First Nforce Review

[GREG MILLER]

The first Nforce review is up at Anandtech

Just as I suppected all hype.

Well I will say, for an integrated solution & Nvidia's first step into the chipset market, it is fairing quite well.

[ 09-25-2001: Message edited by: GREG MILLER ]

[Fendi]

Slap on an integrated GeForce3 instead of the GeForce2 MX on the motherboard and they'll have a customer.....for a reasonable price of course.

[jpprod]

nVidia did a really good job with the nForce. They matched performance of VIA KT266A which is practically the fourth tweak to same basic core logic for:

- KT133 was KX133 + Socket-A interface

- KT133A was KT133 + 133MHz FSB and synchronous operation mode support

- KT266 was KT133A + DDR memory controller and Vlink for southbridge interconnection

- KT266A is KT266 + redesigned memory controller

Also, OEM:s will love this solution. Finally a all-in-one chipset with decent performance. And since OEM market is where the money is, nForce could be a real cash-cow for nVidia.

Personally I find the audio part of the chipset, nForce APU, the most interesting one. It is the first ever audio chip to incorporate full DirectSound8 hardware acceleration. And it shows in the real world too, in the tests nForce APU handily slaps SB Live around.

What I'd really want to see is integration of the APU's functionality on a video chip. Sound and video go logically hand in hand: with such integration, effects like attenuation and wavetracing could be, at least theoretically, implemented using actual geometry data.