Sneak peeks/inside info on the NF3-250?

[MichaelD]

I read some stuff awhile back...but for such an (allegedly) important chipset, things have been awfully quiet. Does anyone know any new news? Linkage? This is the platform I'm waiting for...I'd like to read up on it.

 

[Schadenfroh]

^

 

[suklee]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
^

 

[MrCodeDude]

Evan, Andy, where are you guys?

 

[JBT]

Other than 1000mhz HTT nope.

 

[Sheriff]

Waiting as well,for the integrated Silicon Image SATA link for native Serial ATA support. 4 Serial ATA ports + the 2 IDE channels and will have Gigabit Ethernet, not to mention the HTT

 

[MrCodeDude]

Wow, 4 SATA connections and 2 IDE = lots of stuff. I could have four optical drives on IDE, four hard-drives on SATA. Nice

Gigabit Ethernet isn't going anywhere though, that makes me a sad panda.

 

[MDE]

I've heard this so far:
1GHz HyperTransport link
Southbridge integrated SATA with oodles of RAID options
Off PCI bus Gigabit ethernet with hardware firewall\security
AGP\PCI lock

 

[mechBgon]

From the photos of sample nForce3 boards shown in AnandTech's 2004 CES coverage, we can see that the nF3 250 is a single-chip solution too. I expect it will have more bandwidth to the "southbridge" stuff than K8T800 is offering (VIA uses a 533MB/sec "V-Link" to connect the southbridge and northbridge, still not bad).

My understanding is that it can/will have three Parallel ATA channels, so make that four optical drives plus two PATA hard drives plus four SATA drives :Q

Still waiting to see some more from SiS too. Let the good times roll

 

[Dustswirl]

so hopefully we'll see the nf3 250 for 754 cpus?

 

[mechBgon]

Aye, Captain Dustswirl And those lucky dogs and snails that hold out for the CG-stepping A64 can probably run three DDR400 modules, too. Grrr, wish I had heard about that one before buying my C0 A64, because I have three 512MB DDR400 modules and I would've liked the option to use them all

 

[cowdog]

I have scoured for info on NF3 250 and the only details on specific boards that I have found are for DFI and Epox.

I pulled this off of ocworkbench:

ETA March
DFI LANPARTY nF3 250
nForce3-250Gb
AMD Athlon64 754pin
1xHyper Transport 1600MHz
3 DDR, DDR400, 5 PCI, 1 AGP-8X
8ch AC'97
2 PATA-133 + 4 SATA RAID 0/1/0+1/JBOD
Marvell 88E1111 Gigabit PHY
2 Ports
(1 Rear+ 1 Optional)
8 USB 2.0
(4 Rear+ 4 Optional)
ATX 305x245

Epox 754 pin NF3 250 board was rumored in an inquirer piece to ship in February. The www.epox.org website (or maybe it was the Taiwan epox website) has a pdf brochure for 2004 Q1 mobos. Sure enough there is an NF3 250 board in the brochure. I'm on my dial up connection right now, and it is too slow to download here. But, I recall similar details to the DFI board.

It seems that we will see some boards soon, but how soon is anyone's guess. It seems like March is most likely at this point, which given the expected April release of 939 boards seems rather late in the game.

 

[MichaelD]

Cool. Great info! Thanks guys.

The NF3250 is simply going to kick booty. :Q One thing worries/concerns me: it's going to be Socket 754? That doesn't seem to make sense...the new 939s will be out by then? Wonder if they've already got a "Rev2.0" with Socket 939 in the works?

With the SATA drives right on the 1600MHz Hypertransport bus, they are gonna fly. :Q I may have to get rid of my SCSI setup. Yeah, right..not after all the research I did to make sure it all would work right, etc. But hey, you never know.

 

[Sideswipe001]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Cool. Great info! Thanks guys.

The NF3250 is simply going to kick booty. :Q One thing worries/concerns me: it's going to be Socket 754? That doesn't seem to make sense...the new 939s will be out by then? Wonder if they've already got a "Rev2.0" with Socket 939 in the works?

With the SATA drives right on the 1600MHz Hypertransport bus, they are gonna fly. :Q I may have to get rid of my SCSI setup. Yeah, right..not after all the research I did to make sure it all would work right, etc. But hey, you never know.

It won't make the HDs more any faster than they are already. It just means you can put more on without saturating the bus. So I think your SCSI setup is safe for a while.

 

[Sheriff]

It'll most likely be 939 compatible which is due next quarter which is what I would want if I can wait

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Sheriff
It'll most likely be 939 compatible which is due next quarter which is what I would want if I can wait

Ah, so the socket will have 939 pins...er, openings, but will also be able to use a 754-pin CPU? Ingenious.

 

[Sheriff]

LOL I meant the NForce chipset

 

[MichaelD]

Whoops, did I say that? Say what? I don't remember. Exactly.

 

[Sheriff]

Dunno it's Happy hour here and I've had a few

 

[cowdog]

It's not NF3 250, but here's an interesting A64 SIS 755 board from ASRock, the K8S8X. Doesn't show up yet on pricwatch.com, and I have yet to see a review. This could tempt me, but ...

It feels like there has to be a flood of A64 socket 754 options coming just around the corner ...

Note too that overclockers posted a link that claims socket 939 will be delayed a month. Hard to say whether or not that's a believable rumor.

Sigh. I am still torn between picking up a P4 system today or waiting (days, weeks, longer?) for more A64 mobo options. If the DFI NF3 250 board (maybe the Epox too as I love my 8RDA+) showed up at an online reseller tomorrow, I'd overnight one without reading a single word from a review. It would just be too tempting and interesting not to give it a go. But the clock is ticking and I could make good use of current cpu/mobo upgrade options yesterday. Sigh.

 

[Regs]

The APG/PCI lock will be a freaken blessing. A64 3000 @ A64 3700 speeds (2.4 GHz I think?) . Well, that's if the cpu's hold stable on stock voltage. Maybe 1.55 or 1.6 vcore will hold her steady.

I just wish they come all ready so I can see the performance gain.

 

[InlineFive]

How much money do you have MichaelD?

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: PorBleemo
How much money do you have MichaelD?

Tax returns are coming up around then, lots of tax refunds to take advantage of . Lets just hope you don't end up owing!