For all of you eagerly awaiting to purchase the nForce...

[Andy22]

Yes it looks pretty sweet but I have to wonder about something. Do yo think the on board sound will be better than the Santa Cruz or Hercules (I would add Live! but I think I know the answer to that). Also, by getting this board aren't you saying you will not be getting a GF3?

I guess what I am asking is that if you are planning on getting a board with this chipset, are you getting it for the integrated goodies or another reason? I would like to have this board but I know I am getting a GF3 this winter which would render a big part of this chipset useless.

Just curious really.

 

[skace]

If I bought this mobo, I would buy a GF3 with it. Bust out my magic marker and write XBOX on the side....

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Actually, if I were going to make this purchase I would buy it for the built in goodies. I would never replace the sound, but after I saved enough money I would probably replace the video with a GeForce 3. Yes you can put a GF3 (or GF4 when they come out eventully) on it because it still has a built in AGP slot and you can disable the onboard video.

 

[gogeeta13]

No, the amazing thing about it is the dual channel DDR. Read AT's nForce article, it will explain everything. The integrated stuff is icing on the cake, mmm

 

[salman327]

Mobo makers need to utilize this chip, and bust out some kick-butt motherboards by August.

 

[Davegod75]

I'd slap my AIW radeon on it and go.

Also i hear that nvidia is working on making the mobo with a better graphics core than the current MX one. I saw somewhere that is was gonna be NV-17. Is that the geforce2 GTS?

 

[Andy22]

Yeah I know you can disable the onboard video and\or sound but it seems pointless if that is the main reason to buy it in the first place. However, I see there are other advantages such as the architecture. I read you could also get an integrated NIC and that would nice as well.

 

[tyski]

Hmm...I think the dual channel ddr 128 bit memory bus is a nice feature, even if the athlon 4 can't use it all. That is a significant leap in memory bus architecture. The audio is great, but I'll keep my GF2Pro in it, than save money and drop a GF3 in.

 

[SaturnX]

Do you think they will make nForce boards w/o audio and/or video? Because I would happy with have I have and wouldn't want to pay extra for the onboard stuff?

Anyone?

--Mark

 

[Noriaki]

Well I'd most definately use the onboard Audio, I'm using onboard Via AC97 CODEC right now. I find that it does the job, but the onboard in the nForce is definately a step up in the world.

As for onboard Video, likely will use it for a while, I'm using a GeForce256-SDR right now. But I plan to move to a card with programmable T&L in the not-so-distant future.

Tharyn maybe without the connectors...but the Video/Audio are integrated right into the chipset. It's not like an extra chip soldered onto the mobo. It'd be like an i815E vs i815EP it would require a different chipset. I don't know if nVidia would bother, the nForce is so bleeding cheap already it'd probably cost more to lose the economies of scale to make two separate versions of the chip.

 

[SergeantDan]

I think I read somewhere, but can't think of it to save my life, that there is the optional without integrated sound/graphics. With = ~ $125-$130 Without = ~$100.
Do not hold me to this, because I may be confusing it with one of the other 1000 M/B and chipsets I've read about lately.

 

[Boonesmi]

im another one who agrees, the best thing about this board is the dual memory controllers

 

[TripperJoe]

Onboard video sucks up too much of the bandwith. I'd rather stick my own card in there and save 10-20%.

 

[bluemax]

The onboard video may not be a screamer, but it IS DX8 compliant and doesn't suck up as much bandwidth as you're worrying about.
It's all-around good.

 

[LuNoTiCK]

What I'm wondering is will it work well with some vid cards like the radeon II? Would they make it so that it doesnt work well with it? And will the sound be better than like the Phillips acoustic edge, santa cruz, or Hercules GTXP?? Like andy was askin.

 

[Raspewtin]

i agree the dual memory controllers (and to a lesser degree the pre-fetch) are exciting features. but one of the BEST features is nvidia quality unified drivers!

 

[grant2]

Onboard video sucks up too much of the bandwith. I'd rather stick my own card in there and save 10-20%.

What kind of bandwidth are you talking about?

Obviously it's not sitting on the PCI bus. And it will have dedicated memory/memory bus.

And did you mean to say "I'd rather stick my own card in there than save 10-20%"?

 

[Raspewtin]

What do you mean dedicated memory bus? are you counting one of two 64-bit memory buses?

 

[Mixxen]

Just because the audio is intergrated, doesn't mean it is low end.

The nForce chipset features...


<< fully DirectX 8 compliant audio part when it hits the market. The APU supports 64 3D voices or 256 2D voices in hardware, 32 hardware submixers, and is EAX 2 and I3DL2 compatible >>


Also there is an optional real time Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder. This looks pretty nice to me Also, I heard somewhere that nvidia hired some of layed off Aureal engineers to help out with this kick arse chip.

 

[Mixxen]

Just because the audio is intergrated, doesn't mean it is low end.

The nForce chipset features...


<< fully DirectX 8 compliant audio part when it hits the market. The APU supports 64 3D voices or 256 2D voices in hardware, 32 hardware submixers, and is EAX 2 and I3DL2 compatible >>


Also there is an optional real time Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder. This looks pretty nice to me Also, I heard somewhere that nvidia hired some of layed off Aureal engineers to help out with this kick arse chip.

 

[grant2]

What do you mean dedicated memory bus? are you counting one of two 64-bit memory buses?

Actually I think i was mistaken about that, I'd been thinking that since the graphics supposedly had a ram slot dedicated to it, the bus would be also.

Regardless, I think the gain from freeing up memory bandwidth by a seperate graphics card would be minimal as both the integrated graphics core + the cpu each only have a 64 bit bus, basically it would just free up some bandwidth for the speculative prefetch.

 

[Ryan]

I'd have to wait and see what the onboard video is like. If it is good, than keep the integrated stuff. If the video isn't that bad, I'll probably use it. I am not much of a gamer, so it shouldn't really matter much to me.

 

[grant2]

rbloedow, same here, i mean so what if i have to run at 1024x768 or 800x600 to get a decent frame rate, i think i'll live =) Sheesh new computer people are so lucky they didn't have to play doom with vga graphics! 320x240 ohh the horror!!

this nforce has me so stoked, i'm SO eager to buy an el-cheapo system... the less i spend on computer the more i have for motorbike gear or something =)

 

[nam ng]

That's the nice thing about nFORCE, it'll bring minimum graphic feature/performance level to near GTS64MB, and sound system feature/performance much higher for users who normally only get crappy INTEL 810/815 quality.

While power users can add GF3 class hardware performance or others with minimal hassle.

A product line that can be tailored for any from low-end to high-end, just as other products from nVIDIA.

 

[LoverBoyJ]

Just wondering, since the Video Chip is already integrated, does it share the video memory with the system memory or use part of the system memory for video purposes?