nVidia nForce3 Chipset
Anand Shimpi will be talking much more about chipsets at launch, but since this is our first real look at the nForce3 chipset, we should talk a bit about key features. One of the most exciting, and also controversial, features of the Opteron/Athlon64 is AMD’s decision to include the memory controller on the CPU. There are tremendous potential speed advantages to this solution, but the complexity of manufacturing also increases significantly. This can dramatically lower yields, which are becoming increasingly important in a competitive CPU environment.nVidia’s nForce3 PRO is the only one of the Opteron/nForce3 chipsets in a single-chip package. Both VIA K8T800 and SiS755 will use the more familiar Northbridge/Southbridge arrangement. Key features for nForce3 PRO are:
We also see nVidia including some more familiar options, like the much-talked-about AMD Hypertransport first used in their nForce chipset, 6 USB 2.0 ports, and AC’97 with an SPDIF interface. Undoubtedly, the consumer versions of nForce3 will have even more features, but as a base chipset, nForce 3 is certainly competitive with Intel’s latest 875/865 chipsets.
- Single-Chip Solution — Revolutionary single-chip solution designed for the AMD Opteron CPU enables higher-quality, full-featured motherboards and delivers maximum performance with the lowest latency. The single-chip design also means less power consumption and less heat dissipation.
- Dual-Channel DDR400 Memory — Our reference board includes full support for Dual-Channel DDR ECC memory, and the Athlon64 version will also support non-ECC memory
- Integrated SATA/IDE Raid — Provides support for RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, enabling the highest disk data transfer rates for highest system and application performance, and the highest performance fault tolerant solution for maximum data integrity. NVIDIA RAID supports both SATA and ATA-133 disk controller standards.
- Enterprise-Class Networking — Delivers the required manageability features required by IT professions while maintaining the highest level of reliability, quality, and performance. Also delivers the highest throughput for network transfers and lower CPU utilization, resulting in lower total cost of ownership.
- 64-Bit Architecture — NVIDIA nForce3 Pro provides advanced processing capabilities and system innovations for the new 64-bit AMD processor architecture.
More information on nForce3 PRO is available at www.nvidia.com/page/nforce3.html.
If you are interested in learning more about the features and architecture of Opteron and Athlon 64, you can access Anand’s excellent 3-part article at www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1815.
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Anonymous User - Sunday, September 7, 2003 - link
There are TPC benchmarks out with the new Opteron ship running 64-bit Linux and has gotten very good performance indeed.http://www.tpc.org/tpch/results/tpch_perf_results....
IBMs xSeries 325 is sporting an Opteron.
Wesley Fink - Sunday, September 7, 2003 - link
#66 -The Opteron and nForce3 require Registered ECC or Registered non-ECC dimms which are not the same as the unbuffered dimms we normally use for testing. It is very hard right now to find Registered dimms, let alone registered DDR400 dimms (the fastest ECC chips in current production are apparently designed for DDR333). The ONLY memory we had available that would work on the nForce3 were 512MB Registered ECC DDR400 modules. Dula-Channel makes that a megabyte. The theory goes that ECC and Registered slow down memory performance a bit compared to unbuffered, which should certainly offset any advantage.
Our benchmark tests are cumulative, as we certainly can't keep rigs up for every board we test. With a new setup like this and cross-platform data, we sometimes have to compare what we can get to what we already have.
Socket 754 will be single-channel and able to use regular unbuffered memory, while Socket 940 is dual-channel and requires Registered memory. The rumored Socket 939, scheduled for year-end, will allow use of standard unbuffered memory.
Locutus4657 - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
#27 Markets don't lie?? I remember when Rambuses stock was selling at $300/share and was rated BUY BUY BUY. If you're buying your tech prices based on stock values you are in some very seriouse trouble. And just so you know, I've built many an AMD system my self, and only the old "Super 7" systems had any real quirks. The newer Athlons have been problem free for me.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
#58 - hey i hadn't noticed that before. wesley, what's up with 1gb on the Athlon64/Opteron adn only 512mb on the P4???Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
Some of you guys are so remarkably shortsighted it's not even funny. Posts like "haha, AMD still makes the crappier chip, they'll be out of business by this time next year" are foolish.If you like Intel, good for you, a strong AMD keeps intel's prices down and keeps the innovation coming. No AMD means we'll probably be paying $1200 for the 3.6 Ghz prescott this time next year, because they won't have to release as often or as cheaply.
Kudos to AMD, and I wish them nothing but the best.
Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
low voltage Itaniums may be lower in performance to their big Madison sisters, but they blow everything else out of the water on some industry standard SPEC scores!Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
Could it be that Registered DDR400 ECC Modules are as rare as the Athlon XP 2800+ that was paper launched at 2.25 GHz actual and then jumped quickly to a Barton 2800+ at 2.08 GHz? Or could it be that this is the same misleading stuff that AMD tried to do with their PriceWaterHouseCoopers benchmarks when they used the top of the line nForce platform against a mainstream Intel 845G platform and disabled Hyperthreading saying that it made the P4 slower - on top of that they used software patches that "aren't available for public download" to run their benchmarks on 3-year old benchmark software that was not optimized for the P4. If you look at what AMD has been saying for the past 5 years, they typically overpromise and underdeliver (a.k.a. Athlon FX - remarked Opteron now that Athlon64 will not be able to compete in it's original single-channel design) whereas Intel usually just stays pretty quiet, conservatively underpromises and overdelivers.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
hey all you guys clamoring for linux benchmarks, speak up and mention some good ones for them to run...Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
I don't know why people are getting so emotional about intel vs amd. Let there be competition so we the consumers win. If Athlon xp hadn't been so powerful we wouldd not have 3.2 ghz, ht pentium 4 right now. On the other hand if we didn't have a 3.2 ghz p4 there would not be an upcoming athlon 64 fx. The chips with dual channel memory were all supposed to be in the server/workstation market. AMD has realised that the socket 754 chip will not be competitive enough with upcoming prescott and as such has created a new socket 939. I suspect that the socket 754 will go the way of the duron as a celeron competitor while socket 939 will be the flagship chip.Regarding the article the reviewer should have made it clear that this was an athlon 64-fx preview not athlon 64.
Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
The low voltage itaniums are also low performance.