Nforce4: failed ?

[iwantanewcomputer]

i hope the overclocking potential is even better than nf3 250...

not looking foreward to socket 900. too many sockets to choose from

 

[RaymondY]

Last I heard, AMD was not going to enbrace the BTX just yet. AMD was perfectly content with the ATX format (probably because their processers run cooler).

I have a Chaintech VNF-250 mobo which sports the NF3-250 chipset and it overclocks great!!! My A64 2800+ (1.8ghz stock) can overclock to 2.3ghz aircooled.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: BW86
nforce4 is going to be awesome 😀, i dont really care about the sound since i use a soundcard 😛

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
If the next VIA's A64 chipset does support AGP, I will be going the VIA route. I don't see the point of upgrading my 9800 Pro just because the mobo doesn't have AGP.

Why not just buy a Nforce3?

 

[gplracer]

How is the quality of the sound on the nf3 compared to the soundstorm? I have nice speakers but most people do not.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Balthazar

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff

Originally posted by: BW86
nforce4 is going to be awesome 😀, i dont really care about the sound since i use a soundcard 😛

Audigy 2 ZS baby, I could care less about Soundstorm 🙂

Actually you know I would give my right arm for my old soundstorm over this Audigy 2 ZS, the reason being, it was a PHENOMINAL soundcard and could do things this somewhat underwhelming Audigy 2 cant.

What bites is that Creative is the reason we dont get soundstorm anymore....I kinda hate them for that.

The reason aint Creative 😛

. . . . it the Dolby License. 😉
:roll:

A Dolby licence is very expensive

We are informed that it's simply too expensive to pay the hefty licence fee to Dolby Labs. If they included a Dolby chip inside, that would make Nvidia's chips too expensive and, worst of all, non competitive with Via, ATI and SIS chipsets. It doesn't want that as Nforce is something that makes it good money and boosts its good name.

However, and you cannot call it a but, it's a however, Nvidia will have AC97 support but you might need an external chip for that. You can expect 5.1 support and even 7.1 support and I believe that many of the boards will end up with Realtek or even Via sound chips.

Sound Storm was excluded from Nforce 3 150 and Nforce 3 250 Gb as well and NVDA didn?t give us any good explanation why, but as we said it's too expensive to license it and it certainly takes quite a large portion of chip.

 

[vailr]

Does anyone know the status of non-Nvidia video cards in SLI mode?
That is: will ATI cards also work in SLI mode on the Nforce 4 boards?
I was thinking that they WOULD work, but the AT article didn't exactly state that.
Only that: with Nvidia producing both the chipset and the video card, that they'd have some kind of unspecified advantage over their competitors.
TIA

 

[uOpt]

I rather have a solid older generation on-board sound which works with every operating system and doesn't clutter the backplane and if I want something really fancy use a PCI card.

Not to mention that I am very happy with my analog-connected 5.1 sound.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: vailr
Does anyone know the status of non-Nvidia video cards in SLI mode?
That is: will ATI cards also work in SLI mode on the Nforce 4 boards?
I was thinking that they WOULD work, but the AT article didn't exactly state that.
Only that: with Nvidia producing both the chipset and the video card, that they'd have some kind of unspecified advantage over their competitors.
TIA

Only nVidia and only identical cards for sli.
:roll:

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: vailr
Does anyone know the status of non-Nvidia video cards in SLI mode?
That is: will ATI cards also work in SLI mode on the Nforce 4 boards?
I was thinking that they WOULD work, but the AT article didn't exactly state that.
Only that: with Nvidia producing both the chipset and the video card, that they'd have some kind of unspecified advantage over their competitors.
TIA

Only nVidia and only identical cards for sli.
:roll:

I wonder if nVidia holds a 3Dfx patent, or if ATi will swallow a cow and make SLI cards in the future

 

[Auric]

SoundStorm analog was crap -on par with average on-board software audio and worse than bargain-bin cards. Its sole redeeming feature was DICE, the quality of which is obviously not quite as good as uncompressed analog through a decent DAC. The drivers were reportedly only so-so as well, plus lacking full EAX compatibility. So let us not pretend it was so great.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: biostud666

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: vailr
Does anyone know the status of non-Nvidia video cards in SLI mode?
That is: will ATI cards also work in SLI mode on the Nforce 4 boards?
I was thinking that they WOULD work, but the AT article didn't exactly state that.
Only that: with Nvidia producing both the chipset and the video card, that they'd have some kind of unspecified advantage over their competitors.
TIA

Only nVidia and only identical cards for sli.
:roll:

I wonder if nVidia holds a 3Dfx patent, or if ATi will swallow a cow and make SLI cards in the future

they have to IF they are to remain competitive. . . . no special patent for multi-GPU; even Alienware has a "sli" solution (even ati . .. emember the Maxx?)
:roll:

Evidently it's ALL about drivers (ati's failed disaster the Radeon MAXX could NEVER get working win2k drivers) . . . evidently nVidia has been working on SLI for about 2-1/2 years. 😉

ATI DOES have sli-type capability built-into the r300 cores and later.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: biostud666

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: vailr
Does anyone know the status of non-Nvidia video cards in SLI mode?
That is: will ATI cards also work in SLI mode on the Nforce 4 boards?
I was thinking that they WOULD work, but the AT article didn't exactly state that.
Only that: with Nvidia producing both the chipset and the video card, that they'd have some kind of unspecified advantage over their competitors.
TIA

Only nVidia and only identical cards for sli.
:roll:

I wonder if nVidia holds a 3Dfx patent, or if ATi will swallow a cow and make SLI cards in the future

they have to IF they are to remain competitive. . . . no special patent for multi-GPU; even Alienware has a "sli" solution (even ati . .. emember the Maxx?)
:roll:

Evidently it's ALL about drivers (ati's failed disaster the Radeon MAXX could NEVER get working win2k drivers) . . . evidently nVidia has been working on SLI for about 2-1/2 years. 😉

ATI DOES have sli-type capability built-into the r300 cores and later.

I know they had the MAXX, but using it in SLI might violate a nVidia patent.......hopefullly not as we need competition.

 

[Auric]

Using the term "SLI" might violate a trademark, but using tandem cards certainly won't violate an NVIDIA patent because ATI partners already do so with, better yet, dual VPU cards. 3dfx SLI was crap and no one wants to copy that. NVIDIA SLI is completely different. I wonder if anyone has an applicable patent on load balancing? Wouldn't it be funny if ATI did and NVIDIA had to pay them royalties?

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Dacalo

Originally posted by: LordOfAll
Look at tech reports review of the fx-55 and then look at anands. TR uses a via chipset, anand uses a nf4 ref board. specifically look at the nero and winzip tests. Then get back to me on how bad the nf4 is.

Anand

TR

owned! 😀

So Tom's P4's are faster, and the 3200+ for both is equal (447 and 448 in Winzip bench...)
And the Nero results may be mainly to do wth the drive, which is the only reason I can think of for similarly equipped systems to have such a performance difference (even the P4's went from 540 in AT to 500 in Toms).

Not really how much is necessarily due to the chipset, Nero can be discounted (2x Intel 925 testbeds, different results from the sites, suggests driver differences).
And the 3200+ gets the same score, and the 3400/3500 (not directly comparable, the sites use different procs), are fairly similar (as you might expect from model ratings).
It's only the 3800/4000/FX55 which have widely differing scores (Winzip)

 

[ArneBjarne]

Originally posted by: Auric
SoundStorm analog was crap -on par with average on-board software audio and worse than bargain-bin cards. Its sole redeeming feature was DICE, the quality of which is obviously not quite as good as uncompressed analog through a decent DAC. The drivers were reportedly only so-so as well, plus lacking full EAX compatibility. So let us not pretend it was so great.

I'll take my SoundStorm DD5.1 -> Yamaha DSP-A2 connection over an analogue connection you could make from a creative card. 😉 IMO you would have to use a much more expensive cable to compete, not to mention 6 of them instead of 1.

I just can't see any sound solution out there at the moment, that wouldn't be a step back in my setup compared to the SoundStorm.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: ArneBjarne

Originally posted by: Auric
SoundStorm analog was crap -on par with average on-board software audio and worse than bargain-bin cards. Its sole redeeming feature was DICE, the quality of which is obviously not quite as good as uncompressed analog through a decent DAC. The drivers were reportedly only so-so as well, plus lacking full EAX compatibility. So let us not pretend it was so great.

I'll take my SoundStorm DD5.1 -> Yamaha DSP-A2 connection over an analogue connection you could make from a creative card. 😉 IMO you would have to use a much more expensive cable to compete, not to mention 6 of them instead of 1.

I just can't see any sound solution out there at the moment, that wouldn't be a step back in my setup compared to the SoundStorm.

No you wouldn't. That DD that your soundstorm uses is a lossy format. Any critical listening would reveal the lack of quality in music. You'd be better off using straight digital PCM for music than DD. Of course, if you're not talking about music, than sound quality isn't really THAT important, since the sources aren't great for games. Then consider that Creative cards have support for EAX 4.... and Creative wins.

 

[ArneBjarne]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: ArneBjarne

Originally posted by: Auric
SoundStorm analog was crap -on par with average on-board software audio and worse than bargain-bin cards. Its sole redeeming feature was DICE, the quality of which is obviously not quite as good as uncompressed analog through a decent DAC. The drivers were reportedly only so-so as well, plus lacking full EAX compatibility. So let us not pretend it was so great.

I'll take my SoundStorm DD5.1 -> Yamaha DSP-A2 connection over an analogue connection you could make from a creative card. 😉 IMO you would have to use a much more expensive cable to compete, not to mention 6 of them instead of 1.

I just can't see any sound solution out there at the moment, that wouldn't be a step back in my setup compared to the SoundStorm.

No you wouldn't. That DD that your soundstorm uses is a lossy format. Any critical listening would reveal the lack of quality in music. You'd be better off using straight digital PCM for music than DD. Of course, if you're not talking about music, than sound quality isn't really THAT important, since the sources aren't great for games. Then consider that Creative cards have support for EAX 4.... and Creative wins.

I'm fully aware that DD is a lossy format along with SDDS and dts (atleast until dts lossless comes out). I'm still fully satisfied by the experience i get from them though, both on my home system (DVDs and gaming)* and at my work as a projectionist (movies).

In regards to music then sure use PCM, that is no problem for the SoundStorm. It just doesn't work for gaming since it only supports 2 channels.

EAX4? What good is it when you can only get 2 channels out on digital? To me it is completly useless. It is much more important to me to have 3D positional audio AND a way to transfer it digitally to my amp.

The loss in using DD compression is negligable, especially compared to the loss of quality involved in analogue transfer and use of soundcard DAC instead of the DAC in my amp. Creative wins? Personally I wouldn't dream of spending money on one of their cards before they implement hardware encoding.


*SoundStorm uses the maximum bitrate for AC3 640 kbit/s. For comparison most DVDs use 384 kbit/s and the maximum is 448 kbit/s. for DVDs.

 

[Auric]

Indeeed.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: ArneBjarne

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: ArneBjarne

Originally posted by: Auric
SoundStorm analog was crap -on par with average on-board software audio and worse than bargain-bin cards. Its sole redeeming feature was DICE, the quality of which is obviously not quite as good as uncompressed analog through a decent DAC. The drivers were reportedly only so-so as well, plus lacking full EAX compatibility. So let us not pretend it was so great.

I'll take my SoundStorm DD5.1 -> Yamaha DSP-A2 connection over an analogue connection you could make from a creative card. 😉 IMO you would have to use a much more expensive cable to compete, not to mention 6 of them instead of 1.

I just can't see any sound solution out there at the moment, that wouldn't be a step back in my setup compared to the SoundStorm.

No you wouldn't. That DD that your soundstorm uses is a lossy format. Any critical listening would reveal the lack of quality in music. You'd be better off using straight digital PCM for music than DD. Of course, if you're not talking about music, than sound quality isn't really THAT important, since the sources aren't great for games. Then consider that Creative cards have support for EAX 4.... and Creative wins.

I'm fully aware that DD is a lossy format along with SDDS and dts (atleast until dts lossless comes out). I'm still fully satisfied by the experience i get from them though, both on my home system (DVDs and gaming)* and at my work as a projectionist (movies).

In regards to music then sure use PCM, that is no problem for the SoundStorm. It just doesn't work for gaming since it only supports 2 channels.

EAX4? What good is it when you can only get 2 channels out on digital? To me it is completly useless. It is much more important to me to have 3D positional audio AND a way to transfer it digitally to my amp.

The loss in using DD compression is negligable, especially compared to the loss of quality involved in analogue transfer and use of soundcard DAC instead of the DAC in my amp. Creative wins? Personally I wouldn't dream of spending money on one of their cards before they implement hardware encoding.


*SoundStorm uses the maximum bitrate for AC3 640 kbit/s. For comparison most DVDs use 384 kbit/s and the maximum is 448 kbit/s. for DVDs.

Duh, run EAX 4 via analogue to your amp. EAX 4 is leaps and bounds better than EAX 2.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: LordOfAll
Look at tech reports review of the fx-55 and then look at anands. TR uses a via chipset, anand uses a nf4 ref board. specifically look at the nero and winzip tests. Then get back to me on how bad the nf4 is.

Anand

TR

How can you see with that bag over your head.🙂

Good eye.😎

 

[LearnedPadawan]

A better built in soundcard wouldn't do much of a difference since most of the buyers are likely going to get their own sound cards anyway.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: ArneBjarne
*SoundStorm uses the maximum bitrate for AC3 640 kbit/s. For comparison most DVDs use 384 kbit/s and the maximum is 448 kbit/s. for DVDs.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Now I wish more than ever that Nvidia had implemented SoundStorm 2 on their newer A64 boards. 🙁

(I was a big fan of the Aureal Vorex2-based sound cards back in the day, and of A3D 2.0 positional audio. It wiped the floor with the SBLive. If it had only been capable of 3D/5.1ch audio digital encoding to send to an outboard reciever, it would have been nearly perfect. As it was, it was the preferred card for sending AC3 and DTS audio via the SPDIF pass-through feature to an outboard decoder/amp. Wonderfully pure sound even through the analog outputs too.)

 

[b3b0p]

Originally posted by: batmanuel

Originally posted by: b3b0p
Maybe I am missing something, but I just don't understand why anyone would care about encoding every sound out of their computer in DD. Most movies are already encoded in DD or DTS. Why would you want to re-encode a DD stream when it is already in DD? There is only one benefit I see to Soundstorm and that is playing WMV-HD files w/ DD. If your using your HTPC for movies (DVD? OTA HD maybe?) Why do you want real time DD encoding if it is already in DD or DTS?

I want it mainly for the analog cable shows I'd be PVRing with Media Center 2005 (or MythTV, if it supports soundstorm). Sometimes ProLogic just doesn't cut it. It would also be nice for some of the game emulators too. Space Harrier and Gyruss in DD would be pretty sweet, even if it just came out two channel plus LFE.

It also makes for much tidier cabling for HTPC applications if I only have to run a single coax or optical cable into my reciever, a big reason why nForce 2 Ultra 400 boards with S/PDIF outputs are quite popular among the HTPC crowd.

Why would you need more then one cable if the sound card has a SPDIF out? I have never had more then one cable hooked up.

Encoding anything that is/was never in DD to begin with and encoding w/ your own solution using a 2-channel stereo stream as your source seems like you would still not get a nice true DD stream with the audio comming out of the correct channels for an enjoyable surround sound experience.

I would think most a/v buffs would be worried more about getting nice high quality sound from their sources then having DD from a 2-channel stereo stream.

Chris

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
i hope that they put an AGP bridge on it, otherwise nvidia just gave me the big one🙁

if ONE thing was for certain then it was that NF4 will NOT have AGP.

I have NOTHING against new and upcoming features, and i support PCiE, dual channel, 1Gig HT and all that...i was waiting for NF4 *because* it is (one) of the first boards with PciE. The PciE is basically *the* main feature which makes it interessent (together with SLI for those who want SLI)....otherwise it is still more or less the same nforce. Without Pcie and WITH AGP it would be totally pointless 🙂