DFI nForce4: SLI and Ultra for Mad Overclockers
by Wesley Fink on February 5, 2005 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM IDE (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | nVidia nForce 6.31 (nForce4 SLI) SiS 1.17e VIA 4in1 Hyperion 4.51 (12-02-2003) nVidia nForce Platform Driver 4.24 (nForce3 Ultra) |
| Video Card(s): | nVidia 6800 Ultra (AGP 8X) nVidia 6800 Ultra (PCI Express) |
| Video Drivers: | nVidia nForce 61.77 (SiS, VIA, nF3U, Intel 925X) nVidia nForce 71.40 Beta (nForce4) |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Motherboards: | DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D Winfast 755FXK8AA (SiS 755FX) Soltek K8TPro-939 (VIA K8T800 PRO) Epox 9NDA3+ (nForce3 Ultra) nVidia nForce4 Ultra Reference Board Abit AV8 PRO (VIA K8T800 PRO) ECS KV2 Extreme (VIA K8T800 PRO) Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 (nVidia nForce3 Ultra) MSI K8N Neo2 (nVidia nForce3 Ultra) MSI K8T Neo2 (VIA K8T800 PRO) |
Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at 2-2-2-7 timing in benchmarks on the DFI nForce4 boards.
The nVidia 6800 Ultra AGP was used for testing in all 939 chipsets other than nForce4. The PCI Express 6800 Ultra was used for all testing with the nForce4 and the Reference Intel 925X. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1024x768x32 unless noted otherwise.
Results for the DFI nForce4 boards are color-coded red in all graphs. VIA K8T800 Pro based motherboards are in green in our results, and nVidia nForce4/nForce3 are in orange. Results for the SiS 755FX based Winfast are yellow in all graphs. Intel results are included for Reference only and are blue in the graphs. The color coding should allow easy comparison of the tested DFI nF4 to other nF4/nF3 results and to other chipsets and processors.
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chevas - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
Did I miss something? Why do I not see the A8N-SLI deluxe included in these tests?!?Penth - Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - link
NO SLI Bridge? What am I to do with my Ultra-D now?beany323 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
bigtoe36 - Monday, February 7, 2005 - link
many companies have applied chipset tweaks with Asus pioneering PAT on 865PE boards from the onset...seems all of a suden the tier ones are being made to tow the line???ViRGE - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
Wesley, that's certainly a very believable story. Though Asus is a very good mobo company, they're also who I would suspect any such complainer to be. They're the most powerful tier 1 last I checked, and most likely to lose SLI sales due to semi-SLI, in part because it wouldn't be like them to release their own semi-SLI board. I'd hate to think that someone is trying to kill the modding community like that though.bbomb - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
Nvidia is going to kill off SLI before it even gets off the ground by making it the most insanely difficult and expensive thing for computer users to do. Why cant they make it so that you can just slap in any two nvidia cards and get SLI to work? Why do they have to make it so that motherboards now cost over $250 retail for an SLI version?I pray to god that ATI's version is half the price of Nvidias and allows any two ATI cards to work in an SLI fashion just top put Nvida back in their place. I bet the Nvidia prevents any ATI cards from working in SLI mode on any Nforce chipset should ATI get that to work.
This is what happens when graphics card companies use their chipsets to restrict what computer users can do with that companies video cards. I do belive that Nvidia said that they were two separate businesses but now they must have combined them to place the most restricitons possible through drivers to prevent affordable solutions from coming out.
F you Nvida it's all ATI and Via for me now.
Wesley Fink - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
#93 - There was no press at all on the MSI "semi-SLI" Ultra - just a couple of posts on Forums - and nVidia was all over it. MSI said they canned the idea and the nVidia drivers were quickly changed so "semi-sli" would not work with current drivers on the Ultra.I doubt it was the press that caused this to happen. Ultra chip shipments were still going to all the manufacturers after the "mod" article went up on January 18th and there was not one word from nVidia until Friday February 4.
The best we can figure is that a powerful tier 1 manufacturer complained loudly to nVidia late this week that they were losing SLI sales to DFI because of the "illegal" SLI. nVidia was forced to act due to the political clout of this manufacturer.
Of course nVidia had other options as well. They could have decided to lower the price of SLI and discontinue Ultra, which is what we thought would happen.
bigtoe36 - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
#93It was all over the forums MSI had a semi SLI board and NV came down on them hard...nothing was in the "official press" though.
I have a feeling a tier 1 has moaned here as DFI are tier 2 and probably had no help designing the board...so pretty much went it alone and designed the board how they wanted to.
I would have thought the best move would have been to lower the cost of SLI and remove the "branding tax" and drop the Ultra chipset.
Still NV make the decissions here not us.
arfan - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
likes what i say, nvida is not stupid, i hope via can make sli mobo with cheap pricestephenbrooks - Sunday, February 6, 2005 - link
It's time for another "The message is clear:" thing.If chip manufacturers want to sell different products at different prices they should make sure they use DIFFERENT CHIPS! Nobody can pencil mod across a submicron trace. Why oh why do they do this and then put the lock in software?! I suspect it's because they wanted to be able to make a load of generic chips and brand them as the market demands.
Still... it's stupid! I remember reading AT's article on that pencil mod and had to blink a few times to make sure I was reading it right... :)