Have you forgotten about the nForce chipset?

[kasgarian]

Ok ok, i know you haven't really forgotten about the nVidia motherboard chipset because i have seen some posts in this forum.

But how come via chipset gets all the attention? I mean, ok im using a AMD-VIA hybrid at the moment (Asus A7M266), and i think its cool... untill i got my new Hauppauge PVR PCI card and wondered how come i'm having so many problems with the picture quality when it works fine on my lower-end pentium2 machine. Then i find out that the PCI bandwidth has been saturated- the via chipset can't cope with the high data rate... and this problem is also experienced with hard drives, as you know, the recent latency problems with via what everyones been going on about...

So then i think to myself, i really want to get the via kt266apro motherboard (the MSI one) because of its excellent performance and stability, BUT its probably going to have the PCI latency/bandwidth problems... :-(

SO, what about the nVidia's new chipset? Ok, so THG shows that it doesnt perform as well as the via one, but at least its more stable and theres no latency problems (except for the 'stick the DIMMS in the right 2 sockets'- yes i know about that, but i only will use 2x 512MB=1GB RAM And of course there are other plus points like integration of almost everything. Ok, so the graphics is only an MX400, but u can disable it and put in a GF3 and it'll rock. And the most important feature- the sound. Its supposed to be better than any sound card available (i think?) So why haven't there been any reviews like Creative Audigy Vs nForce's onboard sound?? This question, i'd love to see answered and something done about by the hardware reviewers out there!


Thats me finished, hope its provoked some kind of answer

 

[PUNKtotalled]

"Ok, so the graphics is only an MX400, but u can disable it and put in a GF3 and it'll rock."



The newest Asus A7N266C doesn't have onboard graphics and it is cheaper than the previous versions.

 

[pigseye2]

I'm also interested in hearing more about this chipset.

Hope we have some users who can provide their experience.

Thanks,
Pigseye

 

[WetWilly]

But how come via chipset gets all the attention?

1. Because there have only been three nForce boards available until just recently - two overpriced Asus boards (one a poor nForce implementation) and an MSI that has overclocking issues under certain circumstances. The only other nForce board currently available is a microATX board from Abit. That makes a grand total of 4 boards. There were other things, too. Asus' first nForce board didn't use the nForce's integrated sound or LAN. Not an auspicious start. It also wasn't until well after the nForce boards hit the street either that the ACR/CNR boards to enable 6-channel analog outputs became available.

2. There are boards like the $75 Shuttle AK31 rev 3.x/KT266A that have comparable performance. Plus, around a place like AnandTech, the nForce's integrated graphics aren't a huge draw. If you've already got a GeForce2, a NIC and a SB Live/Audigy, there's not a huge reason to pay twice as much for an nForce.

3. The VIA latency issue has some patches available, and many people don't notice it. Many/most people that have suffered from it, though, revile VIA for not 'fessing up earlier and addressing an OLD issue.

The 415D boards ought to help somewhat if they ever get here.

 

[Ziptar]

I gave up on the nforce... It was taking too damn long and when they arrived are too expensive... I was really wanting the Asus NV7M for my LAN rig but it took too long. I had since bought a Geforce2 GTS-V card and ordered the Epox EP-8KHM (KT266A) has onboard cmedia 5.1 sound which has gotten good reviews. It also has all of the great bios overclocking features of the 8KHA+ I will now have a System that will out perform the NV7M (The GTS-V easily beats the onboard MX from the benchmarks I have seen and it overclocks like a dream.) and it will cost me $25-$30 less.

I really like the nforce, I was really looking forward to it.... I just got impatient. I will be watching them though. The nforce2 should really be something, I would think that nvidia got the message that they shouldn't put such a crippled vid chip in next time around.

 

[kasgarian]

<< 3. The VIA latency issue has some patches available, and many people don't notice it. Many/most people that have suffered from it, though, revile VIA for not 'fessing up earlier and addressing an OLD issue. >>



I've heard about these via patches, and i also heard that they don't fully 100% fix the problem. The problem is a hardware one, so i'm not surprised that a software patch won't rectify it.

The reason i'm very interested in this chipset (nVidia) is that its a new architecture design. No northbridge and southbridge as such and higher bandwidths etc.. I'm no pc genius, but the amount of info i've read up on this chipset on various hardware sites (THG, ANDT etc.) it seems quite an exciting step in pc design.

By the way, what are these '415D boards' you mentioned? Are they by nVidia also?

 

[Ziptar]

The 415D is an nforce. It the same as the 420D but, their is no onboard video.

 

[Athlon4all]

<< By the way, what are these '415D boards' you mentioned? Are they by nVidia also? >>

Yep. 415-D is a new version of nForce 420-D. Basically, it's a 420-D stripped of it's integrated graphics. It still has Twinbank and needs memory to be in the right slots, but otherwise it's identical to 420-D. I have hope for this chipset that it'll dive prices down to $100 but I'm holding my breath on it. I still think that if you get past K7N420 Pro's ocing weaknesses, that it is a value that beats any of the similar 266A boards.

Still though, nForce has it's market. If someone has a SB Audigy, and a better than MX video card, than it's gonna be tough to justify getting nForce over EPox 8KHA+but, not everyone has SB Audigy's or MX's (like me) and that's where nForce is intedend for. I doubt that nForce will ever become a "for everyone" solution if they stick with the integrated features, but still, it's stability I feel tops VIA, and provides great feature's for the price, and nVidia is here to stay but they have their place.

 

[AA0]

What your saying doesn't make sense, and I have a feeling your problems aren't VIA related, you just want them to be. AMD boards have so much more bandwidth then a p2 it isn't even funny. VIA chipsets don't lack PCI bandwidth, it might be your one computer has a lot more on your PCI bus, but no card would be designed like that if it required that much speed.

Very few people have "problems" with their chipsets, they just like to say they do and complain. These chipsets wouldn't be released without it fixed if something this bad has existed for that long, so I'm going to assume your problems really come from somewhere else, probably not set up right.

 

[rbV5]

<< Hauppauge PVR PCI card and wondered how come i'm having so many problems with the picture quality when it works fine on my lower-end pentium2 machine. Then i find out that the PCI bandwidth has been saturated- the via chipset can't cope with the high data rate... >>



You are not saturating the PCI bus with your TV card, you have a different problem.

 

[Gog]

The issues that via is having with their pci slots is official and u could read of them here.

I highly doubt kasgarian is complaining because he has nothing better to do.

 

[WetWilly]

I have a feeling your problems aren't VIA related

Not true. Intensive video capture and very high-end sound cards have had problems on VIA boards for a long time. There are users on this forum that had complained about this way back and couldn't find an answer other than there was something about the VIA chipset. It's only when the rather large SB Live! problem arose that VIA was forced to address the issue. The suddenly popularity of RAID has also heightened awareness of the problem, since PCI RAID burst transfer rates on unpatched VIA boards are 20-30% lower than SIS, ALi or Intel boards.

VIA chipsets don't lack PCI bandwidth

It's not directly an issue of bandwidth - it's more an issue with how VIA handles traffic/bursts over the PCI bus. Poor burst handling = lower throughput = something that looks an awful lot like reduced bandwidth.

These chipsets wouldn't be released without it fixed if something this bad has existed for that long

Not true either. This problem isn't particular to VIA's AMD chipsets and it isn't new. It goes back to their Apollo Pro chipsets. VIA has a poorly designed PCI controller and they keep reusing it in new chipsets generation after generation. What's bad is that VIA has known about this for a while and has spend years (literally eons in computer time) blaming everything and everybody else for it.

 

[jfunk]

I've been running the MSI, but only for about 3 weeks now. So far its been great.

The newest BIOS has corrected most of the RAM issues and LAN dropout issues. I haven't tried it yet, but most people are able to get full memory bandwidth even with all three RAM slots populated now.

The only issue I find annoying right now is the 5.1 audio (anolog) does not work with anything but 6-channel specific files, like DVD movies. It is supposed to produce 5.1 sound from EAX or DX 3D sound sources, but the drivers don't work yet. NVIDIA says they're on the way.

Another thing worthy of note is don't bother with this board if you don't wanna run 2K or XP. Nvidia has basically said they consider 98/ME a dead O/S and aren't working too hard to fix any problems with drivers, etc.. in there.

j

 

[pigseye2]

Win98 dead? Bummer for me. Oh well time to upgrade to 2k anyway.

Thanks Jfunk for letting us know,
Pigseye

 

[kasgarian]

The reason i think i have bandwidth issues on my via chipset is because the same PCI devices work fine on my other P2 machine (intel chipset).
Here is my current system:

Asus A7M266 motherboard (hybrid AMD-VIA chipset)
AMD Thunderbird 1.33GHz
2 X 256MB PC2100 DDR-RAM (Crucial)

AGP:
Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS 32MB (Geforce2 gts)

PCI:
Creative Labs Sounblaster Live! Value
3COM 3CR0990TX97 10/100 NIC
Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI
Adaptec AHA-2940U2W SCSI Host Controller (Ultra-2 Wide)

IDE:
IDE1 PR: IBM DTLA307030 30GB
IDE1 SL: none
IDE2 PR: IBM DTLA307030 30GB
IDE2 SL: Pioneer DVDROM 105F

SCSI:
SCSI ID2: Plextor CD-R PX-W124TS
SCSI ID4: Pioneer DVDROM 303F
SCSI ID6: IOMEGA ZIP 250 SCSI

USB:
Alcatel Speedtouch ADSL modem
PSION DAB Wavefinder (digital radio)
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer

Operating System:
Windows XP Professional

As you can see the PCI devices (maybe except the sblive card) consume a huge amount of bandwidth, and the via latency problem will have a big effect on my system. And by the way, the video from the tv card is passed over the PCI bus.... ouch!!

Now do you see why i'm not particularly too happy with VIA and would love to have an alternative chipset. I hope nVidia make as good motherboard chipsets as they do GPUs. I really want an alternative to VIA, OR i wish VIA get their act together and sort out these problems.

 

[Athlon4all]

Well kasgarian, you may be correct that you have a lot of devices, but I think that you aren't consuming as much bandwidth as you think you are. Here's why:

1. Keep in mind that only 1 of your IDE devices will be accesed at a time, so at most 40MB will be used (assuming they aren't RAID'ed)
2. All of your SCSI devices are not high bandwidth consmers, and even if you were using all 3 SCSI devices at a time, I doubt the bandwidth being used would be any more than 30-40MB or even less.
3.Also keep in mind that the NIC isn't 100MegaBytes/ps, but 100Megabits ps and 100mb/ps = only 12.5MB/ps.
4. Also, it's not like you'll be using every single one of these devices at the same time.

I dunno anything about the TV Card's bandwidth requirements though. But you see what I'm saying? I've seen more demanding setups that are RAID'ed.

 

[KGB1]

I have a hybrid AMD 751 northbridge with a Via 868 southbridge (no onboard sound) And I have no issues with the PCI bandwidth being saturated.
Slot A Athlon Tbird 800MHz
Micron 128 MB PC100 x2 + Hyundai 32 MB PC100 = 288 MB
Visiontek TnT2 Pro 16MB AGP
HP EN1207D-TX Ethernet Card PCI
HP Texas Instruments FireWire PCI
ATI TV Wonder PCI
Adaptec UW160 SCSI-2 PCI
Conexant PCI 56K/Rockwell SoundBlaster Combo Card PCI

Quantum Fireball 20Gb EIDE
Maxtor 20Gb EIDE
Teac 4x4x32 CDRW EIDE
Samsung 8X DVD EIDE
Yamaha 8x8x40 CDRW SCSI
Toshiba SD-M1201 5X DVD SCSI
Maxtor3000DV 80Gb Fire Wire (External)
Zip 250MB SCSI (External)
Agfa Duoscan T1200 Scanner SCSI (External)
ASUS HP Propietory Motherboard (Comparable to Retail boards)
Logitech Game Pad USB
Logitech Wingman Attack USB
Belkin Powered 4 Port USB Hub
HP Propietory Keyboard USB
HP Propietory Mouse USB
(Also tied to the PC)
:Sony Playstation, Aiwa MX-33 Sound System, JVC Hi-Fi VCR)
I think I got a killer system, I know most of you will shudder and flame me for it, but hey I'm proud of my work.
And all that from an Antec 185 WATT Power Supply
I barely get 75% system resources when I start up (Even when I use the Disk Configuration Tool)

Just like you I am using a Hybrid chipset solution. I have no issues what so ever. I know this system sounds crazy, but I spent LOADS of $$$ to this system and I WILL NEVER sell it. Even when I included the ATI TV Wonder. (I do have sound issues, but thats my lack of experience with RCA Phono plugs, which a little visit to Radio Shack will clear up)
If your a PC junkie like me : in other words you have nothing better to do than look for PC parts on Garbage Night, or Float around Ebay for a bunch of stuff : its a good life (Too bad my PC dont support any ISA slots, 'cuz I got a bunch of those too)

That is why I think your issue with the TV card you got. BX boards have been known to be stable, that is why you cannot compare it to AMD's first CHIPSET and VIA's southbridge. The P2/3 is more stable than any VIA chipset platform.

So I recommend you take out EVERYRTHING except
CPU, RAM, VGA,1 HDD, 1 CDROM then try it out and see if it is the problem you stated or the PCI TV card itself or some system slowdown

 

[subhuman]

Yes, the Northbridge seems to have more of an effect here on the PCI, I get the best PCI performance for Socket A using AMD761 and AMD762, and the AMD761 (ASUS A7M266) even has a via southbridge. Still, the PCI performance of even the "best" AMD chipsets (AMD76x) is still not as good as Intel's...

 

[WetWilly]

I'll repeat what I posted above - this has nothing to do with PCI bandwidth and everything to do with VIA's PCI traffic/burst handling. Think about it - if this was purely a bandwidth issue the VIA official and unofficial patches would have zero effect because the bus would already be saturated irrelevant of latency. The reasons many/most people don't notice the issue is that the particular PCI cards they're using don't have strict requirements for PCI access, e.g. video capture cards that perform some type of buffering are much less susceptible to the VIA issue. Another classic example is the Aureal Vortex 2.

KGB

The P2/3 is more stable than any VIA chipset platform.

Don't know what you're talking about here. VIA made P2/P3 chipsets; for that matter they still make chipsets supporting P3s, including Intel Tualatins. Those chipsets have the same PCI issues as VIA's AMD chipsets. VIA's period of exclusivity as the primary supplier of AMD chipsets and their chipset issues are the rather unfortunate reason Athlon processors get blamed for lots of things that aren't the CPU's fault. It's also one reason the SiS 735 got a big reception - stuff that didn't work properly in VIA-based boards worked fine in an SiS 735 board.

subhuman

Northbridge seems to have more of an effect here on the PCI

The PCI peripheral bus controller exists in the southbridge (or ICH in Intel parlance) in all available chipsets I can think of. That's why the problem has existed so long - until V-Link, VIA made very few changes to their southbridges. The only thing PCI has to do with some northbridges is that the north-southbridge interconnect is PCI-based.

 

[wouldbeen]

Well, it seems that actual debate is quite pointless, as from http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=704801, we learn that nForce's PCI bandwidth is as bad as Via's. Peace.

 

[Entropy007]

Hauppauge PVR PCI card and wondered how come i'm having so many problems with the picture quality when it works fine on my lower-end pentium2 machine. Then i find out that the PCI bandwidth has been saturated- the via chipset can't cope with the high data rate... >>

I'm using a Win-TV PVR PCI right now on a Shuttle AK35GTR a Via KT266a motherboard. It also worked flawlessly on an Abit KG7-R so I have to agree with rbV5, you have other problems.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

<< KGB

The P2/3 is more stable than any VIA chipset platform.

Don't know what you're talking about here. VIA made P2/P3 chipsets; for that matter they still make chipsets supporting P3s, including Intel Tualatins. Those chipsets have the same PCI issues as VIA's AMD chipsets. VIA's period of exclusivity as the primary supplier of AMD chipsets and their chipset issues are the rather unfortunate reason Athlon processors get blamed for lots of things that aren't the CPU's fault. It's also one reason the SiS 735 got a big reception - stuff that didn't work properly in VIA-based boards worked fine in an SiS 735 board. >>


Hey WetWilly, When you say you don't know what KGB is talking about, believe me when I tell you that he doesn't know either While he seems to be a well intentioned person, he's as good a source of misinformation as the real KGB was. Just take a look at the wild speculation and misinformed BS he tried to run on me the other day
Link

 

[KGB1]

HEY!! Who the in the blue hell are you to just look for my name in a forum and just say the total opposite and just make a mockery out of a person. I can only tell that you like to do this just to annoy a person so he can write back bashing you and saying how immature you are. My information is not false, it could be exagerrated because of my long school days and having to work also. I aint no pc brainiac, Pfft...computer's are like a hobby for me, i happen to know pc's quite well. that Whole
"P2/3" Was... that MY InTel chipset based system is much MORE stable than the AMD/VIA hybrid chipset. I tried the configuration on a Abit BX133-RAID it is WAY better than the 751 (Asus HP Propietory) motherboard. You just cannot be Intel qualityin the END!! AMD made a good start with the 751 northbridge, but made a crucial error when pairing it with a VIA southbridge. Same thing goes for SiS and ALI bull. Im not Intel fanboy.. but damn they make reliable stuff (and I did order that 820chipset I was talking about last week, and it is PERFECT, got 256 Samsung PC800 RDRAM and it blows my Athlon 800 away. So Punisher I you can take you smile =p and go stick it where the sun dotn shine. Pardon my language, but I just got a haircut (I took off 3 inches from my long hair and it really got me depressed)

In defense of the Serial ATA stuff... Im not a BIG fan of thingy magigy. I still think SCSI should be the way to go. SO I can GIVE a CR*P about Serial ATA and the BS that those companies offer..ohh 150MB of data transfer.. BULLL!! Where's the data that can back it up?? Only 1 device can be hooked up the motherboard (NO DAISY chain folks)...also they will market it with "newer" revision later on.. oooohh 166MB...200MBB, still BULL. HYPERTRANSPORT would have been better (YES your right Punisher, it is to transmit data between IC's, and your point is??? Nothing I thought so!!! SCSI always ruled, I couldnt care less about IDE but Im forced to use the damn thing. If they even decide to get rid of SCSI it would be the worst decision ever made.. Ever hear about a SCSI HDD or CDROM or ZIP drive arriving DOA or some faulty PART !! NOO.. NOONE..ZERO!! Zilch!!! SCSI manufacturers make certain it works because they know it's IMPORTANT to keep the product working. (course since nothing is perfect, there could be some faulty SCSI devices... but the number is FAR LESS than the EIDE devices)

 

[Boonesmi]

KGB: chill out man

its kinda a fact of life, if you spread fud you will most likely get called on it


its been more then once ive slapped down for passing along error ridden info

 

[PUNKtotalled]

Keep cool, KGB! There's nothing personal in the answers.