X-bit labs

NVIDIA Readies 2-Way Chipsets for AMD Opteron.

Category: Mainboards

by Anton Shilov

[ 02/12/2004 | 02:21 AM ]

Upcoming core-logic products for AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron processors from NVIDIA will be certified to work with two AMD Opteron processors, a source unveiled today. Furthermore, there is already at least one mainboard maker to adopt the upcoming nForce3 chipsets for 2P Socket 940 mainboards – IWILL.

IWILL reportedly plans to make three new workstation 2P mainboards based on NVIDIA nForce3 core-logic sets this year. These are DK8N, DK8E and DK8E2 based on nForce3 Pro 250, as well as CK8-04 series core-logic.

The introduction and adoption of these mainboards by the market will open a door to a totally new market for NVIDIA Corporation, a company mostly known for its innovative graphics chips. Furthermore, IWILL may not be the only company to offer NVIDIA-based two-way server or workstation components, which will effectively put NVIDIA in line with other developers of chipsets for servers.

The first 2P Opteron workstation platform with NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 250 core-logic onboard, IWILL DK8N, will come in the second quarter 2004. The part will feature 8 DIMM slots for up to 16GB of DDR SDRAM, AGP 8x slot, 4 PCI-X 64-bit 133MHz slots (AMD 8131 controller), 1 PCI slot, Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA-150 with RAID 0,1, 0+1, USB 2.0 ports, FireWire ports, 6-channel audio and so on.

Another mainboard for 2 AMD Opteron CPUs based on NVIDIA’s chipset – IWILL DK8E – is scheduled to come in the third quarter. This one will carry 8 DIMM slots, PCI Express x16 for graphics, ATI Rage XL graphics chip, PCI-X 2.0 slots, Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA-150 support, USB 2.0 and other essential features and controllers. The DK8E2 that is scheduled for late Q4 2004 or early Q1 2005 will boast with some performance and feature-set improvements.

NVIDIA and IWILL did not comment on the story.