nForce3-250 - Part 1: Taking Athlon 64 to the Next Level

nForce3-250Gb Reference Board: Basic Features

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Socket 754 Athlon 64
Chipset	nForce3-250GB single-chip
Bus Speeds	200MHz to 250MHz (in 1MHz increments)
PCI/AGP Speeds	Synchronous or Asynchronous PCI/AGP Fixed at 66/33 to 100/50 (in 1MHz increments)
Core Voltage	None available on Reference Board
HyperTransport Frequency	1000MHz (1GHz)
HyperTransport Width	16-bit Upstream and 16-bit Downstream
DRAM Voltage	None available on Reference Board
AGP Voltage	None available on Reference Board
HyperTransport Voltage	None available on Reference Board
Memory Slots	Two 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Single-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 2GB Total
Expansion Slots	1 AGP 8X Slot 6 PCI Slots (up to 6 may be available)
Onboard Serial ATA RAID	nF3-250GB (4 Drives, 0, 1, 0+1)
Onboard IDE/IDE RAID	Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) Drives may be configured as IDE RAID
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 No Firewire - Must use additional chip
Onboard LAN	1Gigabit Ethernet on-chip by nF3-250GB
Onboard Audio	AC '97 2.1 6-Channel supported by nF3-250
BIOS Revision	Reference Board 1/31/2004

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. Normally, they are also designed to be tested on the bench, out of any case.

Many, including AnandTech, complained that nForce3-150 was simply out-of-date when it came to integrated features. nForce3-250 definitely does not suffer from that problem. The nF3-250 feature set is as up-to-date as the 150 is not. You could still build an extremely capable system with the nF3-150, but many of the features had to be provided with add-on chips, which increased production costs. nForce3-250 moves from deficient to feature-rich, and competes very well with the best solutions from VIA and SiS. Standard features include 4-drive SATA Raid, 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports, ATA133 IDE/RAID, AC '97 2.1 6.1 channel audio, and on-chip firewall. The enthusiast version adds on-chip high-speed Gigabit LAN, similar in concept to Intel's CSA. This moves LAN to the chip itself and away from the PCI bus bottleneck.

Click to enlarge.

Fully decked out, nForce3-250 provides features 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.