NVIDIA Announces nForce3 Pro

by Anton Shilov
04/22/2003 | 06:43 PM

Last week we told you that a well-known company plans to launch its core-logic for Opteron processors on the 22^nd of April. We are glad to tell you that today NVIDIA (a really very well-known company) officially rolled-out its nForce3 Pro core-logic for workstations based on the highly-anticipated AMD Opteron processor.

NVIDIA nForce3 Pro core-logic is a single-chip solution with support for all necessary workstation features. It does not integrate any graphics core simply because workstation users go with Quadro-series of graphics cards, but offers advanced network features as well as RAID-support. Manufactured using 0.15 micron fabrication process, the nForce3 platform core-logic should have cost-advantage over other solutions for x86-64 workstations based on AMD Opteron CPU.

As it always happens, NVIDIA has two different products for the new AMD platform. The first is the nForce3 Pro 150 that is available now and supports basic features, such as, a Hyper-Transport link, AGP 8x, PCI, 3 ATA-33/66/100/133 channels with RAID 0,1 and 0+1 support, 10/100Mb/s Ethernet, USB 2.0, AC’97 audio and so on. The second will be a bit more advanced and will provide Gigabit Ethernet as well as 4 Serial ATA-150 ports in addition to existing features.

The Santa Clara, Califonia-based developer said that ASUSTeK will be initial provider of nForce3 Pro-based mainboards and will supply them to workstation vendors. It was not indicated whether ASUS will also sell them in retail.

NVIDIA said on Tuesday that @Xi Computer Corporation, Alienware Corporation, Angstrom Microsystems, BOXX Technologies, Colfax International, Concordia Graphics, Core Microsystems, DigitalScape Corporation, Einux, Hypersonic PC, Max Black, MaxVision Corporation, NTSI, Polywell Computers, Si Computer Italy and Sys Technology will utilise nForce3 Pro core-logic. Well, that is a big leap for both NVIDIA and AMD. At least, if 1-way Opteron workstations become a good buy.