nForce3-250 - Part 1: Taking Athlon 64 to the Next Level
by Wesley Fink on March 23, 2004 11:55 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
nForce3-250Gb Reference Board: Basic Features
| Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 754 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce3-250GB single-chip |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 250MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Synchronous or Asynchronous PCI/AGP Fixed at 66/33 to 100/50 (in 1MHz increments) |
| Core Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| HyperTransport Frequency | 1000MHz (1GHz) |
| HyperTransport Width | 16-bit Upstream and 16-bit Downstream |
| DRAM Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| AGP Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| HyperTransport Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| Memory Slots | Two 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Single-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 2GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 6 PCI Slots (up to 6 may be available) |
| Onboard Serial ATA RAID | nF3-250GB (4 Drives, 0, 1, 0+1) |
| Onboard IDE/IDE RAID | Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) Drives may be configured as IDE RAID |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 No Firewire - Must use additional chip |
| Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet on-chip by nF3-250GB |
| Onboard Audio | AC '97 2.1 6-Channel supported by nF3-250 |
| BIOS Revision | Reference Board 1/31/2004 |
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. Normally, they are also designed to be tested on the bench, out of any case.
Many, including AnandTech, complained that nForce3-150 was simply out-of-date when it came to integrated features. nForce3-250 definitely does not suffer from that problem. The nF3-250 feature set is as up-to-date as the 150 is not. You could still build an extremely capable system with the nF3-150, but many of the features had to be provided with add-on chips, which increased production costs. nForce3-250 moves from deficient to feature-rich, and competes very well with the best solutions from VIA and SiS. Standard features include 4-drive SATA Raid, 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports, ATA133 IDE/RAID, AC '97 2.1 6.1 channel audio, and on-chip firewall. The enthusiast version adds on-chip high-speed Gigabit LAN, similar in concept to Intel's CSA. This moves LAN to the chip itself and away from the PCI bus bottleneck.
Click to enlarge.
Fully decked out, nForce3-250 provides features 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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
71 Comments
View All Comments
Visual - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
This chipset looks promising, I like it. And a great article about it :)I'm a bit curious about the raid - do you guys think it may be possible to implement a hot-swappable raid array with integrated raid controllers anytime soon?
Maybe you can make an article testing the performance boost from using a 4-drive raid 0 array with this baby?
Another thing that interests me - are there any mobos with IGP for Athlon64? I know it won't be a performer, I'm just curious if it even exists. Also is anything being heared about some new DX9 IGP anytime soon(hopefully with this chipset)? It'd also be cool if having an AGP card doesn't disable the IGP, like the ati-intel chipsets... Well I guess I'm dreaming now, but I'd like to see your comments or any info you have on nVidia's IGP plans. I guess you AT folks could ask nVidia about this :)
Thanks,
Visual
Reflex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
#59: Try measuring your bandwidth with a 4 drive RAID 0 array using fast drives on that setup and then put the same array in an Intel or AMD chipset system. nVidia's PCI implementation is not very good at all.MichaelD - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
[q] Actually, to date nVidia has had a *very* troublesome PCI implementation, anyone with a PCI RAID controller and a 4 disk RAID 0 array can tell you that. It is so bad, in fact, that prototype NF3-150 boards for Opteron used AMD PCI chips just to avoid using the nForce3 integrated PCI bus. I am not certain if these boards ever reached production status however.[/q]Uh, no. Not in my experience. On my 8RDA+, I've used:
Highpoint ATA133 Contoller Card
3Ware7000-2 Two-channel IDE RAID card
LSI Megaraid 1600 SCSI RAID card
I've had zero problems. Wha'chu talkin' bout, Willis?
Reflex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
#55: I did not say DDR2 was needed right now, its not and AMD is making the right decision. I was just pointing out that the latency penalty should not be a real issue since it moves more data. But time will tell.#54: I have not checked out the Catalina yet, however if it does not have a coax output, it will not find a home in my setup. SPDIF is a consumer level technology, championed by Sony, but it is not as high quality as coax simply due to the fact that the signal must be converted twice(to and from optical) which is never a good thing. Furthermore, the cables are frail and expensive. Professional level equipment never has SPDIF, it uses coax exclusively.
Wesley: Glad they are dropping SoundStorm. Waste of time and effort in my opinion.
BikeDude - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
Thanks Wesley; a single chip implementation makes sense. Now show us the benchmarks! :)Wesley Fink - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
#54 and others regarding Sound Storm -1 - nVidia is committed to the one-chip chipset for Athlon 64. They are firmly convinced that the one-chip eliminates the potential bottlenecks of a north-south bridge communications bus. Even with the the memory controller on the chip there is only so much real estate practically available on a single-chip chipset.
2 - Customer surveys by nVidia found that most buyers did not use Sound Storm, and that Sound Storm did not enter heavily into the decision to buy nForce. So the decision was made to choose the on-chip LAN, firewall, and much-expanded RAID capabilities which benefit greatly from being moved off the bus.
3 - There are new sound solutions in the works for nVidia. You may see them in a future chipset or on a sound card. Final decisions have not been made.
Pumpkinierre - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
#53, I'll believe it when I see the tests. It sounds like RAMBUS- that was supposed to be better at latency but turned out the opposite at over twice the cost at the time. Read the last paragraph of Wesley's post(#50)- he's closer to the industry and there are others expressing similar concerns. All these are things that Intel with its resources should iron out and AMD come in when its sorted, If AMD get to a third of the market and in the black then it can show leadership in these areas. Meanwhile stick to what they are best at cpus.BikeDude - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
#48: Turtle Beach Catalina which I suspect is a newer card (it's more expensive :) ) than SC, seem to tout optical SPDIF output as a feature (doesn't mention coax at all) and it's merely pass-through SPDIF at that (no hardware Dolby encoding -- thus I'll end up with the additional three audio cables again). Are you sure you have all your facts straight?If you're a professional musician -- I agree, the SS isn't for you, but I thought nForce was primarily a chipset targetted at gamers?
Reflex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
#52: Latency ends up about the same due to the fact that twice the operations per clock are happening in the same span as regular DDR. It does not, however, give you any real benefit, just higher scalability. The lack of DDR2 support also really has nothing to do with the chipset, its a CPU feature on Athlon64/FX architecture's, not a chipset one, so people bemoaning the lack of DDR2 need to look at AMD, not nVidia.Like I said before, the only feature needed from my point of view is PCI Express. I refuse to buy anymore PCI or AGP devices at this point knowing that in a year or two they will be useless. Unlike my CPU, I don't often change out my sound card, motherboard, SCSI card, or other such devices, so when it comes time to upgrade my system, PCI Express will be the order of the day for me.
Pumpkinierre - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
Good to see your real opinions, wesley #50. I too am worried about this slow latency DDR2 particularly with the a64 where I see system memory latency as being the bottleneck for improved gaming speed. AMD have got themselves a winner with a64/newcastle but still have mainboard issues as well as heavy debt. In these conditions, good poker dictates that you play conservatively. So I'm quite happy to see only DDR1 and PCI on the nF3-250 for the moment.