NVIDIA nForce Professional Brings Huge I/O to Opteron
by Derek Wilson on January 24, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The New nForce Professional
The nForce Professional marks the fifth core logic offering from NVIDIA, who dubs their motherboard chipsets MCPs (for Media and Communications Processors). Never has the MCP moniker been truer than this time around.
Like the the Quadro and GeForce line, the nForce line is supported by NVIDIA's Unified Driver Architecture. This means that no matter what hardware you are running, any driver will work, whether past present or future. Since NVIDIA brings its UDA to both Windows and Linux, broad corporate support will be available for nForce Pro upon launch.
NVIDIA has also informed us that they have been validating AMD's dual core solutions on nForce Professional before launch as well. NVIDIA wants its customers to know that it's looking to the future, but the statement of dual core validation just serves to create more anticipation for dual core to course through our veins in the meantime. Of course, with dual core coming down the pipe later this year, the rest of the system can't lag behind.
We've seen several good steps in the connectivity department. At the same time, performance and scalability have become more dependant on core logic as functionality moves over the PCI Express bus, more storage needs SATA connections, and more devices are plugged into USB ports, for example. NVIDIA's unique solution is the combination of single chip core logic with the ability to drop multiple MCPs (of lesser function) on a motherboard for expanded I/O capabilities.
The nForce Professional 2200 MCP
One of the big questions that we first wanted answered was whether or not nForce Pro and nForce 4 Ultra/SLI were the same silicon with different parts turned on/off. NVIDIA maintains that they are different silicon, and it is entirely possible that they are. They did, in fact, give us transistor counts for nForce 4 and nForce Pro:
nForce 4: 22 Million Transistors
nForce Pro: 24 Million Transistors
Economically, it still doesn't make sense to run two different batches of silicon when functionality is so nearly identical, especially when features could just be turned off after the fact. Pro chips don't have the same volume as desktop chips, and desktop chips don't have the same margins as pro silicon. Combining the two allows a company to produce more volume for a single IC (which lowers cost per part) that feeds both high volume and high margin SKUs. Of course, as we saw in our recent article on modding nForce Ultra to SLI, there are some issues with running all your chips from the same silicon. The fact that potential Quadro users have been buying and modding GeForce cards for years speaks to the issue as well. Of course, there's more in a Quadro than just professional performance (build quality and support/service come to mind).
But just because something doesn't make economic sense doesn't mean that we don't want to see it happen. There's just something that doesn't sit right about charging a thousand dollars more for a card that has a few features enabled. We would rather see professional parts be worth their price. Part of that equation is running separate silicon for parts with pro features. We're glad to hear that this is what NVIDIA has said they are doing here.
For now, let's get on to what we do know about the nForce Pro.
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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.