nForce and Pentium4 time is now!

ZenmasteR · 08-01-02, 08:01 AM

i've been reading that nvidia over produced nforce chipsets thinking AMD would still be topdawg.
however with the boost in Pentium4 speed and sales, AMD are losing badly.
Is it not in NVIDIA's best interests to get a license for P4's ?
espeically with SiS apparently eating chunks out of VIA market share

SavagePaladin · 08-01-02, 10:01 AM

NVidia will decide what is in NVidias best interest. Same as always.
We're left relatively clueless until the official announcements.

madthumbs · 08-01-02, 02:30 PM

I think nVidia chose AMD because the competition for AMD chipsets is slim.

Richthofen · 08-01-02, 03:31 PM

yeah and that was a pretty good descision.

The good thing about Socket A market is that the competitors are kind of low cost producers. They do not have a good image and are not what i would consider a technology leader.
Should be not to hard for nvidia to gain market share here over the upcomming months.

Regarding Pentium4 they said they cant make money in that market and that is right. The liscence costs 5 $ for every chip and that is far to much for a high end manufacturer like nvidia.
And there is the problem that Intel has a huge advantage to sell its own chipsets because of you know the brand name and so on.
Companies would still stick to intel only sollutions.

The AMD market is the right way and i wish that at some day Nvidia and AMD get a little closer just to break up that stupid 80% intel market share because i don't like that at all

koslov · 08-01-02, 06:05 PM

I admit it would be nice to see a P4 nForce chipset. The Athlon really can't use much of the bandwidth the nForce and nForce 2 provides. Dual DDR 400?? The Athlon can't even use the dual channel DDR 226 on nForce to its potential (as shown by the near identical benchmarks between using 1 and 2 DIMMs). The P4 (533Mhz FSB) is a bandwidth fiend... only the super-expensive RDRAM PC-1066 can even come close to satisfying its hunger. A good DDR 400 chipset is just what it needs... but VIA and SiS are already on top of that.

The only significant performance benefit (besides the much-improved onboard GPU) I see coming from nForce2 is its overclocking ability.

Besides, I think the intended market for nForce is the super-integrated value market... that and the enthusiast market of course. You won't see many fast P4s in sub-$1000 machines, while an AXP coupled with an nForce can easily drop below that point.

08-01-02, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Richthofen
yeah and that was a pretty good descision.

The good thing about Socket A market is that the competitors are kind of low cost producers. They do not have a good image and are not what i would consider a technology leader.
Should be not to hard for nvidia to gain market share here over the upcomming months.

Regarding Pentium4 they said they cant make money in that market and that is right. The liscence costs 5 $ for every chip and that is far to much for a high end manufacturer like nvidia.
And there is the problem that Intel has a huge advantage to sell its own chipsets because of you know the brand name and so on.
Companies would still stick to intel only sollutions.

The AMD market is the right way and i wish that at some day Nvidia and AMD get a little closer just to break up that stupid 80% intel market share because i don't like that at all

that's ridiculous logic. better you make a slim $1 profit per board(this is a purely hypothetical number, i'm sure it would be much higher) than no money at all.

SavagePaladin · 08-01-02, 09:42 PM

what about the labor costs? other costs? ever heard of diminishing returns?
As to the dual channel bandwidth, as the MCP uses that as well, I don't see it as a waste in any sense of the word.
Unnecessary, of course.

08-01-02, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SavagePaladin
what about the labor costs? other costs? ever heard of diminishing returns?
As to the dual channel bandwidth, as the MCP uses that as well, I don't see it as a waste in any sense of the word.
Unnecessary, of course.

are you talking to me or koslov?

anyway, the nforce was was much too expensive for lowend systems. i can only surmise a P4 version would have cost more. anyway, don't believe the hype. DDR400 and DDR333 come very close to PC1066 using the latest SiS or as-of-yet unreleased Intel mobos.

koslov · 08-01-02, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by StealthHawk
anyway, the nforce was was much too expensive for lowend systems.

The nForce 220 was used in many lowend Athlon Compaq systems. NVIDIA keeps telling us they are targeting the sub-$100 range for the nForce2, so I believe we'll see lots of OEMs jumping on it. Even for $140, its original price, the nForce was a great deal for getting primo sound, decent graphics, and ethernet all rolled into one.

Quote:

Originally posted by SavagePaladin
As to the dual channel bandwidth, as the MCP uses that as well, I don't see it as a waste in any sense of the word.
Unnecessary, of course.

Err, you do realize that the MCP is the "Media and Communications Processor"....? It contains the integrated sound and network(simplified)... so not a lot of RAM usage there. The IGP is the one that actually uses the dual channels, so both CPU and integrated GPU can have a dedicated channel. Not much sense in having a dedicated channel just for the APU, is there?

NVIDIA could turn a meager profit on a P4 chipset, but that's not as lucrative as an Athlon chipset (in their target market). So why make a dollar on every board when you can invest in more lucrative ideas? They don't have unlimited resources, ya know. Who knows, maybe one day it will happen, but not in the near future... NVIDIA probably doesn't want to bite off more than they can chew anyway being as they are the new guys.

08-02-02, 02:26 AM

define lowend. Compaq may have used nforce in some systems as you say(were they really lowend? or low midrange), but i don't think nforce was that popular with oems as a whole.

considering that nforce was more or less targeted at at midrange to high end for Athlon i'm still wondering how a P4 nforce might have done in the high end market. theoretically it really should have dominated, also given the fact that Intel was late in supporting DDR it would have given nvidia that much more time to be the only viable non RDRAM high performance option.

but yes, for whatever reason, nvidia didn't want to penetrate the P4 market. it's gone and past. still no news on their interest in doing so either. news from the Intel front has been lacking in all areas. what is Intel planning to do to combat Hammer? i have heard nothing about Intel's plans for next year except to release a dual channel DDR motherboard that won't be able to reach its full potential with P4's FSB. likewise people have said that higher speed RDRAM is due out sometime, but that won't do any good with the current P4 FSB, nor have i heard of plans for Intel to release another RDRAM supporting motherboard.

SavagePaladin · 08-02-02, 05:45 AM

I got my nForce 415 for $90, I wouldn't be surprised if 2 was easier to manufacture for NV
As to the MCP being audio and networking, yes I realize that. It also caches off the main memory, I'm relatively sure.

Blakhart · 08-03-02, 06:26 PM

Suppose there's a way to make the 415 chipsets specify one mem bus for the cpu and the other for everything else?
Would that be a good thing?

08-01-02, 08:01 AM	#1
ZenmasteR Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 30	Nforce and Pentium4 tims is now! i've been reading that nvidia over produced nforce chipsets thinking AMD would still be topdawg. however with the boost in Pentium4 speed and sales, AMD are losing badly. Is it not in NVIDIA's best interests to get a license for P4's ? espeically with SiS apparently eating chunks out of VIA market share Last edited by ZenmasteR; 08-01-02 at 08:03 AM.

08-01-02, 02:30 PM	#3
madthumbs Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 188	I think nVidia chose AMD because the competition for AMD chipsets is slim. Last edited by madthumbs; 08-11-03 at 02:29 PM.

08-01-02, 10:01 AM	#2
SavagePaladin info***** Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,395	NVidia will decide what is in NVidias best interest. Same as always. We're left relatively clueless until the official announcements.

08-01-02, 03:31 PM	#4
Richthofen Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Berlin / Germany Posts: 212	yeah and that was a pretty good descision. The good thing about Socket A market is that the competitors are kind of low cost producers. They do not have a good image and are not what i would consider a technology leader. Should be not to hard for nvidia to gain market share here over the upcomming months. Regarding Pentium4 they said they cant make money in that market and that is right. The liscence costs 5 $ for every chip and that is far to much for a high end manufacturer like nvidia. And there is the problem that Intel has a huge advantage to sell its own chipsets because of you know the brand name and so on. Companies would still stick to intel only sollutions. The AMD market is the right way and i wish that at some day Nvidia and AMD get a little closer just to break up that stupid 80% intel market share because i don't like that at all

08-01-02, 06:05 PM	#5
koslov Omnipresent Lurker Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 33	I admit it would be nice to see a P4 nForce chipset. The Athlon really can't use much of the bandwidth the nForce and nForce 2 provides. Dual DDR 400?? The Athlon can't even use the dual channel DDR 226 on nForce to its potential (as shown by the near identical benchmarks between using 1 and 2 DIMMs). The P4 (533Mhz FSB) is a bandwidth fiend... only the super-expensive RDRAM PC-1066 can even come close to satisfying its hunger. A good DDR 400 chipset is just what it needs... but VIA and SiS are already on top of that. The only significant performance benefit (besides the much-improved onboard GPU) I see coming from nForce2 is its overclocking ability. Besides, I think the intended market for nForce is the super-integrated value market... that and the enthusiast market of course. You won't see many fast P4s in sub-$1000 machines, while an AXP coupled with an nForce can easily drop below that point.

08-01-02, 09:42 PM	#7
SavagePaladin info***** Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,395	what about the labor costs? other costs? ever heard of diminishing returns? As to the dual channel bandwidth, as the MCP uses that as well, I don't see it as a waste in any sense of the word. Unnecessary, of course.

08-02-02, 02:26 AM	#10
StealthHawk Guest Posts: n/a	define lowend. Compaq may have used nforce in some systems as you say(were they really lowend? or low midrange), but i don't think nforce was that popular with oems as a whole. considering that nforce was more or less targeted at at midrange to high end for Athlon i'm still wondering how a P4 nforce might have done in the high end market. theoretically it really should have dominated, also given the fact that Intel was late in supporting DDR it would have given nvidia that much more time to be the only viable non RDRAM high performance option. but yes, for whatever reason, nvidia didn't want to penetrate the P4 market. it's gone and past. still no news on their interest in doing so either. news from the Intel front has been lacking in all areas. what is Intel planning to do to combat Hammer? i have heard nothing about Intel's plans for next year except to release a dual channel DDR motherboard that won't be able to reach its full potential with P4's FSB. likewise people have said that higher speed RDRAM is due out sometime, but that won't do any good with the current P4 FSB, nor have i heard of plans for Intel to release another RDRAM supporting motherboard.

08-02-02, 05:45 AM	#11
SavagePaladin info***** Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 1,395	I got my nForce 415 for $90, I wouldn't be surprised if 2 was easier to manufacture for NV As to the MCP being audio and networking, yes I realize that. It also caches off the main memory, I'm relatively sure.

08-03-02, 06:26 PM	#12
Blakhart Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Near Wolfie Posts: 204	Suppose there's a way to make the 415 chipsets specify one mem bus for the cpu and the other for everything else? Would that be a good thing?