zippyjuan

NVIDIA’s PCI Express nForce4 SLI Platforms in Two – Four Weeks, Say Reports

Reports Claim Commercial Availability of nForce4 SLI Products Delayed by PCB Issue
by Anton Shilov
11/29/2004 | 08:54 AM

Mainboard partners of NVIDIA Corp., a leading developer of graphics and platform technologies, are currently expected to release their NVIDIA nForce4 SLI-based mainboards commercially in two – four weeks or more from now, claim reports from various Asia-based web-sites. A slight delay in availability of the platforms was reportedly caused by a minor flaw with print circuit boards design.


NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Comes First

NVIDIA nForce4 core-logic is NVIDIA’s latest media and communication processor for AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Sempron series of central processing units. The nForce4-series chipsets are among the first PCI Express chipsets that sport all currently available and yet-to-be-released microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices, including AMD Athlon 64 FX, AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Sempron chips with 1000MHz HyperTransport bus. The nForce4 Ultra and SLI product series also offer an array of technologies designed to make computing more secure, efficient and rapid, such as NVIDIA RAID, NVIDIA ActiveArmor firewall, NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA-300 and other important technologies, like USB 2.0, FireWire, 8-channel AC’97 audio and so on.

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA positions its nForce4 products according to the needs of various markets: nForce4 SLI is designed for hardcore gamers, it sports all the latest processors and even contains enhancements for NVIDIA’s multi-GPU technology SLI; nForce4 Ultra is developed with high-end desktops and workstations in mind: it sports every capability advertised by NVIDIA, but cannot power systems with two graphics cards; nForce4 is targeted at OEMs and system integrators, it is unable to operate with processors for 1000MHz HyperTransport infrastructure, lacks advanced security capabilities and support for SLI and Serial ATA-300.

NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI is currently one of the world’s most-advanced core-logic products in terms of functionality and the company wants it to be the first-to-market among the nForce4-series products.

NVIDIA’s SLI is a technology that enables two NVIDIA-based graphics cards to operate in a single workstation or PC delivering higher graphics horsepower. A special mainboard with two PCI Express x16 slots is required for such configuration. According to NVIDIA’s estimates, typical performance advantage dual NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra bring is about 75% - 80% when operating on a system running NVIDIA nForce4 SLI chipset that boasts special enhancements for Multi-GPU technology. NVIDIA’s approach requires special circuitry to be incorporated into GPUs and, for extra speed gain, into core-logic.

Mainboard Makers to Redesign nForce4

Microstar International showcased its K8N Diamond mainboard at a store in Tokyo, Japan, claims Akiba PC Hotline web-site. The mainboard was said to be an engineering sample only and claimed to have differences with the final version that is projected to be available commercially in mid-December in Tokyo.

Taiwan-based web-site HKEPC.com states that the final revision of the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI mainboard is only due to be mass produced in two weeks time at least, as mainboard makers have to perform a slight redesign of their products. The web-site does not indicate which mainboard makers are on-track to start mass production of the nForce4 SLI-based platforms in two weeks timeframe.

In case mainboard manufacturers start mass-production of NVIDIA nForce4-powered platforms only in two weeks timeframe, the commercial mainboards are likely to be available in very late December or even in early January.

Given that market positioning of NVIDIA nForce4 SLI are very high-end PCs for gaming, it is unlikely that the company will lose certain designs to rivals as ATI Technologies does not target its RADEON XPRESS 200-series at ultra high-end AMD64 systems, while VIA Technologies is not currently shipping its PCI Express chipsets for AMD-based computers. Still, partners of NVIDIA may miss certain pre-Christmas sales with the lack of the nForce4-based mainboards, if the report about two-week delay in Taiwan is correct.

Official representatives for NVIDIA Corp. did not immediately respond to enquiry seeking for comment

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bachviet

Sweet...

I wonder if the NF4 SLI motherboard works with my AMD64 3200+ (754) CPU because I don't feel like getting a new CPU.

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LegendKiller

I believe they are all dual channel S939. Anandtech and HardOCP didn't show that great of results from SLI, although that could be from still immature drivers.

LK

Showtime

I thought some games showed 40% increase with SLI and that was with immature drivers.

Oh and this just what I need for my new rig!

-j

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bachviet

That sucks but by the time the price comes down to my comfort level, I'm ready to swap computer anyway.

zippyjuan

One test of the SLI that I read (I don't remember where- will post if I find it) was that there was improvement with SLI, but two 6600GT cards in SLI configuration were still not as fast as just one 6800GT. What SLI may offer is a cheaper upgrade- get a boost in performance by adding one cheaper video card to what you have instead of buying a more expensive one. But by the time you get to that, there will be new cards and other hardware and you will probably just upgrade to something higher anyways. If I were to upgrade in the next few months, I don't think I would worry about SLI.

Edit: Here is AnandTech's look at it: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2284

Things to consider: If you use SLI as a potential upgrade path, the price of the new card will have certainly fallen from the time you bought the first one. You will need more power to drive two GPUs. SLI boards will probably sell at a premium to other boards when they first come out, but are exected to close the price gap more as time goes on. Drivers and support will improve. Prices of high-end cards are continuing to rise- this may be the most price- logical way to aproach the performance of the high end.

Showtime

I read that 2 6600gts barely performed better than a 6800gt. Probably read it at AT.
It would still make a good upgrade path imo. Buy one for under $200 for Christmas and buy the 2nd one for $150ish next year. Kind of a lay-away program. By then all the drivers may make the dual cards run flat out better than the 6800gt. But then again who really knows...

I ordered that 6600gt AGP card so that I can power my new monitor.
If it comes in, I'll probably run that till the dual slot boards are abundant.
If the deal doesn't go through, time to upgrade whole system and grab the next "deal" on a 6800gt pcie card I can find.

Imagine dual proc amd 64's and dual 6800gt's powering a 20"dell widescreen or 23" HP(Apple) widescreen. HL2 and Doom 3 widescreen. Even EQ2 has a widescreen mode. It will be beautiful.

-j

77Pat

I wonder if they are still going to be released on 12/10 like this website says.
http://www.gameve.com/gve/Store/Prod...ku=MB-ASUS-031

zippyjuan

These guys say they expect them mid to late December. No listings yet at my "usual" sites yet. http://www.eastluna.com/hardware/det...ProductID=0042