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NVIDIA nForce Chipset Review. Part II: Graphics, IDE, Sound

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<< It is most definitely a bug, and not an option. Anyone saying otherwise is just an nvidiot.

No company that is sane would use slot B as the super stability slot.

IMO, the chipset is crap. It isn't ready to be released, as they never got the memory timing right, which is a difficult task for DDR. When you combine it with the low quality sound (don't blame it on sub-standard parts, its their own reference board), and VIA IDE performance, there is really no reason to go with it. The ethernet controller is the only nice thing, and that comes on most boards as options. >>



Actually, Xbitlab's is the only attempt to try sound on the reference board. The other reviewers who tried it on the MSI and Asus boards say they have the best sound quality they have heard on a PC.

Speaking of memory, the specification calls for five banks of memory. It is no more of a bug than, say, AMD 760 supporting four non-ECC banks maximum. And some AMD 760 mobos have four memory slots, so would you call a bug the fact that they can't hold four dual-bank modules?

Leo
 


<< IMO, the chipset is crap. >>


You must be kidding? If this chipset is crap, than how come it outperforms ALL but the latest incarnation of the via 266a. That includes, the AMD 760, sis 735, Ali Magik, and kt 266.

'Dont hate the player (nvidia), hate the game(chipsets)' 😀
 
It is most definitely a bug, and not an option. Anyone saying otherwise is just an nvidiot.

IMO, the chipset is crap. It isn't ready to be released, as they never got the memory timing right, which is a difficult task for DDR. When you combine it with the low quality sound (don't blame it on sub-standard parts, its their own reference board), and VIA IDE performance, there is really no reason to go with it. The ethernet controller is the only nice thing, and that comes on most boards as options.

The definition of a "bug" in the case of a chipset would be if it caused instability or lowered performance. Since nForce?s ?bug? doesn?t cause instability according to every reviewer out there (and according to my nForce rig 🙂) then that only leaves performance. So, while filling all 3 DIMM slots would be lowering performance around 15% or so (forgot which review had the numbers), there's a workaround! Simply DO NOT fill all 3 DIMM slots, and you'll get maximum performance and stability.

So far nForce has proven to have very few problems (certainly compared to VIA and ALi, with SiS being somewhat controversial); another few months and we?ll know for sure if nForce is the most stable Socket A board on the market.

Yeah, so it's a "bug" AA0. It certainly doesn't mean that nForce is "crap", not by a long shot. It?s still one of the fastest and most feature rich boards on the market, and yet you call it crap? Out of all the reasons you give for nForce being ?crap?, all I'd like to know is:

1. What DDR memory timing problems are you talking about. Are you still referring to the "bug"?
2. Low quality sound? Are you joking, you must of missed the part in XBit's review that stated that the nForce?s APU is up there with the best add-in sound cards on the market. Not only that, but XBit's review was the most negative review I've heard so far about the nForce's APU (they had sound quality issues, the ONLY review out there that has mentioned this AFAIK). Look at ANY other review and you'll see that each and every reviewer praises the sound quality and performance of the nForce's APU.
3. And having "VIA IDE performance" is a bad thing? Did you look at XBit's numbers, the Promise controller was scoring nearly identically to that of nForce and VIA! Here's what XBit said about nForce's IDE performance:

We have just got acquainted with the IDE part of nForce chipset, and we haven't got any unpleasant post-impressions. Everything worked correctly and surprisingly fast. At first, we felt somewhat skeptical about this product, as NVIDIA is a fresh figure in the chipset world, but gradually our skepticism transformed into true respect, if not admiration. At the very first attempt NVIDIA engineers succeeded in creating a really competitive controller, while NVIDIA programmers can be proud of the drivers they developed.
 
NFS4 wrote:

"That's a bunch of crap that Pabster has been throwing around for the lord knows how long."

... A "bunch of crap" that every single site which has investigated VIA's latest round of chipset woes agrees with.

Any number of VIA users here on AT can tell you story after story about dismal IDE performance with their VIA south bridge.
 


<< Well, we should stress however, that a lot depends here on the quality of sound cards and the speakers. In case of nForce we were displeased to state that the sound quality turned out very low. We even couldn't estimate the clearness, sharpness, depth or breadth of the sound: it was of blatantly low quality, with noise and wheezes existing even at the lowest volume level.

The other thing that distressed us was no 3D sound we obtained with nForce using six speakers, which we expected to have bearing in mind the use of Sensaura algorithms. Perhaps, this feature will be implemented in the upcoming driver versions.

Summing up the sound quality matters, we'd like to remind you that nearly every integrated sound solution proves weaker than external sound cards, so it would be unwise to leave our hopes with nForce believing it will ever be able to compete with add-on sound cards. >>



I was hoping for better sound quality then this,I was going to buy the nForce but got tired of waiting so I think I made the right choice with my current board anyway the benchmarks were impressive even against the Audigy.

Overall for Nvidia`s first attempt in this field it`s pretty good not perfect but what is nowadays.

🙂

 
Here's my thoughts on SuperStability. I think that it is a good feature. I'd rather have the board run, then just not run at all. I do think that nVidia messed up big in how they implemented it. here's what they should've done:

1. Given more control in the BIOS.
2. Informed the public about it rather than to have GamePC "uncover" it.

I think that as long as board manufacturers would give BIOS control over it then everything will be fine. The other thing is that I wish that board manufactures would just ditch the 3rd DIMM slot. I mean it wouldn't be that big of a deal, I mean 845-D boards only have 2 DIMM's, AMD 760 boards (except for KG7) have only 2 DIMM slots, so what's the big deal? I think that would solve everything.
 
What is the point of even trying to explain things to some people. They don't read what is right in front of them, just spout nonsense.

Case in point - Mem's post about the sound (after it had been pointed out several times they are reviewing a reference, not production board.

If you are still convinced nforce has a memory bug or bad IDE performance or sh!tty sound then I won't try to change your mind - it's obviously already made up and you have obviously never seen nforce in action. Good luck with whatever chipset you do choose.

Greg
 


<< What is the point of even trying to explain things to some people. They don't read what is right in front of them, just spout nonsense.

Case in point - Mem's post about the sound (after it had been pointed out several times they are reviewing a reference, not production board >>



WOW!!!!! I think someone is trying to flame me 😉 anyway I know it`s a reference board but I was still disappointed with the sound quality comment infact that was the only negative thing I said in my post and I stand by it,btw I do own a Nvidia graphics card so am not biased and was giving my honest opinion on nForce.

It`s getting to the point now where you can`t post honest comments without being attacked.

 


<< So far nForce has proven to have very few problems >>

This could be because so few have purchased and used nforce boards. Only time will tell.
 
It was not meant as a personal attack Mem.

I just cannot believe the uniformed tripe that get posted on these forums at times (especially when there is a chance to kick nVidia in the guts) even when the subject at hand has been discussed to death in the first place. Sometimes I think headbutting a brick wall would be more productive.

I suggest you read some more reviews on the nforce sound system before you let yourself be too dissapointed by what one reviewer wrote. Better still find a friend who has one or a store stocking the board and listen for yourself.

Greg
 


<< (especially when there is a chance to kick nVidia in the guts) >>



I`m an Nvidia fan when it come to graphics cards so no way will I flame them infact I don`t flame any brands,anyway it`s too late for me since I`m happy with my Epox 8KHA+ board now maybe down the road with a later generation from Nvidia things might change for me.

Anyway as I said at the end of my post it`s great 1st attempt by Nvidia I`m sure down the road things will only get better for them.


🙂

 


<< Don't worry Mem, we all know you're one of the good ones. >>



AGodspeed,


I try to be 🙂,anyway I was little surprised by that remark on me, it would be like someone saying Pabster was insulting SiS chipsets, that would never happen .Anyway no hard feelings here 🙂.

SnowPunk98 said something about no pics on the nForce in that review well Xbit have never been a great review site when it comes to having pics.


🙂
 
I guess if there is anything you can draw from the x-bit labs review, it is that nforce motherboards based purely on the reference design that lower ranked motherboard companies are likely to produce may have substandard a/v components on them.

However this has yet to happen. All the production boards out there now are of excellent quality. The instant a company releases a substandard board, I'll be there criticising as loudly as anyone else. At this point in time though such criticism is not needed.

(and just for the record once more Mem: I wasn't suggesting you were anti-nvidia at all - the comments were aimed at the entire forum; you just happened to be unfortunate enough to be the poster who brought the sound up again - sorry).

Greg
 
why does a reference board have bad sound quality? nVidia's reference video cards don't seem to have bad 2D, so why should their reference mobo have bad DACs?

I don't know what their problem is, but it seems odd to me that the proof of concept board does exactly the opposite.

how come it outperforms ALL but the latest incarnation of the via 266a. That includes, the AMD 760, sis 735, Ali Magik, and kt 266.

really I didn't know it outperforms the SiS735. that Leadtek mobo is VERY competitive with the KT266A performance wise.

... A "bunch of crap" that every single site which has investigated VIA's latest round of chipset woes agrees with.

and XBitlabs doesn't.. that's odd.

hell, I can't wait for SiS's next Athlon chipset, I'm just sick of all the bashing of Via's chipsets that I don't see any reason for it. I haven't benched my HD though..
 
Well, the courier *finally* delivered my second DDR DIMM this afternoon and I've had a good play around. Twin bank mode is very definitely noticeable, even if you use an external agp card life me (Geforce2 Pro 64mb). It depends what you are doing as to how pronounced the sppedup is at any given time, but one of my early predictions have been proven right.

Long before I purchased an nforce board I said that it would show the most performance improvement when the system was experiencing stress in most of its subsystems at once. I went on to suggest that the games reviewers were using didn't strain the system sufficiently and suggested Ultima 9 Ascension would be a suitable test candidate.

Well, I'd say that going from the old VIA system to nforce with one dimm was a good 25% improvement in speed and "smoothness" - the game ran quite acceptably, but going from 1 dimm to 2 dimms added at least another 30% performance boost - to the point where I wondered if I hadn't booted Quake3 up instead.

This is where the nforce excels - at balancing up competing demands in a system and allowing the data to flow smoothly.

I have another theory I haven't mentioned up until now because I wanted to be reasonably sure, but, assuming AMD introduces a Thoroughbred chip that can utilize a DRR 166mhz FSB, i'm certain nforce will be capable of fulfilling that chips bandwidth requirements without needing faster memory while SiS and VIA will need to introduce newer chipsets.

Greg
 
Yes, the MSI K7N420 Pro does include both sound and LAN, but be careful to check the contents of the box carefully before purchasing. Some vendors are including the optional CNR card required for 5.1 analog output (it supplies the rear and centre/sub channel outputs) and others are not.

If the CNR card is not in the box, it is a huge hassle to get hold of one. I am still waiting on one myself. This is one area where is am quite disappointed with MSI. They should have had the card ready to ship at the same time as the motherboards, and the actual outputs it enables should have been on the I/O backplate in the first place (in place of the analog joystick port, which could have been placed on the SP/DIF bracket).

Greg
 
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