X-bit labs

NVIDIA to Release Integrated Chipset for Intel Processors Late This Year.

Category: Chipsets

by Anton Shilov

[ 05/26/2005 | 07:57 AM ]

Slides, which presumable origin is Foxconn’s roadmap, shred some light on NVIDIA Corp.’s chipset roadmap. Apparently, in addition to a core-logic with built-in graphics core for AMD processors, the Santa Clara, California-based silicon designer is preparing an integrated chipset for Intel-based platforms.

According to what is believed to be a mainboard roadmap from Foxconn published at PC Perspective web-site, NVIDIA Corp. is developing core-logic sets code-named C60G and C60D, which are expected to be an integrated and a discrete chipsets respectively and scheduled to be in Foxconn’s products in Q4 2005. Besides chipsets that contain graphics engine, NVIDIA is also expected to release core-logic sets with graphics core for AMD64 platforms this quarter.

“We have announced sampling of our first integrated graphics after many-many years and we expect this to be an important growth strategy for us,” said Jen-Hsen Huang, NVIDIA’s CEO, in the most-recent conference call, which may possibly indicate the company’s plans to shortly release AMD64 integrated chipsets code-named C51-series chipsets.

Earlier NVIDIA’s chief said that his company wants to target every market segment that uses chips from Intel Corp., including desktops, servers and mobile computers.

“The Intel platform will target the entry and high-volume servers. Notebooks are, of course, interesting to us as well and there is no reason why we cannot target every single segment…” said Mr. Huang.

Earlier this year mainboard maker FIC showcased prototypes of its products featuring NVIDIA code-named C51 chipset. The company said the core-logic featured integrated graphics cores. While NVIDIA is tight-lipped over the core-logic code-named C51, some details about the chipset are still available: the C51G is a two-chip value solution for AMD Athlon 64 market. It provides an integrated graphics core, PCI Express x16 slot for add-in graphics cards and can connect to the company’s forthcoming media and communication processors that feature Serial ATA-II, Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express x1, FireWire, USB 2.0 as well as other I/O features.

The C51 chipsets are expected to support both Socket 939 and Socket 754 microprocessors with 800MHz and 1000MHz HyperTransort speeds.

It is very likely that the C51 chipset features GeForce 6200-like graphics core which incorporates memory controller enhancements that can reduce the impact high latency memory access, which is a result of memory controller integrated into AMD Athlon 64-series processors. Still some sources suggested that the C51 sports GeForce 4-like integrated graphics unit.

Representatives for NVIDIA did not comment on the story.