NVIDIA nForce Professional Brings Huge I/O to Opteron
by Derek Wilson on January 24, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Introduction
AMD is not going to offer a PCI Express based chipset for its Opteron line. They are, instead, relying on third party partners to provide core logic for motherboards.
Stepping back to look at the professional space, it seems quite odd that NVIDIA would have taken so long to provide a PCI Express based Opteron chipset in light of the fact that their flagship Quadro FX 4400 graphics card is PCI Express. This seems like the kind of graphics card that would have made sense to be paired with dual Opterons and an NVIDIA chipset. Until now, anyone who wanted more than a desktop board for PCI Express would have been forced to go with an Intel platform where NVIDIA had previously not been invited.
Of course, all that will change very soon, now that NVIDIA has launched their nForce Professional line of core logic chipsets. These single chip core logic solutions for AMD Opteron based servers and workstations will bring the professional level of support that NVIDIA offers with its professional nFroce 3 line to a PCI Express based setup.
A whole host of other features are offered as well, including an implementation of the SATA II spec, which supports the connection of SATA 3Gb/s devices, support for 10 USB 2.0 devices, and much more. Shortly, we will also be able to find both NVIDIA based Intel motherboards as well, but without the advantages of HyperTransport, it will be hard for NVIDIA to offer the kind of advantages the nForce Professional line has.
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Dubb - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
You should probably specify that the Iwill DK8ES is NOT a dual x16 board. it's x16+x2, with the x2 on a x16 connector. the DK8EW that will be released in a few months is x8 + x8.the tyan is the only x16 + x16 I know of so far...
feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but the folks at 2cpu.com are pretty sure of this.
henry - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
> #32 ... heh ... that's only 4 x1 lanes not 5 ;-) the config i mentioned is not possible.Check this: 1x16 + 3x1 / 1x4 + 2x1 (+ 1x8 for the fun ;-)
DerekWilson - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
#32 ... heh ... that's only 4 x1 lanes not 5 ;-) the config i mentioned is not possible.And the Intel PCI-X idea is definitely funky :-) I suppose that would work. Rather than use an HT link for AMD's tunnel, that could interesting in a pinch. No matter how unlikely :-)
henry - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Hi DerekJust two remarks:
> On the flip side, it's not possible to put 1 x16, 1 x4, and 5 x1 PCIe slots on a dual processor workstation.
Why shouldnt this be possible: Just partition the PCIe lanes in this way: 1x16 + 3x1 on first nForce (one lane wasted) and 1x4 + 1x1 on second chip (still 15 lanes and two controllers left)
Regarding PCI-X: As you said mainboard makers can choose the obvious way and directly attach AMD's PCI-X tunnel chips.
Nevertheless there is a more insane option: Use a spare x4 or x8 PCIe link to hook up a PCI-X bridge chip (e.g. Intel 41210).
DerekWilson - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
NCQ is native tagged command queuing for SATA ... TCQ is tagged command queuign for SCSI. WD called the Raptors initial support TCQ because they just pulled their SCSI solution over. This served to confuse people. SATA command queuing is NCQ. People call TCQ sometimes, and maybe that's fine. Really, they may as well be the same thing except that one is for SCSI.#25, SDA
I meant PCI-X -- NVIDIA didn't build in legacy PCI-X support to their MCPs. In order to support it it must be paired with AMD-8000 series. Intel has PCI-X support off MCH. If many PCI-X slots are required, the Intel solution must sacrifice some of its PCIe lanes for the 6700PXH 64-bit PCI Hub. This hub hooks into the E75xx though either a x4 or x8 PCIe lane to provide additional PCI/PCI-X buses. I know, it's a lot of PCI/PCIe/PCI-X ... sorry for the confusion.
Cygni - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
btw, i was kidding about the windows thing...Cygni - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Nvidia is also releasing a new videocard that does all of that, plus the GPU can run windows!Countdown to the point where the video card becomes everything and the motherboard is a tiny piece of plastic that holds everything in place....
tumbleweed - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
#26 - rumour has it that SS will be showing up in future NV 'video' cards, rather than on motherboards. With the ridiculous bandwidth overkill that is PCIe x16, that's a good place to put it, IMO. Save a slot, save mobo space, and put unused bandwidth to use.tumbleweed - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Derek - Dissonance over at TR says he specifically asked NV about it, and was told it supported TCQ as well as NCQ, so somebody is confused. :)AbRASiON - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
I've made myself a little saying which I now apply to nvidia motherboards,...It's "no soundstorm, no sale"
Until they re-impliment it, I'm not buying one, period.