Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks
by Wesley Fink on June 2, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Basic Features: nVidia nForce3-250Gb Reference Board
| nVidia nForce-250Gb Ultra Motherboard Specifications for 939 MSI MS-7025 (K8N Neo2) |
|
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX |
| Chipset | nForce3-250GB single-chip |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Synchronous or Asynchronous PCI/AGP Fixed at 66/33 to 100/50 (in 1MHz increments) |
| CPU Ratios | 4 to Default Ratio in 1X increments |
| Core Voltage | Default to 1.81V in % increments (with 1.50V, 1.57V, 1.60V, 1.65V, 1.68V, 1.73V, 1.76V, 1.81V) |
| HyperTransport Frequency | 1000MHz (1GHz), 1X-5X |
| HyperTransport Width | 16-bit Upstream and 16-bit Downstream |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.5V to 2.85V in 0.05V increments |
| AGP Voltage | 1.5V-1.85V in 0.05V increments |
| AUTO Overclock | D.O.T. Ranger, 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 9%, 11% |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/IDE RAID | nVidia 4-Drive SATA Plus 4-Drive IDE IDE/SATA can be combined in 0, 1, 0+1 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 2 1394A FireWire ports by VIA VT6306 |
| Onboard LAN | 1Gigabit Ethernet on-chip by nF3-250GB |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel with UAJ |
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Filibuster - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
Via will support Athlon 64 with PCI-Express with the K8T890 chipset.Nvidia chipset plans are less clear. The only thing I've seen is a Inq. article saying Q4'04. :(
Hopefully it is sooner.
WileCoyote - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
After all the buildup in the first few pages of this article I was kind of disappointed by the very close benchmarks. All the chipsets perform within a couple percentage points of each other.ripdude - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
<quote>2 - Posted on Jun 2, 2004 at 1:55 AM by Brian23
What's the deal with the orange PCI connector?
</quote>
the orange PCI connector is, AFAIK, excepted from the PCI bus bandwidth and is directly connected to the chipset.
<quote>
3 - Posted on Jun 2, 2004 at 3:07 AM by adntaylor
Nice review but... still no tests of the AGP optimisations for the GeForce FX and 6 series cards on the nForce chipset.
</quote>
I, too, read about NVidia gfx cards getting a boost on NVidia chipsets, a 6 serie card on nforce-250gb could yield quite some surprises.
<quote>
6 - Posted on Jun 2, 2004 at 3:53 AM by Eidolon
Are PCI-Express mobos using either chipset planned? Any news on when that may be?
</quote>
I'm waiting for a good 939 board with PCI-E slots too. With ATI and NVidia announcing PCI-E cards they should be too far behind.
XRaider - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
No doubt # 6. Motherbord manufacturers seem to be dragging their feet on this... unless they are waiting for Nvidia and Ati..? I REALLY like the 939 FX53.. but I'm holding out until the PCI express standard gets implemented on the new motherboards, cause I'm not planning on upgrading for awhile after this new system build. :\Eidolon - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
Are PCI-Express mobos using either chipset planned? Any news on when that may be?Eidolon - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
tfranzese - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
From what I remember the orange PCI slot is specifically for communications.adntaylor - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
Nice review but... still no tests of the AGP optimisations for the GeForce FX and 6 series cards on the nForce chipset.Please can somebody just chuck a card in and see if the GeForce 6800 is boosted by the nForce3 chipset!
http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/nforce3-gefor... - this was the Tech Report's test of the FX 5950, and it delivered some surprising performance boosts. I'm desperate to see if the 6800 reacts similarly!
I'm interested to know what that orange PCI slot is for too.
Brian23 - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
What's the deal with the orange PCI connector?nycxandy - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
With the 939 CPU's already shipping, when will the 939 motherboards show up in stores?