NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition Arrives

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:45 pm

Our first article on the C19 has been posted.

AMD's exclusive hold on SLI (Scaleable Link Interface) came to an end last week with NVIDIA's release of it C19 solution. Will Intel fans be jumping for joy, or considering a major shift in their next hardware purchases? LR puts NVIDIA's newest chipset solution to the test against the upcoming Intel i955X chipset and reveals some surprising, and some not so surprising results.

"Pricing on the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition will be a bit higher than the Intel 955X Express based boards, but not too far off. The nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipsets are going for $80 and the i955X Express for $50. With a $30 difference in chipset costs we are expecting to see around a $50 difference passed along to the consumer. We are expecting to see retail motherboards in the near future and may even see improved performance over the reference design!"

Read the full article here

Brueck · Post by **Brueck** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:06 pm

Good article! I was just interested in seeing the NVIDIA C19 versus Intel's i995X anyways. It is still going to be a tough choice about which to buy. In all actuality, all it really comes down for me is the pricing.

Post by **Illuminati** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:16 pm

kewl article... what's next on the plate to do to the Intel SLI system?

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:19 pm

Working on the DFI SLI-D board and the reference C19 board and going to work on the Intel or AMD SLI question.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:58 pm

Man i know i have at least one friend who was going to upgrade soon until i told him about the C19, then his whole plan changed. Now he wants Intel SLI rather than AMD, so props to nVidia for offering a product people clearly have been looking for.

I also find the memory results very encouraging because while 1,100+ memory speeds are impressive the bandwidth has not increased with the speed nearly as much as with the C19. I look forward to seeing some boads with this chip and more results onece they are in retail channels.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 5:22 pm

Yes, great article!
I thought it was a very good choice to wait and be able to compare intel's latest and greatest i955 chipset with nVidia's new C19 NF4 intel chipset. Good call.

Again, as everyone else has stated, the memory benchmarks are especially revealing of the differences between the two chipsets (besides the fact that one has SLI and the other doesn't).

I'm definately looking forward to the AMD vs. intel NF4 showdown!

I do have one question to clear up though: Does the intel chipset offer a 1T command rate setting for the RAM or is that exclusive to C19??

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 6:14 pm

And so the revolution of fat-walleted enthusiasts begins...

At least this gives a reference of comparison for Intel's upcoming version of parallel GPUs.

However, that's not to say that either will matter in 6-8 months anyway.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 8:21 pm

teqguy wrote:And so the revolution of fat-walleted enthusiasts begins...

When have "fat-walleted" enthusiasts ever NOT wanted to buy the latest and greatest???? There are ALWAYS going to be people that like to be on the bleadin' edge of technology no matter if its SLI, Dual Cores, or whatever. Think of how many people were so pumped about the first "64 bit CPU's"! New technology is exciting and there will always be people willing to be the first to pay the premium and test it out.

teqguy wrote:However, that's not to say that either will matter in 6-8 months anyway.

What exactly do you mean by that? What's happenin' in 6-8 months?

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:13 pm

The problem is that these so-called "enthusiasts" are more willing to invest in any denomination of quantity, rather than quality. They're quick to jump at new technologies, while entirely neglecting to reflect on past ones. And through an avid pursuit for performance, they end up spending more and getting nowhere.

For example, it makes no sense for someone to invest in SLi, but entirely overlook RAID.

Oh, and as far as what's happening in 6-8 months, I believe Nvidia and ATI will get the urge for SLi out of their system by then.

Parallel GPUs make a lot more sense than SLi from both a hardware and software developer's standpoint. Since parallelism is where computing is headed, it's only natural that Nvidia and ATI will have dual core or dual GPU graphics cards.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:41 pm

SLI, like RAID arrays, was a trend....it has been shown that RAID arrays actually drop gaming performance, not improve it.
I totally agree with your take on "enthusiasts", but differ on the definition. To me an enthusiast is a person who doesn't buy the very best parts money can buy, but a person who can tweak and tune economy components and get the same performance.......or a person like yourself who totally immerses themselves in the craft and investigates every possible angle...the term enthusiast gets thrown around far too often.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 11:06 pm

SLI, like RAID arrays, was a trend

Just wanted to point out that this should say IS

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:08 am

A RAID0 array is still the most viable method for derriving higher storage bandwidth.

The only thing that's faster are solid state drives based on DRAM or SRAM, however, they aren't cost effective at all.

When you consider the average internal bandwidth is limited to about 60MB/s(that includes even the Raptors), a RAID array definitely shows its prowess.

As far as slower gaming performance with RAID0 is concerned, I don't see how it's possible if the array is properly configured. Storage bandwidth nearly doubles, which definitely improves all around system performance without a doubt.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:12 am

Well, as usual, I guess everyone else is wrong. dude, you should have your own site, or start running NVidia or Gigabyte or something.

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 1:39 am

There are enough websites out there... why bother cluttering the web with one more?

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:02 am

This is not a flame just some clarification.

Flash drives are slow even the $1000+ drives top out at 15mb/s because they are based on flash tech not DRAM tech. So solid state is much slower than traditional HD's right now.

A single raptor can reach the pci bus limit transfering as much as 70mb/s
Raid0 is only the most viable if you have twice the $$ to spend and need no redundency.

and if the internal bandwidth is limted to 60mb/s how does Raid improve the performance as its limited by the same bus.

Raid0 does not have any appricable performance gains or losses for gaming. There is no advantage or disadvantage when strictly talking about game performance.

edit/ if you need proof give me a few days and i will raid my 250gb maxtors agains my 74gb raptor and we can see what kind of difference it makes.

teqguy · Post by **teqguy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:31 am

infinitevalence wrote:Flash drives are slow even the $1000+ drives top out at 15mb/s because they are based on flash tech not DRAM tech. So solid state is much slower than traditional HD's right now.

Flash is simply a non-volatile version of SRAM. However, there are also SRAM and DRAM solid state drives that are volatile. While data retention might be lacking, performance isn't.

These types of storage methods are tremendously useful in multimedia work, such as encoding and rendering.

Furthermore, you can make a ramdrive out of a portion of your ram that operates at the bandwidth of the memory, providing serious encoding performance.

A single raptor can reach the pci bus limit transfering as much as 70mb/s

70MB/s might be sustained burst rate, but it averages out at around 60MB/s.

The PCI bus is no longer where the IDE interface is addressed to.

Raid0 is only the most viable if you have twice the $$ to spend and need no redundency.

The 74GB 10K RPM Raptor is priced at $236 on NewEgg, whereas two Hitachi/WD/Seagate SATAI or II 80GB drives are priced at $120.

For the same price as a Raptor, you could have a 320GB SATA RAID0 array.

and if the internal bandwidth is limted to 60mb/s how does Raid improve the performance as its limited by the same bus.

Internal bandwidth is measured from the platter to the IDE interface. External bandwidth is measured from the IDE interface on the drive to the IDE interface on the motherboard.

The internal bandwidth is significantly less than the external bandwidth, which is why no performance gains come from having a SATAI or SATAII drive.

Okay... back on topic.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:31 am

gvblake22 wrote:I do have one question to clear up though: Does the intel chipset offer a 1T command rate setting for the RAM or is that exclusive to C19??

Anyone?

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:21 pm

No the intel does not offer 1t they are working on a new bios but we still dont know if it will when it hits production.

gvblake22 · Post by **gvblake22** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:24 pm

infinitevalence wrote:No the intel does not offer 1t they are working on a new bios but we still dont know if it will when it hits production.

Thanks!