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 - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
Not to worry, there will soon be more competition for Opteron in the form of Low Voltage (and price) Itaniums, Prescotts, and even 800 MHz FSB Nocona XEONs. It's going to be very fun in the next year or so.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
Am I the only one concerned that each test platform seems to use different amounts of system memory?Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
1 OF 2 things will have to happen. Either MS reduces their prices to compete with Linux or Linux will start charging/more for their OS. Open source is great and cheap right now which is why it is popular, but someone will try to commercialize it.Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link
Fortunately in the next few years many folks will be switching to Linux both 32 and 64-bit just to get away from Windoze and all the stability and security issues with virtually every version of Windoze, bar none. This will be good news for AMD and the Opteron/A64 which both run very well on Linux and 64-bit Linux is available to all right now.Once the software companies wake up and smell the coffee and pull their heads out of Microsofts's butthole, they'll start releasing apps for Linux that look and feel like those for Windoze. This will facilitate a relatively painless transition for millions of folks who would switch to Linux immediately if they could import all of their existing apps files without headaches. Thankfully with enterprise and World governments switching to Linux, there is a clear financial incentive for software makers to get their act together and fill customer needs. The World will be a much better place when consumers have the ability to purchase a quality O/S and software apps and at this stage of the game Linux is a clear winner over any Windoze O/S for stability, performance and security.
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Well when the P4 first came out it was slower than the P3, and costed around $1200-1500. You expect a new series processor to be dirt cheap? Yeah right.Prescott is what, a P4 with 20w more heat dissapation and 1MB cache and several (currently) useless instructions? OK, it has some other secret features. How long though can the 2x ALU stay 2x? They will run at 6.8ghz, and getting them to work at higher speeds will be 2x as hard as the rest of the processor (and it's now supposively going to be 4x?).
Of course, I guess everyone forgot, this is just a preview, not the acutal thing, so why get so worked up over it?.
Whether the desktop version is great or not, the more Opterons you run together only get better, with the Xeon you get less in return from going 2 to 4.
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
What is the reason that overclocked Opteron 244 is used instead of the real Opteron 246 that is available in retail? What is the reason to use 2 Gig of memory and compare it to a system that uses 512 MB memory? If memory doesn't matter in those bechmarks then why 2x256 isn't used?Why not to compare to Pentium 3.2 which is the top Intel desktop chip instead of 3.0 GHz?
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Why on earth are the benchmark results in FLASH?Thats just really annoying.
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
This benchmark is pretty funny, it leaves a lot to be desired from todays reviewers. Not that I think the athlon64 isn't a very good improvement, but the results they are showing do not match any other results people have seen, reminds me of the Hardocp reviews.Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Just for your information number 49, the 2.0GHz CPU anandtech tested won't be the fastest CPU AMD releases on the 23rd, so comparing it to a 3.2GHz CPU would actually have been unfair.Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
That's not anand hahahah :p