X-bit labs

NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) Platform Review (page 12)

Category: Chipsets

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 04/13/2005 | 07:07 PM ]

Network Controller

The advanced Gigabit network controller implemented in nForce4 chipset for AMD Athlon 64 platform was inherited by the newcomer for Pentium 4 platform. The peculiarity of this solution developed by NVIDIA and 3Com together is the built-in ActiveArmor hardware network protection unit. This ActiveArmor tool is the main advantage of the built-in nForce4 network controller over the competitors’ solutions. The thing is that this ActiveArmor block of the chipset takes over some functions of the Firewall.

In reality it means that NVIDIA Firewall software bundled with the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) based mainboards should put minimum workload on the system CPU. While most software Firewall solutions may use a lot of processor resources for network data packets sorting. NVIDIA Firewal performs the same operations in the chipset ActiveArmor block, thus leaving the CPU resource free for other operations.

In fact, the only thing the CPU has to do for NVIDIA Firewall is to adjust the hardware ActiveArmor parameters accordingly. All the processing and sorting of network data packets is now performed by the chipset MCP.

The NVIDIA Firewall complex is controlled through special web-interface very similar to hardware firewall configuring tools. It requires Apache web-server, which is installed together with the other software for nForce4 integrated network controller. This way, NVIDIA Firewall allows remote management of the system, too.

However, these are all theoretical discussions. If you would like to learn more about the practical functioning of the NVIDIA Firewall and the chipset ActiveArmor unit, please see our article called EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra Mainboard Review: Meet NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset!. We decided to repeat the same experiment with the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) based mainboard, however, we failed. To our disappointment the current NVIDIA Firewall version is still incompatible with the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) MCP. That is why you will not be able to use ActiveArmor on the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) right now. So, we will not be able to enjoy such benefits of NVIDIA Firewall, as reduced CPU utilization. Although, the upcoming NVIDIA Firewall versions may already be free from this drawback. At least we hope so.

As for the pure performance of the Gigabit network controller implemented in nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition), it is up to the level of the best PCI Express Gigabit network controllers out there.

The results we obtained with the help of NTttcp utility from Microsoft Windows DDK also indicated that the built-in network controller from the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) MCP doesn’t load the system CPU that much at all.