Still no word of the nforce3 250?!

stardust

Golden Member
May 17, 2003
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I eagerly waited until March 1st for the "introduction" of the nforce3 250 chipsets in an europe conference somewhere, but it's already March 3rd, and there's still no word of the 250. What in the world is delaying these chips? I've heard rumors of it supporting both socket 754 and 939 and other rumors about 1ghz HT and other need divider locking features.

Please post all you know about this mysterious board and any info you may know about it's release, many thnks!
 

MichaelD

Lifer
Jan 16, 2001
31,528
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I haven't seen anything. Bump. I am waiting for this as well.

Just a little "MHO Thought" here: It's usually not a good sign when things are delayed like this. I am guessing that the first NF3-250 boards will be buggy. I HOPE I'm wrong! But I'm thinking that the V2.0 boards will be much better. Again, this is pure speculation on my part.
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
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Me or Wes will be meeting with NVIDIA in the next week, so we'll know more then. We'll let you guys know, just send a PM. :)
 

MichaelD

Lifer
Jan 16, 2001
31,528
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Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
Me or Wes will be meeting with NVIDIA in the next week, so we'll know more then. We'll let you guys know, just send a PM. :)

You rock, Evan. Hey...um...can I go meet w/NVidia too? I will have the NDA tattooed on my forehead if they want. ;)

Thanks much.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
Me or Wes will be meeting with NVIDIA in the next week, so we'll know more then. We'll let you guys know, just send a PM. :)
I'd be interested in hearing any update on the fabled MCP-S1000 southbridge option for nForce2 also. Did they say "the heck with it, SocketA is going away too soon" or what happened to that?

I wouldn't pass up the chance to be on your PM list, either... :D
 

stardust

Golden Member
May 17, 2003
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Originally posted by: MichaelD
Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
Me or Wes will be meeting with NVIDIA in the next week, so we'll know more then. We'll let you guys know, just send a PM. :)

You rock, Evan. Hey...um...can I go meet w/NVidia too? I will have the NDA tattooed on my forehead if they want. ;)

Thanks much.

I was at nvidia earlier this year for an interview, they don't tell you much more than you already know, but you do get nice demo gifts in their showroom.
Last I checked, their showroom had a PCI-Express motherboard demo on display, but it looks like a DUD to me.

Maybe i'll give my friend a call and have him share some news about upcoming events. (He works for the graphics dept. unfortunately, so no mobo info..)
 

cowdog

Senior member
Jan 24, 2003
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There is a little bit of information here, the first "preview" I've come across.

At this point I think I will pick up an NF 250 board when they hit the resellers, assuming they aren't outrageously expensive. I ordered an SLK-948u the other day, but it still allows me to hedge my bets as it supports both 754 A64 and 478 P4. I'm itching to play with some new toyz.
 

Tiorapatea

Member
Oct 7, 2003
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Originally posted by: cowdog
There is a little bit of information here, the first "preview" I've come across.

Nice link, cowdog, thanks.

Good to see that Anandtech will be seeing nVidia soon, I've been waiting for your chipset roadmap for those guys. Just remember to give them a hard time about the endless delays on nforce3 250 - they announced this vaporware before the launch of the Athlon64 and their website has been carrying this limited specification list for months, which conflates the features of nforce3 150 and nforce3 250, making it very confusing for those trying to understand the differences between the two chipsets. Make sure also to pin them down on whether Soundstorm will be offered on 250 and, if not, ask them why.

Finally, I would really like you to ask them to comment on stability issues that have been encountered by people trying to run Linux distributions on motherboards based on nforce2 chipsets. These are well-documented in numerous newsgroup postings and, regardless of whether the fault lies with AMD, nVidia, or Bios implementations, I want to know what nVidia is doing to help ensure that these problems get patched, either in the kernel or in Bioses.

Thanks, guys, and I hope you feel you can ask nVidia some tough questions without being forever frozen out. :)
 

cowdog

Senior member
Jan 24, 2003
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Good point about AT asking nVidia some tough questions. Here are a couple more to add to the list.

Will NF3-250, socket 754, have pci/agp lock as many hope? Don't let them skirt this one!!! ;)

And, there are rumors that NF3-150 has pci/agp lock but that the motherboard manufacturers somehow didn't incorporate it (I'm not sure this makes sense to me). If true, is there a bios update or something that will enable the "stealth" pci/agp lock on the NF3-150 boards?

Finally, when will we see NF3-250 boards in stock at mainsteam resellers like newegg, zipzoomfly, mwave, etc.?

Thanks
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Grrrrr... inquiring minds cannot find out at Chaintech's site. Inquiring minds are saving their pennies, though :p Dasm, 1700Mbit+ throughput, all without touching the PCI bus... sign me up for that! :cool:
 

stardust2

Junior Member
Mar 11, 2004
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Well it seems i am forever locked out of my old account while changing emails...

Anyway, some more progress on the nforce3 for you all:

Hexus

It looks like the article URL we use for preview revisions was leaked out. Oops. It'll get 'officially' released soon, possibly with some extra testing tacked on from one of NVIDIA's full press kits, on top of the results from the ...erm, 'Qualification Sample' board I used for the article.

For those that didn't get to see it and are interested in the conclusion, it's competent and pretty speedy, but it's not a revolutionary step over, or any faster than, anything that's out just now already. Indeed it's merely playing feature catch up with VIA K8T800 in some respects, a chipset that's been out since the beginning.

Anyway, we'll have the coverage back up soon.

EDIT: I've had a couple of emails asking about 1000MHz HT support in the new chips. It seems it is in there, but only wants to kick in when you use a new CPU that'll require it. Maybe. I'm still not 100% sure and as I mention in the review, the press documentation is usefully vague. It was definitely 800MHz HT clock for the duration of the testing, for the benchmarks I obtained, using a regular Socket 754 Model 3200+. We were however using an ES BIOS and have been told a shipping BIOS will give a lot more tweaking and speed to the chipset.

Who has seen the original "preview" plz share with us your cached screens.
 

stardust2

Junior Member
Mar 11, 2004
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BTW i think its cute how i have 775 posts on my last account b4 being forever locked from it..

reminds me of... Socket-T 775...

Sigh

I guess sometimes things just go wrong.
 

stardust2

Junior Member
Mar 11, 2004
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Originally posted by: wicktron
FiringSquad has their nForce3 250gb preview up as well.

Anandtech, let's see some of your reviews ;)

I'm glad the to finally see some benchmarks for the nforce3 250, now for the overclocking results...
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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By golly, Asus had better make an nF3 250Gb version of the K8N-E Deluxe, or the Precious will be angry!!! :|
 

stardust

Golden Member
May 17, 2003
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It's april now, the reviews have come and gone, but where is the product? I dare you companies to release this board next week! :evil:

It really sucks waiting, but for those wondering I have these components for my new A64 system now.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (coming very soon hopefully, had to return my 3200+ :()
1gb Geil Ultra Platinum PC4000 (Giving geil one.. last.. try..)
2x 80gb Maxtor SATA harddrives to run RAID 0
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb (Temporary gfx card from my old system)
16x MSI Starspeed DVD
52x32x52 Liteon CDRW
420W TT Purepower PSU w/ Active PFC
Lian Li PC65B
Dtek Flowmaster XT water cooling kit (should be here by next week) :D

and thanks to mechBgon my system is nice and clean with wire sleeving :)
 

MrJim

Member
Jan 10, 2003
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Yes, me also wants to know if soundstorm will be incorporated onto the 250!! Or if its going to be sold separatly soon! The best digital output ever ;)
 

stardust

Golden Member
May 17, 2003
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Originally posted by: MrJim
Yes, me also wants to know if soundstorm will be incorporated onto the 250!! Or if its going to be sold separatly soon! The best digital output ever ;)

Sadly, i doubt it is going to be included this time.. none of the preview sample boards sent out to hardware websites had soundstorm.