Nvidia Corp. has updated its lineup of chipsets designed for Intel Pentium and Celeron processors. The new family of core-logic products includes offerings both for high-end users as well as mainstream users seeking for high-performance but not necessarily best of the best.

With the new additions the nForce4 lineup for Intel processors now includes nForce4 SLI X16 for enthusiasts and gamers, nForce4 SLI for performance users, nForce4 SLI XE for performance-mainstream users and nForce4 Ultra for mainstream users. All of the chipsets excluding the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition support the latest dual-core processors with 1066MHz processor system bus.

“Our core-logic business is a strategic growth driver for Nvidia, and these new products allow us to capitalize on these high-volume Intel segments,” said Drew Henry, general manager of chipset business at Nvidia.

Nvidia nForce4 chipsets for Intel support various Intel Pentium 4, Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Edition and Celeron D processors with up to 1066MHz processor system bus, dual-channel DDR2 memory controller supporting memory at up to 667MHz. Additionally, the chipsets feature some performance enhancements to improve speed of memory controller, such as DASP 3.0. Nvidia’s I/O controllers sport many innovative features, such as RAID, Nvidia ActiveArmor firewall, Nvidia Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA-300 and other important technologies, like USB 2.0, FireWire, 8-channel AC’97 audio and so on. The new controllers supplied with the nForce4 SLI XE and Ultra also support high definition audio. Chipsets that are designed for SLI multi-GPU technology can also support two or more PCI Express x16 slots.

PC OEMs, system builders and motherboard manufacturers, including Biostar, ECS, Epox, Foxconn, Jetway, J&W, MSI, and others, are expected to have retail products based on the Nvidia nForce4 SLI XE and Nvidia nForce4 Ultra MCPs available starting in late January 2006.