change these dynamics quickly.
From the perspective of the end-user, this looks like good news on the surface. It has been quite a while since Intel has had a real competitor in the chipset market. With NVIDIA charting new Intel CPU motherboards from $89 and up, there could be price competition in the Intel segment again. All of this assumes that the NVIDIA chipsets are worthy competitors to the Intel chipset line. Based on the performance that we have seen with the current NVIDIA chipsets for Intel, we would expect the new NVIDIA Intel chipsets to be very competitive. Motherboards are expected in the next few weeks and we look forward to comparing NVIDIA's new Intel line to motherboards based on Intel's chipsets.
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Cygni - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
Nvidia chipsets are hard to setup? Huh? Are you serious?Really, if your friends dont know how to use hardrive autodetect in their bios settings, they shouldnt be building their own computesr in the first place.
Ive used, SiS, ULi, Intel, ATI, Via, Nvidia, and Intel chipsets for builds in the last 2 months... and they are all identical in the setup department, more or less. The only major bug i can think of in the NF4 rigs was Active Armor, and i hear its been fixed, as well as the original problems with the Intel SLI X16 chipsets that too has been fixed... I can think of more problems than that in chipsets from ATI, Intel, sis etc...
mino - Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - link
He did NOT mention it is tough to setup.Nvidia simply makes gamboy like products.
Whether you like it or not nf4 IS buggy, nor ULi, nor Intel nor VIA has such a buggy product on the market right now. Only ATI's screwed USB on the SB400/SB450 are comparable but you can use Uli for that here.
If you are building gaming machine - go for nF4, if you are making production systems, stay away from it.
Regs - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
That this is actually a bad thing for Intel since they have a actual competitor.MrSmurf - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
Intel has chipsets that support Crossfire. Plus Inten is known for their stability. It's not that bad of a thing for Intel.FinFET - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
I know it's probably a screen cap, but when will people stop refering to 3Gbps SATA as SATA2.http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp">Dispelling the Confusion: SATA II does not mean 3Gb/s
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
SATA2 does NOT mean 3Gb/s, as you point out, but 3Gb/s DOES mean SATA2. In other words, not all SATA2 is 3Gb/s, but all 3Gb/s is SATA2.fitten - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
I think he's refering to http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp">this...Basically, there is no such term as SATA2 or SATAII or whatever.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
Calling it SATA-IO does not dispell any confusion, since all SATA-IO is not 3GB/s, but 3Gb/s is by definition a SATA-IO drive. The point is 3Gb/s is only one of the new SATA possible features, but it is not a necessary feature for a drive to be SATA2 or SATA-IO. It seems to me all the SATA-IO name has done is further obfuscate the confusion that SATA2 and SATA-IO can mean 3Gb/s or they can mean next to nothing. That is the organization's marketing issue - which they have NOT resolved.fitten - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
I'm not arguing either way other than to clarify the other poster's post. You can use whatever term you want for it but be aware that the terms "SATA2" and "SATAII" and variations aren't used by the SATA standardization body, regardless of how obfuscated things are.Donegrim - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 - link
nForce4 SLI x16 nad nForce4 SLIIs this a typo? just thouhgt id point it out.