nForce4: PCI Express and SLI for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on October 19, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
nVidia did quite a turnaround with the nForce3-250 chipset family back in April. The nF3-250 updated the much-criticized original nForce3-150 chipset and moved what had been the worst of the Athlon 64 chipsets to the front of the Athlon 64 pack. The plethora of new features that were introduced with nF3-250 have proven to be useful and reliable over the last six months. nVidia also navigated the move to Socket 939 in the nForce3 Ultra version without any glaring problems. The on-chip Ethernet, hardware Firewall, solid PCI/AGP lock, and "any-drive" SATA/IDE RAID have been well received in the market and remain as desirable today as they were 6 months ago.It is not a surprise, then, given the massive updating that went into the nForce3-250 chipsets, to find the nForce4 more evolutionary than revolutionary. The new 4 name is certainly justified by the addition of PCI Express and SLI capabilities, but nForce4 is still underneath the excellent nForce3 Ultra chipset that we have come to trust. Except for PCIe and SLI, the new features generally refine those first seen in nForce3-250, and that is a good thing. The RAID controllers are now faster, more flexible, and even easier to manage than the last generation. The nTune Performance Configuration Utility does more, and does it better, than the previous utility, and 10 USB 2.0 ports must be better than 8. The performance also breaks no new ground, nor did we expect it to. The nForce3-250 was very fast and the nForce4 is just as fast, but not really any faster than the nF3 Ultra at this point.
The major new features, PCI Express and SLI, are the real sizzle here. It is difficult to argue with what appears to be a very successful move by nVidia to PCI Express, even if there is really no current performance advantage that we could find to a PCIe video card compared to the same card in AGP clothes. Certainly, the potential for better performance is there, and nForce4 certainly protects the end-user for a while longer from video card obsolescence.
However, nForce4 is exciting mostly because of the incredible performance potential of SLI, which combines two top nVidia video cards into a monster video performance engine. It's not for everybody - SLI is undeniably expensive - but the prospect of a 40% to 85% leap in the performance of the most demanding games that you can run today will be too much for some enthusiasts to resist. No, you don't absolutely need SLI, but it sure is cool! Consider nForce 4 an evolution and refinement of the progress that nVidia realized with the nForce3 Ultra, and that's a very good thing indeed.
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Ivo - Thursday, October 21, 2004 - link
The posting #90 is virtually answering mine (#89). Although, I have some additional remarks:The A64 CPU is incorporating the most sensitive part of former chipsets - the memory controller. So, mainly their features now seal the A64 chipsets, not the performance. It is a question of priorities. On my opinion, the on-chipset audio and the proper Cool & Quiet operation are more important for an SFF-HTPC than a SLI and a hardware firewall. Obviously, the NF4 does not target SFF-HTPCs. Hopefully other NVIDIA's chipset (with Div9x IGP and! audio) will target it soon. If not - there are other good players on the market too :-)
PrinceGaz - Thursday, October 21, 2004 - link
The place for quality onboard audio is in a seperate chip on those motherboards that require it, not an expensive addition integrated into the main chipset that will be unused by many. That way the mobo manufacturer can include whatever level of sound support best fits the intended market.I personally think the nVidia hardware firewall is a more useful feature to have if (as the article suggests) it filters outbound as well as inbound packets without incurring CPU overhead (except when it needs to ask about an application it doesn't have a rule for). Its all very well having a router with a firewall but that won't stop applications from sending unwanted traffic. Outbound protection is just as important as inbound for a secure system.
Ivo - Thursday, October 21, 2004 - link
Quality onboard audio is essential for SFF-HTPCs. A systematical underestimation of this developing market is, most likely, a fruitless way to go.bhtooefr - Thursday, October 21, 2004 - link
NO, NO, NO! You cannot run two different cards in SLI. They have to be the same exact model. So, you couldn't run (say) a Leadtek GF6600GT and a BFG GF6800GTOC, or even a two cards with the same chip, and the same amout of RAM, if they're different brands.Shinei - Thursday, October 21, 2004 - link
I have nothing but complaints about my onboard audio with my GA7N400Pro2. It was a 35% chance of booting up without the audio cracking, popping, or making any combination of odd noises; and on top of that, it had problems with rendering sounds properly in games (Halo in particular). So I dropped an Audigy 2 in my system (I have no idea why people whine about the SB drivers, I don't have any problems with them), and things work just fine now.Just remember, not everybody gets SoundStorm, and not everybody has the MCP-T southbridge; let alone one that works properly.
knitecrow - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
#84. I cannot be bothered to point out all the inaccuracies. Please read up on audio related information.RE: doom and creative
Please see #65
Creative forced ID to license and support EAX or face a lawsuit. (because of the similarity in some audio method they used)
RE: "VIA Envy 24HT sound on it which can do multi-channel and everything in software with better quality than Creative's offerings"
While true, VIA ENVY does an excellent job on hi-definition audio; its software 3d positioning audio is crap.
jm0ris0n - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
For the record you 'could' use 2 ati cards, but it isn't gonna work until they create SLI support.So you can only sli 'sliable' cards !
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
#83- SoundStorm is unimportant, we all knew nForce 4 wouldn't have it months ago when no nForce 3 chipsets had it. I can't believe the fuss some people are making over something irrelevant.That MSI nForce 4 SLI board looks like it probably has VIA Envy 24HT sound on it which can do multi-channel and everything in software with better quality than Creative's offerings. Doom 3 was originally programmed and still uses software 3D sound because it is better than any EAX hardware solution, and the CPU processing power to do it is negligible these days. Hardware 3D sound is on its way out but people with Creative soundcards will probably want to continue using it as their dodgy drivers will give worse support for multiple software channels than EAX "accelerated" ones. Adding Creative EAX support was something John Carmack did so the Doom 3 engine can be used in future games by people with slower CPUs that maybe cannot take the audio overhead.
Dedicated processing-power will be needed for video for several years at least, but all that is needed for audio is good analog circuitry or digital connections. If audio processing was so demanding, why don't even the "high-end" Creative cards have even a passive heatsink on the core? Its because what they do is trivial and can be done by your CPU.
ImJacksAmygdala - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
I was hyped about the Nforce4 and waited forever to upgrade, but because it does not have Sound Storm I will not be buying a Nforce4!"What was Nvidia thinking?" seems to be a common question posted all over the internet at the lack of Sound Storm.
I was willing to pay extra and wait for SLI even though it is only 8x PCIexpress. Nvidia said they didn't want to add extra cost to the board because of a Dolby Digital license, but they think there is a market for SLI's extra cost? Ya probably because you have to buy another Nvidia graphics card....
If I'm willing to pay extra for SLI I sure as hell am willing to pay for the added cost of Sound Storm!
I wanted Sound Storm so I could hardware encode all sources to Dolby Digital for my HTPC wide screen gaming rig. I will now wait for VIA's dual PCIexpress solution because it is going to be dual 16X for graphics cards over Nvidia's 8x. I might even switch altogether and get 2 ATI PCIexpress graphics cards aswell for the VIA chipset dual PCIexpress graphics solution.
If a Dolby Digital license is so expensive then maybe they should look at a DTS solution instead. That would be just as good if not better. And while Nvidia is at developing SoundStorm2 (after the backlash from a lack of SoundStorm on the Nforce4 you know they will) they need to fix the damn EAX problems everyone bitched about on the Nforce2 that got NO support!
It is sad that I have NO other options to hardware encode Dolby Digital from any source on an Athlon64 system. I guess I'll have to settle with an Audigy2ZS, but I think I will even wait on that and see if Creative Labs develops a sound card for the PCIexpress bus that can handle hardware encoding of Dolby Digital and DTS from any source where the PCI bus was so limited....
Like I said I will no longer be buying a Nvidia Nforce4 SLI board and 2 6800ultras now that there is no SoundStorm2. I will instead buy a Via chipset board and 2 ATI PCIexpress Graphics cards and use the onboard sound untill Creative Labs wakes up and makes a product that will do the same thing as SoundStorm using the increased bandwidth of the PCIexpress bus...
Nvidia what were you thinking?!?!?!?
[myth]
Most people on all these tech forums keep saying if you're a l33t gamer with a big ass rig you'd have an Audigy 2 in some flavour for your sound anyways.[/myth]
Not really, if your rig was really 1337 you would use the digital out and hook your 1337 rig to a real home theater audio amplifier that has better DACs and S/N than any computer sound card could ever have and you wouldn't have to worry about game support and compatibility for drivers either...
And if I spend the cash on a dual PCIexpress graphics motherboard I might aswell NOT buy an PCI bus Audigy2 ZS incase Creative Labs makes a sound card that uses the bandwidth of the PCIexpress bus and makes a sound card that can do the same thing that the Nforce2 SoundStorm and encode Dolby Digital and DTS on the fly with little CPU hit...
Nvidia what were you thinking?!?!?!?!
I'm not a graphics card company specific fan at all, but just wait untill the benchmarks come out for HalfLife2 that use the newer drivers for dual PCIexpress solutions that favor ATI PCIexpress graphics cards and you will see that Nvidia may have already lost this round with the enthusiast market now that they have limited the Nforce4 to 8X SLI for Nvidia cards ONLY with no SoundStorm2...
Other chipsets will have dual 16X PCIexpress graphics cards, HiDef audio, and not restrict dual graphics card brands... We shall see if this is indeed true in the very near future.
SynthDude2001 - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
Add me to the growing list of people extremely disappointed that there's no SoundStorm on the Nforce4. That was the major reason I was waiting for it (coming from an NF2 right now), but now I'm not even sure it's worth it anymore.I'd need to dump my AGP 6800GT and find a PCI-E one (most likely losing money in the process), and I'd have to shell out the money for a separate sound card as well. Not looking so attractive at this point...