via vs. nforce

[pavester]

Whats better?

is there really any diference between the to?

 

[ShadowBlade]

Just go with nForce.

 

[pavester]

its not a matter of who to go with i just want to know whats the difference... does one run faster just some pros/cons. im just curious

 

[nick1985]

Nforce FTW!

 

[Greenman]

Reviews seem to show them about the same speed wise. I think the nf4 boards clock a little better.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Greenman
Reviews seem to show them about the same speed wise. I think the nf4 boards clock a little better.

Now that AMD has taken the Duity of memory access from the Northbridge and intergrated it into the CPU, the thing you now need to look at these days is the IO subsystem performance. nFORCE chips do not perform as well as ULi chips when it comes to USB and Hard Drive Performance.

 

[jimbob200521]

nForce is THE performance leader, and, yes, since the memory controller has been moved to the cpu, IO subsystem performane has become more of a performance factor that it was before the memory controller was moved, but chipset performance for the AMD platform is still a major contendor, and right now, nForce is is leading the pack in performance.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

nForce any day over a VIA board.

 

[n7]

Go with the force

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: jimbob200521
nForce is THE performance leader, and, yes, since the memory controller has been moved to the cpu, IO subsystem performane has become more of a performance factor that it was before the memory controller was moved, but chipset performance for the AMD platform is still a major contendor, and right now, nForce is is leading the pack in performance.

nice run on sentance. Show us some benchmarks that can back up that statement. ULI beats Nforce is Hard Drive Performance and that is the benchmark that should matter most.

 

[natto fire]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: jimbob200521
nForce is THE performance leader, and, yes, since the memory controller has been moved to the cpu, IO subsystem performane has become more of a performance factor that it was before the memory controller was moved, but chipset performance for the AMD platform is still a major contendor, and right now, nForce is is leading the pack in performance.

nice run on sentance. Show us some benchmarks that can back up that statement. ULI beats Nforce is Hard Drive Performance and that is the benchmark that should matter most.

Do you have any benchmarks to back your statement? I was under the impression that the only thing holding back hard drives is the drives themselves. Especially since the specs eclipsed what the drives are capable of long ago, from a STR point anyway. Burst speeds are nice, but don't nescessarily reflect real world performance.

 

[jimbob200521]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: jimbob200521
nForce is THE performance leader, and, yes, since the memory controller has been moved to the cpu, IO subsystem performane has become more of a performance factor that it was before the memory controller was moved, but chipset performance for the AMD platform is still a major contendor, and right now, nForce is is leading the pack in performance.

nice run on sentance. Show us some benchmarks that can back up that statement. ULI beats Nforce is Hard Drive Performance and that is the benchmark that should matter most.

ha, didnt even notice that runon when i wrote that. usually my grammer is, at the very least, decent.

as for the benchmarks, im basing my recommendation on magazines i read (maxpc, pc mag, and more), and other user reviews/recommendations.

and yes, hard drive performance should and does matter, but i dont think that its the one that should matter the most.

also, i do believe that the op asked which was better between nforce and via...

 

[Googer]

If the only thing holding back the drives is the drive themselvs, then you have just contradicted your previous statement. I smell a fanboy......

The Drive controller affects the drive performance just as much as the drive it's self. Here are some compairisons of various PCI-X and PCI-Express Plugin controllers. nFORCE is not perfect (like you probably think it is) and just like VIA or SiS it too has problems and flaws. None of the AMD Chipsets are perfect or as good as those produced by Intel and AMD. ULi is the performance leader

And I do understand that Bust rates do not matter, it is sustained performance that is the measure of drive or controllers capabilities.

If HDD Brand A Can sustain a low of 41MB/s and a high of 45MB/s
Brand B can sustain a low of 39MB/s and a high of 46MB/s
Brand C can sustain a low of 40MB/s and a high of 47MB/s

The way to choose between these is to look a the lowest possible transfer rates of each drive and pick the one that has the fastest minimal transfer speed. In this case Brand A would be the winner even though it has the slowest burst speed.

 

[jimbob200521]

ok, ill give uli a plus for synthetic hard drive benchmarks, but what about real world performance in not only hard drives, but every other subsystem as well.

as for smelling a fanboy, are you sure thats not you.

edit: btw, nforce is not perfect, i dont think anybody here has tried to give that impression

 

[gotsmack]

I'm never going to buy another VIA chipset mobo again. They've been in the chipset business for as long as I can remember and they still can't design a decent chipset.

Their last chipset mobo I bought had the K8T800 pro chipset and it doesn't work with SATA2 drives.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: jimbob200521
ok, ill give uli a plus for synthetic hard drive benchmarks, but what about real world performance in not only hard drives, but every other subsystem as well.

as for smelling a fanboy, are you sure thats not you.

I only smell a fanboy when some one sticks by a product with out even knowing it's performance capabilities. A fanboy in my book is some one who stands by all the companies products even though they have been beaten by the competition, yet they still swear they are the best (performers). NVIDIA has the strongest fanboy base of almost any hardware maker out there.

ULi does even better in real world benchmarks . I am not a big proponent of overclocking but ULi is at the top of that benchmark too.

and yes, hard drive performance should and does matter, but i dont think that its the one that should matter the most.

also, i do believe that the op asked which was better between nforce and via...

Then tell me, of all the IO subsystems which one would be the most important? (Network, Floppy, IDE, SATA, USB, 1394, PCI, PCI-e, etc)

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2489&p=6

In the past VIA has produced some real good chipsets as well as a few stinkers. But so has Intel (i820 comes to mind). But the most recent designs like the whole K8t8** line from VIA have been really decent and stable with little problems reported. NFORCE4 will out perform K8T890, but only by about 1-2% in most benchmarks. Price to performance VIA wins. IF you are willing to spend the extra cash get Nforce and if you want a fast board get one with ULI.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/558-2/via-k8t890-vs-nvidia-nforce-4.html

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: pavester
Whats better?

is there really any diference between the to?

I use both. Both are pretty good. Go with whatever board has the feature set and price point you want.

 

[fire400]

Originally posted by: ShadowBlade
Just go with nForce.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: jimbob200521
nForce is THE performance leader

Check out the Uli m1695...

 

[jlbenedict]

Honestly, I'm about to jump off of the nForce4 "wagon" myself..

I'm kind of sick of the SATA corruption issues, USB issues....

I'm waiting on initial reports of how the K8T900 chipset performs and its stability factor.. also waiting for more releases of ATI's Xpress 200 Crossfire boards to come out on the market..

 

[jimbob200521]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: jimbob200521
ok, ill give uli a plus for synthetic hard drive benchmarks, but what about real world performance in not only hard drives, but every other subsystem as well.

as for smelling a fanboy, are you sure thats not you.

I only smell a fanboy when some one sticks by a product with out even knowing it's performance capabilities. A fanboy in my book is some one who stands by all the companies products even though they have been beaten by the competition, yet they still swear they are the best (performers). NVIDIA has the strongest fanboy base of almost any hardware maker out there.

no offense intended, but i think we both are coming across as fanboys here. and to tell the truth, i have had only 1 nvidia based motherboard, and i have had it for less than 2 weeks! and before this system, i had been an intel and ati user for the that past couple years.

Originally posted by: jimbob200521
and yes, hard drive performance should and does matter, but i dont think that its the one that should matter the most.

Originally posted by: Googer
Then tell me, of all the IO subsystems which one would be the most important? (Network, Floppy, IDE, SATA, USB, 1394, PCI, PCI-e, etc)

The point i was trying to make by saying that hard drive performance was that its not the only factor that one should consider when buying a motherboard. performance should be cumulatively based on all they subsystems in a computer, not just one specific system.

well, after reviewing several sites' reviews and ratings on the uli chipset, i must admit, i am impressed with it. but, as a matter of personal preferance, i still prefer nvidias nforce

 

[johnnqq]

uhh if you look at most crossfire reviews, they have much WORSE usb performance than nforce. the only drawback to nforce is that they get hot.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: jlbenedict
Honestly, I'm about to jump off of the nForce4 "wagon" myself..

I'm kind of sick of the SATA corruption issues, USB issues....

I'm waiting on initial reports of how the K8T900 chipset performs and its stability factor.. also waiting for more releases of ATI's Xpress 200 Crossfire boards to come out on the market..

NVIDIA should stick to doing what they do best: making graphics chips. Let AMD design chipsets for AMD processors.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: johnnqq
uhh if you look at most crossfire reviews, they have much WORSE usb performance than nforce. the only drawback to nforce is that they get hot.

USB performance is only secondary. How often do you need the full bandwith of USB2? I doubt most of us need it more than twice a month. But HDD performance we depend on every time we use the PC.

 

[dguy6789]

I agree with googer.


I have two pcs. One runs an Athlon 64 3000+ with a ULI mainboard(the one in sig) while another pc runs an Athlon 64 2800+ with an Nforce 3 150(the only difference between nforce 3 and 4 is pcie and the htt bus) mainboard.

With both running at the same clock speed and such with very similar harddrives, the ULI machine always loads games faster by 5+ seconds every time I play a lan game with both.

But for the topic, I would pick nVidia over VIA because of drivers alone.