by Anton Shilov
01/18/2006 | 10:32 PM
Nvidia Corp. has updated its lineup of chipsets designed for Intel Pentium and Celeron processors. The new family of core-logic products includes offerings both for high-end users as well as mainstream users seeking for high-performance but not necessarily best of the best.
<%BANNER[article]%>With the new additions the nForce4 lineup for Intel processors now includes nForce4 SLI X16 for enthusiasts and gamers, nForce4 SLI for performance users, nForce4 SLI XE for performance-mainstream users and nForce4 Ultra for mainstream users. All of the chipsets excluding the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition support the latest dual-core processors with 1066MHz processor system bus.
“Our core-logic business is a strategic growth driver for Nvidia, and these new products allow us to capitalize on these high-volume Intel segments,” said Drew Henry, general manager of chipset business at Nvidia.
Nvidia nForce4 chipsets for Intel support various Intel Pentium 4, Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Edition and Celeron D processors with up to 1066MHz processor system bus, dual-channel DDR2 memory controller supporting memory at up to 667MHz. Additionally, the chipsets feature some performance enhancements to improve speed of memory controller, such as DASP 3.0. Nvidia’s I/O controllers sport many innovative features, such as RAID, Nvidia ActiveArmor firewall, Nvidia Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA-300 and other important technologies, like USB 2.0, FireWire, 8-channel AC’97 audio and so on. The new controllers supplied with the nForce4 SLI XE and Ultra also support high definition audio. Chipsets that are designed for SLI multi-GPU technology can also support two or more PCI Express x16 slots.
PC OEMs, system builders and motherboard manufacturers, including Biostar, ECS, Epox, Foxconn, Jetway, J&W, MSI, and others, are expected to have retail products based on the Nvidia nForce4 SLI XE and Nvidia nForce4 Ultra MCPs available starting in late January 2006.