X-bit labs

EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra Mainboard Review: Meet NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset! (page 4)

Category: Mainboards

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 01/12/2005 | 05:15 AM ]

As for the CPU models supported, the NVIDIA nForce4 can clock the HyperTransport bus at up to 1GHz frequency. It means this family of chipsets can be used with a wide range of mainboards with Socket 939, Socket 754 and even Socket 940.

Overclockers should enjoy the ability of the nForce4 to clock all the buses asynchronously: different clock generators are used for the CPU and for the PCI Express bus. Moreover, the internal arbiter of this chipset is more tolerant to deviations of the bus frequencies from their defaults than the arbiter of Intel’s i925/i915 chipsets. As a result, nForce4-based mainboards increase excellently their core frequency, easily overcoming the 300MHz mark on the clock generator for the CPU frequency. So, these mainboards are going to become a success in the overclocking community.

The last thing we have to tell you is the modifications existing in the nForce4 family. The topmost model of the series is the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI targeted at enthusiastic users who are ready to shell out above $150 for a mainboard. As the name suggests, NVIDIA offers this chipset for users who want to use a pair of graphics cards at once, in the SLI mode. To enable this, the chipset allows splitting the PCI Express x16 bus in two x8 ones for two PCI Express graphics cards to work simultaneously in one system. The user configures the PCI Express x16 bus with the help of a special card installed onto the mainboard.

The nForce4 Ultra is a middle-range model in the nForce4 family. It is going to become a foundation for mainboards priced within $100-$150 range. This chipset has all the above-described functionality, but lacks the ability to configure the PCI Express x16 bus. It means this chipset is intended for system configurations with a single graphics card. Well, some resourceful mainboard makers do produce SLI-supporting, nForce4 Ultra-based mainboards by joining two or four PCI Express x1 lines for the second graphics card.

The ordinary nForce4 is a junior model for inexpensive solutions. This chipset is considered a budget solution for two reasons. First, it lacks the hardware security system: ActiveArmor is disabled in it. And second, it doesn’t support Serial ATA II.