by Ilya Gavrichenkov
04/13/2005 | 07:07 PM
NVIDIA as a chipset designer has already won a significant share in the AMD solutions market. In fact, NVIDIA owns about 50% of this market by now. However, the company doesn’t want to stop there and is planning to continue its expansion into the Intel platforms market as well. Having signed a cross-licensing agreement with Intel last November, NVIDIA got green light for Pentium 4 chipsets development.
<%BANNER[article]%>It is evident that Intel is trying to satisfy the needs of hardcore gamers and computer enthusiasts by letting NVIDIA into this part of the chipset market. Right now NVIDIA is the only developer offering solutions supporting two graphics cards in SLI mode. That is why the introduction of an NVIDIA chipset for the Intel platform automatically implies that from now on it will be possible to build SLI systems not only on Athlon 64 processors, but also on the Pentium 4 based platforms.
Today we are proud to introduce to you NVIDIA’s first experience in this absolutely new field. The pilot chipset for Pentium 4 platform from NVIDIA boasts a pretty long name right now: nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition). It is quite far from the long-awaited nForce5, although it is a very logical name reflecting the major idea behind it. The NVIDIA’s new chipset for Intel Pentium 4 processors is an analogue of the nForce4 SLI for AMD Athlon 64 platform. In fact, the main differences between the traditional nForce4 SLI and the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) are the support of another processor interface and the memory controller.
We would like to tell you about the major features of the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset and will try to evaluate NVIDIA’s chances in the Pentium 4 chipset market. Especially, since it would be quite logical to expect NVIDIA to introduce not only an expensive SLI-solution with the average mainboard cost over $150, but also some better value alternatives. Today NVIDIA can only win the wealthy enthusiasts’ hearts, however, it would make a lot of sense to also release the non-SLI versions of the nForce4 (Intel Edition) chipset later on. Moreover, just like nForce4 for Athlon 64 systems, we can also expect some professional mobile solutions based on nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) to come out soon. This way, the chipset we are going to review today is going to be the forefather of the entire family of solutions, although this hasn’t yet been announced openly.
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset is designed as a traditional dual-chip solution. Although its predecessor, nForce4 for Athlon 64 processors boasted single-chip architecture, NVIDIA decided not to add the memory controller into the same chip. This way, the chipset North Bridge of NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) called System Performance Processor (SPP) is a combination of the memory controller, processor interface and PCI Express bus controller. The South Bridge also known as Media and Communication Processor (MCP) ensures that the chipset support Serial ATA, network capabilities, PCI busses, integrated sound and USB busses.
The North and the South bridges of the chipset are linked together with the Hyper Transport bus, which is not so typical of the Pentium 4 platforms. This bus works at 800MHz frequency and provides 1.6GB/s bandwidth in each direction. Actually, NVIDIA has been using this bus to connect the chipset bridges since the times of the first nForce chipsets that is why it is not at all surprising that the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) has this bus too.
I would like to point out one very curious detail here. The South Bridge of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is very similar to the single-chip nForce4 for Athlon 64 systems. The only difference between these two chips is the absence of the PCI Express bus controller in the MCP, which has been moved to the North Bridge of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) to ensure better and more efficient communication between the expansion cards, CPU and memory. So, the defective South Bridges that cannot be used for Athlon 64 nForce4 Ultra may actually suit as South Bridges for the Pentium 4 chipset.
Anyway, right now NVIDIA makes MCPs individually: these are the chips consisting of 21 million transistors and manufactured with 0.15micron production process. The North SPP Bridges are manufactured with 0.13micron technology and consist of 61 million transistors.
We should also say a few words about the features of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) North Bridge, as it is exactly the one bearing all the specific peculiarities of the new solution. Due to SPP, NVIDIA’s new core logic supports any LGA775 processors with the bus working at 533MHz, 800MHz and 1066MHz. NVIDIA solution supports DDR2 SDRAM, although you can use not only the regular DDR2-400 and DDR2-533 SDRAM, but also DDR2-667 SDRAM with higher bandwidth.
As for the PCI Express bus support, nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is absolutely identical to nForce4 SLI for Athlon 64. In other words, there are 20 combinable PCI Express lanes implemented in the chipset North Bridge for more optimal work with two graphics cards at a time. This way, nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) will have SLI mode working just the same way as it does in Athlon 64 systems: through two PCI Express x8 busses. And as for the pair of simultaneously existing fully-fledged x16 PCI Express busses, it remains the prerogative of NVIDIA’s professional solutions.
Having called this section “Competitors from Intel” we were not quite right. In fact, Intel doesn’t yet have any direct competitors to NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition). So far, none of the chipsets from this micro-processor giant even including the upcoming ones can boast fully-fledged SLI support. However, it doesn’t prevent Intel from offering its own high-performance chipset solutions targeted for the same market segment as NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition).
In particular, right now Intel is offering an i925XE Express chipset supporting LGA775 processors with 800MHz/1066MHz bus and DDR2-533 memory, which appears to be a competitor to our today’s hero from the market positioning point of view.
Although it would be totally wrong to regard a relatively old i925XE as a direct competitor to the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition). The thing is that when the mainboards on the new NVIDIA solution for Pentium 4 appear in the market, Intel will at the same time release its new high-performance solution aka i955X Express.
This chipset boasts much richer features list than the i925X, so the newcomer will turn into the primary competitor to the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition). Besides the support of 800MHz/1066MHz bus, i955X will also support DDR2-533 as well as faster DDR2-667 SDRAM, and will feature special technologies for faster work with the memory subsystem.
Another peculiarity of the new Intel core logic set will be the bigger number of PCI Express lanes. The North Bridge of i955X will support one PCI Express x16 interface, while the South Bridge will allow connecting another six PCI Express lanes. So, the mainboards based on the new Intel 955X may also be equipped with an additional PCI Express x4 bus, which can theoretically be used for SLI configurations. However, the final word regarding the SLI support in Intel 955X based mainboards belongs to NVIDIA, as they will have to allow or forbid these configurations in the drivers.
To give you a better idea of the advantages and disadvantages of both, NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) and i955X, we composed the following table with all the major characteristics of the top chipsets for Pentium 4 platform:
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI | Intel 925XE | Intel 955X | |
Architecture | Dual-chip | Dual-chip | Dual-chip |
Bus between | HyperTransport | Direct Media Interface | Direct Media Interface |
FSB frequency | 533/800/1066MHz | 533/800/1066MHz | 533/800/1066MHz |
Maximum FSB | 8.5GB/s | 8.5GB/s | 8.5GB/s |
Supported | DDR2-400 SDRAM | DDR2-400 SDRAM | DDR2-400 SDRAM |
Maximum memory | 10.6GB/s | 8.5GB/s | 10.6GB/s |
Maximum memory | 16GB | 4GB | 8GB |
ECC support | None | None | Yes |
PCI Express | 1 x PCI Express x16 | 1 x PCI Express x16 | 1 x PCI Express x16 |
SLI support | Yes | None | Possible |
PCI support | 6 devices | 6 devices | 6 devices |
USB 2.0 | 10 ports | 8 ports | 8 ports |
Serial ATA | 3Gbps | 1.5Gbps | 3Gbps |
NCQ support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Serial ATA ports | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Parallel ATA | 2 | 1 | 1 |
RAID support | 0, 1, 0+1, 5 | 0, 1, 0+1 | 0, 1, 0+1, 5 |
Ethernet | 1Gbps | None | None |
Secure Networking | Yes | None | None |
Sound | 7.1 | 7.1 | 7.1 |
According to this table, if the i925XE looks not so beautiful against the background of the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition), then the promising i955X can compete with NVIDIA’s solution more or less on equal terms. And even though i955X yields to NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) in the maximum supported memory size, networking capabilities and the number of USB and Parallel ATA ports, it nevertheless boasts more PCI Express lanes and better sound quality.
That is why in this article we are going to compare the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) not only with the i925XE chipset, which is getting rather obsolete with the time, but also with the i955X, which is coming to replace the predecessor. This will allow us to get the best idea about the advantages and drawbacks of the NVIDIA’s new solutions compared with the competitors.
Before we pass over to the detailed description of any nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset subsystems, let me introduce to you our test platforms, which we used for practical performance analysis of the new solution this time.
For the tests of this chipset NVIDIA provided us with a reference mainboard uses as a basis for our testbed:
We compared this system against similar platforms based on i925XE and i955X. The first chipset was represented by one of the fastest mainboards on it, ASUS P5AD2-E Deluxe. The second one, i955X, was represented by an Intel Desktop D955XBK board. As a result, our testbeds were assembled with the following components:
All tests were run in Windows XP SP2.
Of course, one of the most interesting parts of the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset is the built-in memory controller. It is especially interesting, because none of the NVIDIA core logic solutions for Athlon 64 platforms has a memory controller: these systems use the memory controller built into the CPU. Therefore, we cannot say yet whether this memory controller implementation in nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is good or bad. However, if you remember, the older nForce/nForce2 chipsets for Athlon XP platform boasted efficient work with the memory subsystem as one of their major trumps. It is evident that the memory controller implemented in the new chipset should be at least as good as the memory controllers of the predecessors.
First of all, I would like to point out that the new memory controller of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset was initially intended to support dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM. The SPP of the new chipset doesn’t support the regular DDR SDRAM at all. Note also, that NVIDIA made its chipset support not only DDR2-533 SDRAM, but also the faster DDR2-667 SDRAM, which has already started appearing in stores. This way the maximum bandwidth of the memory bus working in 128bit dual-channel mode can reach 10.6GB/s, which is a way higher than the maximum processor bus bandwidth even if this bus is clocked at the maximum 1066MHz frequency.
The higher bandwidth of the memory bus compared to the processor bus can be used efficiently by the peripheral devices working with the memory as well as for hardware data prefetch algorithms. In other words, the “excessive” memory bus bandwidth in the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) will not be wasted. By the way, this is exactly the reason why the synchronous mode for the FSB and memory bus is not the preferable mode in nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset.
Like all other dual-channel memory controllers, the controller of nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) works in the dual-channel 128-bit mode and provides highest performance only if identical DDR2 DIMM modules are installed in pairs. However, even if you have different memory modules installed into your system, the memory controller of NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset will still be working in the dual-channel mode, although its performance may get slower in this case.
An important feature of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) memory controller is an individual address and command bus for each of the DIMM modules. As a result, each of these busses receives twice as little workload, which in the end allows reducing the memory modules reaction time to controller commands. NVIDIA’s memory controller supports 1T Memory Timing, which means that the memory modules receive commands and addresses within the same clock cycle when the controller sent them. The chipsets that do not have an individual bus for addresses and commands of each memory module usually have to work with 2T Memory Timing, which is a must once the bus gets loaded heavily. In this mode the memory modules receive addresses and commands only during the next clock cycle after they have been transferred by the controller.
Besides the 1T Memory Timing setting, individual address and command bus for each memory module allowed NVIDIA to give up sending data in packs including eight 64-bit words. The NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) uses a burst length of 4 and 1T addressing, but other Pentium 4 core logic solutions use a burst length of 8 and 2T
addressing. As a result, the memory controller of the new NVIDIA chipset can transfer twice as many control commands in-between reads as before.
In addition to the above described memory controller optimizations, nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) also took advantage of the good old NVIDIA’s trump: the DASP unit (Dynamic Adaptive Speculative Preprocessor). DASP is responsible for prefetching from the memory the data that is predicted to be requested by the CPU any time soon. This allows reducing the CPU idling time while it is waiting for the data to arrive for processing. In fact, all contemporary CPUs have their own data prefetch mechanisms, which allow them to move data into the cache memory. However, these algorithms are not 100% efficient. This is exactly when DASP unit helps a lot by making the corresponding memory pages available for the CPU upon request.
The DASP unit of the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset is marked as version 3.0. In fact there have been pretty significant improvements made to it since the times of the nForce2. First of all, I would like to draw your attention to enhanced prefetching algorithms, which precision was improved by extra statistical analysis of memory requests submitted by contemporary applications. Also NVIDIA engineers took into account the Hyper Threading technology supported by Intel processors as well as the upcoming dual-core architecture of the Intel CPUs. So, the new DASP 3.0 can recognize different requests sent to the memory by each of the cores (physical or virtual) in order to improve the precision of the data prefetch algorithms.
As we see, the memory controller of NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset looks very attractive from the theoretical point of view. However, we will be able to declare our final verdict about its efficiency only after a series of practical tests. That is why we carried out some tests of the memory subsystem, which should allow us to evaluate objectively the efficiency of the new NVIDIA chipset memory controller.
The results obtained in SiSoft Sandra 2005 are quite ambiguous. When we used a Pentium 4 660 with an 800MHz bus, the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset showed its best result with DDR2-667 SDRAM and with DDR2-533 SDRAM it falls a little bit behind i955X. However, when we performed the same test with the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor working at 3.73GHz and supporting 1066MHz bus, the situation changed. NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset remained an indisputable leader with DDR2-667 SDRAM, but lost to all its rivals once we switched to slower DDR2-533 SDRAM.
I believe ScienceMark 2.0 benchmark could raise the curtain of mystery above these results. As we see, the bandwidth of the bus between the CPU and the memory is really high by nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition). However, once we start testing the latencies, NVIDIA chipset turns out unable to compete with the Intel solutions, especially in case the bus frequency is 1066MHz. At the same time, however, we should give due credit to extremely low latencies of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) memory subsystem when we have 800MHz FSB and DDR2-667 SDRAM installed.
The obtained results allow us to make quite unexpected conclusions. The memory controller implemented in the SPP of the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset is truly a success, as the benchmarks prove. However, it is remarkable that provided the processor bus bandwidth and the memory bus bandwidth match, the NVIDIA chipset starts falling behind its Intel rivals. In particular, we see this happening in case of 1066MHz bus and DDR2-533 SDRAM. It looks like the CPU loads the entire memory bus bandwidth thus blocking the work of such intellectual algorithms of the chipset as DASP 3.0, for instance.
In conclusion we decided to run a STREAM benchmark, where DASP 3.0 of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) should show its best:
No surprises here: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is the leader, except the above described situation when the bandwidth of the dual-channel DDR2-533 equals that of the Quad Pumped Bus working at 1066MHz frequency.
One of the peculiarities of the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset against the alternative core logic sets is the implementation of 20 supported PCI Express lanes in the chipset SPP North Bridge. This is done to ensure simple configuring of the PCI Express lanes for the SLI mode. In the regular mode nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) features one PCI Express x16 bus and four PCI Express x1 busses. Once SLI is enabled, the chipset supports two PCI Express x8 busses and three PCI Express x1 busses thus allowing you to install two PCI Express graphics cards into your system.
Anyway, the mainboards based on the new Pentium 4 chipset from NVIDIA are supposed to feature two physical PCI Express x16 slots, which can logically work in different modes. You will be able to switch between these modes with the help of a special commutation board, just like in Athlon 64 based platforms. Although some mainboard makers announced the solutions that are capable of detecting the PCI Express working mode for the board automatically, depending on the number of installed graphics cards.
As far as the performance gain in SLI mode is concerned, we have already paid due attention to it in our article called NVIDIA Multi-GPU SLI Technology: New Approach to Old Ideas. Here we would only like to provide a table with the results obtained for a system built on NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset and Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz CPU with one or two NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT based graphics cards.
Click to enlarge
Contemporary Intel chipsets cannot be called the best overclocker’s choice, unfortunately. The owners of LGA775 mainboards based on i925/i915 chipsets can hardly increase the FSB frequency without facing some unpleasant problems. They owe these problems to the relatively “sensitive” arbitration block of Intel’s chipsets, which cannot work with certain combinations of the FSB and PCI Express busses frequencies.
Now that the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) based mainboards are coming, the Pentium 4 system owners can forget about their problems once and for all. Just like nForce4 based mainboards for Athlon 64 systems are known to support super-high working frequencies of the clock generator, the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) based mainboards will feel at home working with high FSB frequencies. The thing is that all nForce4 chipsets including the new Intel Edition ones feature a built-in clock generator that allows clocking all the busses in the system (FSB, PCI Express and PCI) absolutely asynchronously. At the same time, no arbitration problems arise.
Right now it is still too early to speak of the real overclocking potential of the mass mainboards built on the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset. However, the results we obtained on the reference mainboard so far make us quite optimistic about it. This mainboard we had at our disposal allowed adjusting the FSB frequency from 200MHz to 700MHz with 1MHz increment.
Another overclocking-friendly advantage of nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is the extreme flexibility of the memory controller that allows clocking DDR2 SDRAM at a great variety of frequencies. In other words, you have much more options than just a couple of the memory bus frequency dividers. For example, the reference board based on the new NVIDIA chipset allows setting the memory frequencies to any value between 400MHz and 900MHz with 10-20MHz increments.
Some enthusiastic users should be pleased to see nTune utility working just fine with the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset. As you know from the older nForce3/nForce4 solutions, this utility boasts pretty rich features. Among its major functions we should certainly list the following:
Just like nForce4 for Athlon 64 processors, the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) features a Parallel ATA controller supporting two ATA-133 channels and two Serial ATA-II controllers, each implementing two ports. As we have already seen by the regular nForce4, the use of several ATA controllers is very efficient when it comes to performance during active work with the storage subsystem.
Serial ATA-II controllers of nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) support all the modern characteristics: 3Gbps port speed, NCQ and HDD hot swap. Besides that the ATA controllers of the chipset we are testing today allow building RAID arrays of the following levels: 0, 1, 0+1 and 5. Moreover, unlike competitors’ solution the new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) allows using hard disk drives connected to different controller and supporting different interfaces to be parts of a RAID array.
The RAID arrays built on NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) based mainboard can be managed through the mainboard BIOS as well as with the help of a special MediaShield utility (it used to be known as nvRAID). MediaShield utility helps create, convert and remove RAID arrays directly from Windows. It also offers array status monitoring for the RAID arrays built in your system.
In order to evaluate how fast the Serial ATA controller of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) are, we measured the performance of RAID 0 array of two Western Digital Raptor WD740GD hard disk drives. The results were then compared with the similar numbers obtained for the same array tested with mainboards on different chipsets.
First we used HDD Suite from PCMark04:
As we see, nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) loses to Intel chipsets in all subtests except file copy. The dual-channel operation of the Serial ATA controller in NVIDIA chipset is evidently of no use against powerful buffering algorithms implemented in Intel Application Accelerator.
Although the results obtained during linear read and write speed measurements are slightly different:
As we see, nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) Serial ATA controller can be faster than Serial ATA solutions of its competitors when the buffering algorithms do not work, i.e. during linear reading and writing.
Since we came to speak about RAID arrays, it is important to stress that nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) supports RAID 5 array type, which wasn’t supported by the nForce4 solution for Athlon 64 systems. These arrays allow recovering data in case one of the HDDs fails, because the data is not just split between a few hard drives: there is some additional info stored in this type of array. In case of a RAID 5 array of three HDDs there is always the third data block formed by the first two XOR operations and containing the parity information. The data blocks with the parity information are “spread” all over the drives, so that all three members of the RAID 5 array could be loaded evenly.
RAID 5 arrays are positioned as an alternative solution to RAID 0+1, and it can be built with fewer hard disk drives. Theoretically, RAID 5 ensures higher data security and disk subsystem performance with lower losses of storage space. Fair enough, as in a RAID 5 array of three HDDs the actual data storage space equals 2/3 of the overall capacity of all three drives.
Anyway, quality RAID 5 implementation requires additional computational resources. For example, professional controllers supporting RAID 5 feature a special RISC processor performing XOR calculations in real time. That is why it was extremely interesting to find out the actual performance of the RAID 5 arrays supported by the chipset Serial ATA controllers. For our experiments we created a RAID 5 array of three Western Digital Raptor WD740GD hard disk drives. The obtained results are given below:
Frankly speaking the results are quite puzzling. RAID 5 arrays created by the chipset controllers turned out extremely slow.
When we measured the linear read and write speeds, the situation got a little bit clearer. The problem with RAID 5 support in the modern chipset is connected with dramatically low data write speed, which is limited by the real time XOR calculations for this data.
This way, you may be interested in RAID 5 arrays supported by nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset as well as by i955X chipset only if you are trying to save some disk space and do not care that much about the fast performance of this array. So, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1 arrays will definitely remain very popular, even though now the chipset will also be offering RAID 5 support.
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.
The South Bridge of NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) supports 10 USB 2.0 ports. So, we have every right to call the new NVIDIA chipset a leader here, as even the new i955X supports only 8 USB 2.0 ports.
As for their actual speed, we resorted to AIDA32 utility and measured the bandwidth and CPU utilization during the data transfer to and from a USB 2.0 hard disk drive: Maxtor OneTouch 250GB.
As we see, USB 2.0 bus in NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset is quite normal, and when the data is transferred from the controller to the actual USB 2.0 device, NVIDIA chipset shows its best performance.
The sound solution in the new NVIDIA chipsets is unfortunately their weak spot. Since NVIDIA replaced their own SoundStorm sound processor with a regular AC97 solution, the users have been complaining quite a lot about the sound quality provided by NVIDIA’s solutions. The launch of the nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) hasn’t changed anything, because this chipset should again use the regular AC97 sound, which yields significantly to Intel High Definition Audio.
It is still too early to draw any final conclusions about the sound quality of the solution integrated into nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition), because it will depend on the implementation of the sound feature on each particular mainboard. Although we still can test how greatly the default sound solution of nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) loads the system CPU:
The benchmark results suggest that AC97 sound of the new NVIDIA chipset uses more CPU resources than Intel High Definition Audio.
The benchmarks results you will see here were obtained with an Intel Pentium 4 660 processor. In other words, we are going to take a closer look at the performance of the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset running with 800MHz FSB frequency.
As you see, the performance of our today’s hero is quite high. The new nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is actually faster than the competitors in most applications. Even the promising i955X chipset can’t boast the performance that high. And the i925XE, which doesn’t support DDR2-667 loses to the new NVIDIA solution even with the DDR2-533 SDRAM.
So, we can state with all certainty that nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) won this test session thanks to its more advanced architecture in general, and not just to the faster DDR2-667 SDRAM support.
The second part of our test session was devoted to the performance of our testing participants in systems with the 1066MHz FSB frequency. We used Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz CPU.
Here I would like to point out right away that the higher system bus frequency affected the results quite noticeably. The biggest performance growth was demonstrated by i925XE, which works in synchronous mode at this FSB frequency. All other chipsets we tested here seem to have no optimizations for the synchronous work mode, because their primary goal is to work fast with DDR2-667 SDRAM.
So, NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) chipset is no longer an indisputable leader here, as i925XE managed to prove a very strong competitor in this work mode. However, we nevertheless have to admit that the new NVIDIA solution didn’t perform any worse than the chipsets from Intel.
Pentium 4 users used to believe that Intel provides the best chipsets for this platform. The chipset we introduced to you today can surely prove that this is not absolutely true anymore. NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is not just as good as any of the competitors from Intel, but can boast a few serious advantages over them.
Although the performance of the new NVIDIA solution with the DDR2-667 is very attractive, it is not its primary advantage. The major pride of nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is its rich functionality. Serial ATA-II and RAID 5, Gigabit network controller with ActiveArmor, and SLI mode for graphics cards – these are certainly the major trumps of the new NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) until the mass mainboards on i955X start appearing in the market. However, even after the competing solutions start selling, NVIDIA chipset for Pentium 4 platform will still remain very attractive, at least due to SLI support (it is a big question whether i955X based mainboard will have SLI support).
In conclusion I can’t help mentioning that NVIDIA nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) can also become very popular among overclockers. We haven’t yet seen any retail mainboards on this chipset, however, we tend to believe that these mainboards will allow increasing the FSB frequency dramatically. As you know, nForce4 platform for Athlon 64 processors has never had any problems with overclocking. Besides, the new solution for Pentium 4 can clock PCI Express bus and memory bus frequencies asynchronously.
So, summing up we can say the following. Now that Intel has let NVIDIA into the Pentium 4 chipsets market, they will have to face some very serious competition. Keeping in mind that NVIDIA will be trying to expand its influence in this market segment later on by introducing new Pentium 4 solutions, the share of Intel’s own chipsets can grow considerably smaller.