nForce4: PCI Express and SLI for Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on October 19, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
nForce4 Reference Board: Basic Features
| nForce 4 Reference Board Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 Ultra single-chip |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 250MHz |
| PCI Express Speeds | Synchronous or Asynchronous PCIe FIX at 100MHz to 145MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| Core Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | 4x-25.5x |
| CPU Auto Tuning | Off to 15% |
| HyperTransport Frequency | 1000MHz (1GHz) |
| HyperTransport Multiplier | 1x-5x |
| DRAM Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| Memory Async Latency | 10ns-4ns |
| AGP Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| HyperTransport Voltage | None available on Reference Board |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe Slot 4 PCI Slots 2 x1 PCIe Slots |
| Onboard Serial ATA RAID | nForce4 (4 Drives, 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD) 2 SATA Controllers to 3Gb/s |
| Onboard IDE/IDE RAID | Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) Drives may be configured as IDE RAID |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported by nForce4 No Firewire - Must use additional chip |
| Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet on-chip by nForce4 |
| Onboard Audio | AC '97 2.3 8-Channel Realtek ALC850 supported by nForce4 |
| BIOS Revision | Reference Board NF-CK804 10/05/2004 |
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. They are also normally designed to be tested on the bench, out of any case.
Click to enlarge.
The introduction of the nForce3-250 chipset family moved nVidia to a leading position for Athlon 64 chipsets. nForce4 builds upon the nForce3-250 update with the addition of PCI Express. The rearrangement includes an x16 PCI Express graphics slot, 2 x1 PCIe, two SATA controllers capable of 3Gb/s speeds, and 10 USB ports.
nVidia has not had SoundStorm on any nForce3 chipset, so for the past year+ SoundStorm has been "missing" on any nVidia chipset for Athlon 64. We raised this issue for nForce3-150, then for nForce3-250 in nForce3-250 - Part 2. This has not changed with nF4. The nForce4 Reference board uses the AC'97 2.3 compliant 8-channel Realtek ALC850 codec. More information on the ALC850 can be found at Realtek ALC850 Product information.
Click to enlarge.
Fully decked out, nForce4 provides features currently 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. The nForce4 SLI adds the option to combine two nVidia video cards in two x8 PCIe slots for a huge increase in video performance.
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suave3747 - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
#70According to nVidia's website regarding the nForce 4 SLI, it states that the board will have 20 lanes of PCIe. It also states that there will be 3 PCIe 1x slots. I assume that the SLI board will have the option of using 1 PCIe 16x and 3 PCIe 1x slots, or 2 PCIe 8x slots and 3 PCIe 1x slots. Therefore, there is really no "lack" of PCIe 1x slots on the board. That board pictured was probably just a poor representation of the actual retail board.
The thing I am curious to know is whether there will be a reasonable amount of standard PCI slots available for use until PCIe cards for sound and whatnot become more prevalent.
stelleg151 - Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - link
Wesley, now that your done testing the board, if you need someone to take it off your hands I would be willing to take that burden.ThePlagiarmaster - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Wesley,I'm wondering why the dvd2avi divx 5.1.1 show such close results here. With basically the same machines on hardocp, they show the athlon64 beating Intel's best by HUGE margins (like 20% faster than the 3.6 and almost the same over the 3.4ee)
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njc1LDM=
You guys showed the same thing no too long ago, but I can't find the article now. The paragraph under the graphs of the A64 winning said Intel lost the last thing they used to win in the benches. The article appears gone? What happened here, why so different from dvd2avi results at hardocp? They used the same divx 5.1.1 so it's not the encoder or the frontend. Heck even the 3500+ dominated the 3.6 and 3.4ee (more than 10%).
Whatever it is, I think a bit of research needs to be done on what's best for AMD, and what's best for Intel and pit them against each other. Clearly AMD people would run the way hardocp does (though it looks no different than what's used here). While you state you can show whatever you want, perhaps you should be showing the BEST for each platform. Would people really go home and run in a way that makes their cpu look like crap?
When you're talking about cutting 20% off of encoding, that adds up to a lot of time. I'd argue with the statement about divx 5.1.1 exploiting sse3 and making Intel a usual winner. Hardocp has been using 5.1.1 and A64's kill p4's with it (and have for a long time on their site). Is it AutoGK that throws things out of whack? Does it favor Intel so much that it causes a 20+ percent reversal? If it's truly based on dvd2avi how could it be so far out of whack compared to hardocp's scores? I think your readers would want to know which way to encode the fastest with whichever cpu they choose. Why would people want to know what the middle ground is and lose 20% cpu performance? Maybe Xmpeg for Intel, and pure dvd2avi for AMD?
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
#73 -The earlier results are on on different test bed with a different video card. If you check out results on the same setup at http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2128&am... you will see that the Asus is performing about the same as the other K8T800 boards. It is true that the nVidia nF3 and nF4 perform best with an nVidia card which we have pointed out many times in the past.
Saist - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
just wanted to make a couple of comments:Nvidia's Soundstorm was a result of it's partnership with Microsoft and the Xbox. Since Nvidia is no longer being funded by Microsoft and is no longer involved with Xbox2, there is little reason from Nvidia's viewpoint to continue researching audio.
I also will state that if you are scared of Creative and you want more powerful audio. Get a freaking Via Envy chip. Those are only $20-$30 with shipping and match the Creative Offerings pretty nicely.
Saist - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Noli - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
For all those disappointed with old AC97 codec sound chip on nf4, why not wait for via's K8T890 with better envy sound? (ok it's still not as good as soundstorm but it's better than AC97 right?). K8T890 also should have dual vid cards and also NCQ disk support... (but admittedly lacks ntune style bios extras).One thing I want to know is if K8T890 only supports nvidia SLI?? Presume so cause it's branded dual GFX. Would be awesome to be able to double up with less noisy ATI cards though. Also, seem to remember that Alienware's dual card solution was NOT SLI and seemed to produce consistent 90%+ frame rate improvements. Anyone know if/when this is coming out?! If so, 90%+ beats nvidia at their own game (and from a computer 'vendor' - ha!).
Disappointed that dual vid cards might be limited to nvidia - 6800GTs are good but still prefer ATI and 2 nvidia cards would prob be too noisy for me...
Spinne - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
When will the nTune software be avaiable? NVidia's download site has a page for nTune, but the download link at the bottom still points to the old System Utility.Rza79 - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
Correct me if i'm wrong but this how i see it:First check this review:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
-------------------
Check the Business Winstone test scores:
nForce3 => 30.1
K8T800 => 28.9
Now this review:
nForce3 => 30.1
K8T800 => 26.9
---------------------
Now Multimedia Winstone:
nForce3 => 37.4
K8T800 => 36.9
In this review:
nForce3 => 36.9
K8T800 => 33.4
---------------------
This can't be right?
If the Asus board really performs this bad, then they should have taken another board.
It's harder to judge about the gaming test since they use a different card. Above that, Geforce cards tend to perform better on a nForce platform. So my guess is to have a fair review they should have used a ATI based card like the X800.
Second thing they always forget to mention is the Serial ATA driver for the Via board. I mean this can be an important factor.
I agree with post nr. 69 & 70.
Lately i'm starting to lose faith in reviews from Anandtech, just like i did with Tomhardware a couple of years ago. Seems like you can't get reliable reviews with the big review sites anymore.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - link
#70 -We will be rewiewing the K8T890 as soon as we receive a retail board. Thus far none have shipped.
The K8T890 reviews at other sites in September were based on a traveling preview board which VIA did not make available to all of the major review sites.