nForce4: PCI Express and SLI for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on October 19, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
nForce4 Reference Board: Basic Features
| nForce 4 Reference Board Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 Ultra single-chip |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 250MHz |
| PCI Express Speeds | Synchronous or Asynchronous PCIe FIX at 100MHz to 145MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| Core Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | 4x-25.5x |
| CPU Auto Tuning | Off to 15% |
| HyperTransport Frequency | 1000MHz (1GHz) |
| HyperTransport Multiplier | 1x-5x |
| DRAM Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| Memory Async Latency | 10ns-4ns |
| AGP Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| HyperTransport Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe Slot 4 PCI Slots 2 x1 PCIe Slots |
| Onboard Serial ATA RAID | nForce4 (4 Drives, 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD) 2 SATA Controllers to 3Gb/s |
| Onboard IDE/IDE RAID | Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) Drives may be configured as IDE RAID |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported by nForce4 No Firewire - Must use additional chip |
| Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet on-chip by nForce4 |
| Onboard Audio | AC '97 2.3 8-Channel Realtek ALC850 supported by nForce4 |
| BIOS Revision | Reference Board NF-CK804 10/05/2004 |
Reference Boards are normally quite different from the production boards that will later appear with the Reference Board chipset. While certain component arrangements may be retained from a Reference Board, the board is designed for testing and qualification, and generally not for production. They are also normally designed to be tested on the bench, out of any case.
Click to enlarge.
The introduction of the nForce3-250 chipset family moved nVidia to a leading position for Athlon 64 chipsets. nForce4 builds upon the nForce3-250 update with the addition of PCI Express. The rearrangement includes an x16 PCI Express graphics slot, 2 x1 PCIe, two SATA controllers capable of 3Gb/s speeds, and 10 USB ports.
nVidia has not had SoundStorm on any nForce3 chipset, so for the past year+ SoundStorm has been "missing" on any nVidia chipset for Athlon 64. We raised this issue for nForce3-150, then for nForce3-250 in nForce3-250 - Part 2. This has not changed with nF4. The nForce4 Reference board uses the AC'97 2.3 compliant 8-channel Realtek ALC850 codec. More information on the ALC850 can be found at Realtek ALC850 Product information.
Click to enlarge.
Fully decked out, nForce4 provides features currently available nowhere else, like on-chip 1GB Ethernet, on-chip firewall, 4-drive SATA RAID, and both SATA and IDE RAID that can be combined. The nForce4 SLI adds the option to combine two nVidia video cards in two x8 PCIe slots for a huge increase in video performance.
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Aquila76 - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Am I right in saying there is really no difference between the nForce4 and nForce3 boards except the SLI and PCIe and some subtle refinements? Performance wise they seem basically even.And to everyone b!tching about no Soundstorm, it disappeared with the nForce2 and even then most board makers used the Realtek chip instead of the nVidia MCP-T, so most of you haven't been using it for years now. Stop your complaining. Buy an actual card. Get on with enjoying gaming!
knitecrow - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
This is what different nforce4 reviews had to say about soundstorm. Read, make your own conclusions and ask questions.PC Perspective
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=81&type=e...
There has been a lot of rumors on the popular sites recently about SoundStorm and the future of NVIDIA's sound technologies. I can tell you for sure, coming from the head of the nForce marketing team, that SoundStorm team has been killed at NVIDIA -- no more development is going to happen in the near future. NVIDIA said that simply not enough motherboard manufacturers were putting it on their boards and utilizing the technology that was so expensive to continue to develop. Sorry guys!
The Tech Report:
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/7485
"NVIDIA is not resurrecting its SoundStorm audio solution in nForce4, and surprisingly enough, the nForce4 won't even support Intel's High Definition Audio standard, a.k.a. Azalia. Instead, the nForce4 will stick with AC'97 audio sans hardware acceleration."
NEOSEEKRE
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Preview...
**Soundstorm, I Hardly Knew Ye, I Bid You Adieu**
One of the big features of the original nForce and the Xbox was Soundstorm. What made Soundstorm special was real time Dolby Digital encoding courtesy of the DSP on the MCP-T unit. With a backlash against Creative, Soundstorm was one of the few viable non-Creative solutions available to gamers. Unfortunately Soundstorm is officially dead for the foreseeable future. NVIDIA claimed that there was not enough interest either from the media (don't blame me I voted for Kang) or from the OEMs - there were not enough OEMs who wanted to pick up the more expensive MCP-T. All in all it was a business solution and it did not make sense for NVIDIA financially so it was axed. There is no conspiracy - it was not a licensing issue (Creative bought out Sensuara who provided a 3D Audio Algorithms to most third party sound manufacturers including NVIDIA). The nForce 4 will support 7.1 channel audio, there just will not be any DSP as with Soundstorm.
LotoBak - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
45 - Agreed... AGP owners left in the cold? or is there plans for a bridge.... (perhaps by the mb manufacterers)/me eyes up the nf3-250
mickyb - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Enough about Soundstorm....we all want it, but it's not coming. What I want to know is why there are no benchmarks or detail review on nTune? The marketing graph shows performance improvement and it has adjustments on PCIe. I want to know if you can tune the NF4 to increase the performance of Far Cry. Also, with the performance increase of SLI vs. the price of a single card, I think I would go for purchasing a faster single card. It looks like 2 6600GTs will not perform up to par with a single 6800GT.Go Astros!
glennpratt - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
I would like to add that I too want soundstorm back. Noone has DICE, and noone has drivers that just work without all the crap. I cant stand having crappy built in sound then having to go buy a card and disable the onboard. what a waste.Wesley Fink - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Comments about nForce4 Reference board audio, a link to past review info about nVidia Athlon 64 audio, and a link to the Realtek ALC850 codec information has been added to page 7.Akira1224 - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
I can't get excited about this.... I just bought a 6800GT AGP card and from what I have seen none of the solutions support AGP. Unless I hear something else... I'll pass.PrinceGaz - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
If that SLI reference board is representative of production boards, then theres a heavy price to pay for SLI. Adding the second PCIe 16x slot takes up the space of two normal (PCI or PCIe 1x) slots.On that reference board you have just three ordinary PCI slots and NO PCIe 1x slots whatsoever. That means you won't be able to use any standard PCIe cards with it. You are also left with only two ordinary PCI slots after putting a second gfx-card in (as the gfx-card will prevent the use of the adjacent PCI slot). Another PCI slot will be used up if you want good audio, leaving just one free. Thats a slight problem as I'd want to add at least a TV-tuner card and also a dial-up modem for my emergency internet connection, and there aren't enough sockets!
Personally I think the nForce4 Pro is the best choice. If I had a 6600GT and wanted more performance, I'd sell it on eBay and put the money towards a new faster card.
Someone asked if using two SLI cards effectively gives double the texture memory (two 128MB cards become a 256MB equivalent), or if all the textures must be loaded into both cards (so its still 128MB total). The answer is all textures needed must be loaded into both cards as there isn't enough bandwidth to swap textures between them on the fly. Thats another reason to sell your card and get a new faster one, than buying a second slow one.
The lack of SoundStorm is irrelevant. It hasn't stopped people buying nForce 3 in droves and it certainly won't stop many from buying nForce 4 boards. If you want better sound, buy a proper soundcard (proper != Creative). Of course ensure you don't run out of PCI/PCIe sockets if you have an SLI board...
Myrandex - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
I have an Audigy 2 sound card and actually like it a lot. If I had soundstorm, I probably wouldn't use it unless it was somewhat revolutionary. My dad has an A7N8x-DX and loves it though.Jason
icarus4586 - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
The setup I saw originally for SLI was an Intel Tumwater (workstation) setup with an x16 slot and an x8 slot, both with x16 connectors. I'm sure this or 2x8 would work better than the x16 x4 setup.And I'm pretty sure that you need to have to of the same cards for SLI. (ie 2x 6600GT, OR 6800, or whatever). I think they can be made by different board partners (like, say, eVGA for one and ASUS for the other would work.)
Soundstorm? There's something on Inquirer about it:
http://www.chipzilla.com/?article=19148
http://www.chipzilla.com/Default.aspx?article=1912...