nForce4: PCI Express and SLI for Athlon 64

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.

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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.

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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.