IWILL and NVIDIA on Wednesday said they are on-track to begin production of platforms intended for high-end 64-bit workstations with PCI Express x16 graphics cards in the second half of the year. IWILL’s announcement continues to solidify NVIDIA’s positions as a provider of logic for powerful next-generation servers and workstations.

First PCI Express x16 Enabled AMD64 Workstation

The famous mainboard maker for mission-critical applications today continued to outline plans to utilize NVIDIA’s nForce3 derivatives for its high-end 2P platforms based on AMD Opteron processors. The new product from IWILL is called DK8E and will target workstation clients who want to have powerful computers featuring all flavours of PCI technology, including PCI Express x16 as well as PCI-X.

The very first workstation platform for 2 AMD Opteron processors with PCI Express x16 slot for graphics cards is to be powered by a forthcoming NVIDIA nForce chipset. IWILL’s DK8E will feature 2 Socket 940, 8 DIMM slots for up to 16GB of DDR SDRAM, PCI Express x16 slot, PCI Express x4 slot, 3 PCI-X 64-bit 133/100MHz slots (AMD 8131 controller), 1 PCI slot, Gigabit Ethernet, 4 Serial ATA-150 with RAID 0,1, 0+1, USB 2.0 ports, FireWire ports, 6-channel audio and so on.

IWILL DK8E is designed for CAD/CAM, DCC users who need high-end next-generation PCI Express graphics cards for OpenGL as well as powerful AMD Opteron 64-bit microprocessors.

The maker will show the DK8E mainboard at Computex Taipei show in early June.

NVIDIA, IWILL Have Strong Plans

IWILL’s DK8N and DK8E mainboards unveiled recently is the beginning of IWILL’s planned ramp of NVIDIA nForce-based mainboards for workstations powered by AMD Opteron chips.

While NVIDIA is mostly known for its graphics processors and chipsets for consumer personal computers, the company is likely to gain popularity in the markets of workstations and servers later this year, after debuting its first workstation chipset in mid-2003.

NVIDIA is constantly adding additional features and capabilities into its core-logic sets, while AMD – the main provider of chipsets for AMD Opteron-based servers and workstations – has not updated its AMD8000-series chips for more than a year. As the demand towards advanced caps like Serial ATA and PCI Express rises later in 2004, NVIDIA nForce3 successors are likely to become preferable choice for makers of platforms for workstations and servers.

IWILL has been planning to make three workstation 2P mainboards based on NVIDIA nForce3 core-logic sets this year. These are DK8N, DK8E and DK8E2 based on nForce3 Pro 250, as well as CK8-04 series core-logic. Additionally, the new SKUs are probably just waiting around the corner to enter IWILL’s roadmap.