Why doesn't the nForce2 have Gigabit Ethernet?

[CZroe]

Why doesn't the nForce2 have Gigabit Ethernet?

With all the engineering aspects hammered out for years and the capability to run off of everyday cabling, what was keeping nVidia from creating a Gigabit Ethernet controller instead? It wouldn't have added one penny to the cost of the board. It must be some sort of conspiracy to separate low-end and high-end equipment to keep from loosing the low end and phazing out the high-end markets. There is no licensing cost, right?

I consider the nForce2 the most complete motherboard chipset but how could they have left this out? It would have been one more way to differentiate the nForce2 not only from the nForce1, but nearly every other motherboard out there. If a manufacturer want's to integrate a Gigabit ethernet controller on an nForce2 board, they now have a managerie (or mess) of different ethernet chipsets (The nForce2 includes an nVidia and 3COM controller)!

It's 100% ready for consumers and it's about time. I remember when it was faster than consumer level hard drives. I was able to host a CD image on a huge file server and access them using Daemon-Tools on all my systems faster than a real CD. This benefit is disapearing now and it's looking as if Gigabit was put off for home use UNTIL it was a bottleneck.

 

[mechBgon]

I agree insofar as it goes... maybe nVidia felt that the 800Mb/sec Hypertransport bus between northbridge and southbridge had plenty to do already. Gigabit switches are still expensive, too... 16-port unmanaged Netgear, $1200. Ouch!

 

[CZroe]

Too bad it doesn't support 1394b and its 800Mbps cat5 networking spec. Oh well, 400Mbps networking isn't half bad but it sure limits dedicated hardware options.

 

[Lord Evermore]

It would actually have added to the cost of the board. You don't think it costs them more to develop Gigabit over copper devices and integrate it into the chipset? You don't think 3Com would have charged more for the integration of a 3Com Gigabit MAC?

99% of users only need a 100Mbps connection for the computer. There's no reason for them to put the money into developing a Gigabit solution yet for that 1% of people that do need it. Gigabit is most effective as a backbone interconnect, with 100Mbps connections to each individual computer. Most "enthusiasts" who are going for the nForce2 aren't going to put out the cash to be running Gigabit throughout their home. Offices which might need Gigabit speeds on the desktop aren't going to be putting money into an nForce2 chipset board in the first place, they're going to be buying systems based on a mature, stable, and inexpensive chipset, from an OEM, and more than likely an Intel based system.

All the boards you've seen so far that have Gigabit connections do it through an external controller from Broadcom or Intel. They don't have it integrated into the chipset either. Why don't you complain that Intel or SiS hasn't integrated Gigabit yet, when they do have a 10/100 controller built in?

The Hypertransport bus is 800MBps, not megabit. Plenty for Gigabit which is only 133MBps. Every board that has a Gigabit controller on it is going to theoretically encounter bandwidth problems, since the Gigabit controller COULD fill the PCI bus all by itself, let alone whether it has any other devices running over PCI.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
It would actually have added to the cost of the board. You don't think it costs them more to develop Gigabit over copper devices and integrate it into the chipset? You don't think 3Com would have charged more for the integration of a 3Com Gigabit MAC?

99% of users only need a 100Mbps connection for the computer. There's no reason for them to put the money into developing a Gigabit solution yet for that 1% of people that do need it. Gigabit is most effective as a backbone interconnect, with 100Mbps connections to each individual computer. Most "enthusiasts" who are going for the nForce2 aren't going to put out the cash to be running Gigabit throughout their home. Offices which might need Gigabit speeds on the desktop aren't going to be putting money into an nForce2 chipset board in the first place, they're going to be buying systems based on a mature, stable, and inexpensive chipset, from an OEM, and more than likely an Intel based system.

All the boards you've seen so far that have Gigabit connections do it through an external controller from Broadcom or Intel. They don't have it integrated into the chipset either. Why don't you complain that Intel or SiS hasn't integrated Gigabit yet, when they do have a 10/100 controller built in?

The Hypertransport bus is 800MBps, not megabit. Plenty for Gigabit which is only 133MBps. Every board that has a Gigabit controller on it is going to theoretically encounter bandwidth problems, since the Gigabit controller COULD fill the PCI bus all by itself, let alone whether it has any other devices running over PCI.

For the record, the native nvidia nForce and nForce2 10/100 controller is in fact not on the PCI bus, which is nice (I don't know about the 3Com). If they did integrate 10/100/1000 then I'd be elated, since I'm an exception to the truth that most corporate consumers will buy Intel (I'm getting great results with nForce and am now testing nForce2). But I agree, that isn't likely to happen.

 

[Bojangles139]

the controller might be cheap, but the switch is cost prohibative. besides, who needs that much thru-put?

brandon

 

[Lord Evermore]

I know the nforce controller isn't on the PCI bus. I don't think the 3Com is either. I was only commenting on existing boards with a separate Gigabit chip flooding the PCI bus, for people who think it's a perfect solution to always have Gigabit on a board.

Gigabit's throughput can be useful for servers with a lot of users pulling files, or a backup server, aside from the use as an interconnect between switches. However being used with a consumer system, it's pretty much pointless. Even though you won't get nearly the full theoretical throughput, you could still get enough transfer to be too fast for an IDE hard drive, maybe even two of them in RAID striping. For the majority of users and businesses, a 100Mbps connection is fine for all uses, even a network backup of a desktop since it can be done overnight.

 

[Ichinisan]

MSI MS-6590 KT4 Ultra has gigabit ethernet. But it is not a suitable alternative to the nForce2 performance-wise.

 

[CZroe]

And neither is it a SFF alternative.

It would actually have added to the cost of the board. You don't think it costs them more to develop Gigabit over copper devices and integrate it into the chipset? You don't think 3Com would have charged more for the integration of a 3Com Gigabit MAC

My point is that it is already developed and would cost nothing extra to integrate beyond the two MACs currently used. Quite literally, Gigabit is just a paper spec and wire certification "go ahead" for technology that's been around for ages.

Why don't you complain that Intel or SiS hasn't integrated Gigabit yet, when they do have a 10/100 controller built in?

Because the nForce and nForce2 are the first high-prformance highly integrated motherboards capable of supporting Gigabit Ethernet without slowing down the PCI bus or requiring 64bit/66MHz PCI, PCI-X or what not. It's stable and winning corporate customers left and right. Slim rack-mount servers typically require integrated video and networking (Though a dual-CPU chipset is more suited for some) putting the nForce a step beyond most. Besides, many of those are available with Gigabit Ethernet from VARIOUS manufacturers. The SFF PC is obviously limited in its expandability and the nForce is a must-have. Imagine how much more valuable it would be to have Gigabit Ethernet in it! A small home server that doesn't even require a CD-ROM. It could access and use storage & CD images over the Gigabit Ethernet network. If it had nVidia Personal Cinema, it could stream full quality video to every PC connected and store all recordings externally. None of this would be more complicated than a simple file share/drive map. I'd say we're ready.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Actually several generations of chipsets from all the manufacturers have used a link between the north and southbridges that's fast enough to handle Gigabit as well as full PCI bandwidth, so there really hasn't been any technical limitation. Intel's 810 chipset used a 266MBps bus (obviously not an AMD chip board). VIA's V-Link was 266MBps in the KT266 line and is a whopping 533MBps in the KT400. SiS's 735 chipset didn't even have such limitations; with the single chip solution, they reached 1.2GBps and the current MuTIOL is 1GBps.

Just because a specification is finalized and available doesn't mean that hardware implementations of it will suddenly materialize from thin air. They can't just suddenly make a high performance Gigabit controller just because the specifications of how they communicate are finalized. All the controllers from different companies aren't the same in hardware; the different types of hardware are only designed to communicate in the same way. Aside from the need for nvidia to either design their own controller, or license it from someone else, they have to integrate that into the southbridge while minimizing the size increase of the chipset. All that design work costs money (they already had a 10/100 controller from the original nForce to work from, rather than designing a new Gigabit), and licensing a Gigabit controller from someone else WOULD cost more than licensing a 10/100 controller. Along with that, they needed to get the chipset out SOON. They were already delayed enough. Having to design an entirely new controller may have caused even further delays, and for what? A few thousand people who might want to have Gigabit, compared to the millions who don't want to pay the extra cost?

The simple fact is there isn't enough demand yet for integration of Gigabit in the chipset. "Home theatre" setups just aren't drawing in customers, and setting up a system between rooms to stream video is frankly beyond the capabilities of most home users (no matter how easy YOU feel it is to map a drive).

 

[thorin]

1) Extrememly negligable usefullness for Joe Average. (You're cable/DSL connection doesn't even test your 10mbit or 100mbit Hub/Switch/Router/NIC)
2) Cost (not just of the NIC you want them to implement but also of other hardware).
3) Market saturation of Gigabit components is still low. (This relates to points 1 & 2).

"99% of users only need a 100Mbps connection for the computer. " Actually I'd have to argue that one with you. 99% of users only require 10Mbps .... actually only 2Mbps for their cable/DSL connection. 100 is a nicety if you have a home LAN but ALOT of users still only have 1 computer inthe house.


Thorin

 

[LeeTJ]

Originally posted by: thorin
1) Extrememly negligable usefullness for Joe Average. (You're cable/DSL connection doesn't even test your 10mbit or 100mbit Hub/Switch/Router/NIC)
2) Cost (not just of the NIC you want them to implement but also of other hardware).
3) Market saturation of Gigabit components is still low. (This relates to points 1 & 2).

"99% of users only need a 100Mbps connection for the computer. " Actually I'd have to argue that one with you. 99% of users only require 10Mbps .... actually only 2Mbps for their cable/DSL connection. 100 is a nicety if you have a home LAN but ALOT of users still only have 1 computer inthe house.


Thorin

thorin

ur basing it on internet speeds and yet I would like it for the file transer aspect of speed. nics are not used exclusively for internet access but also used for LAN access.

i won't venture to guess a number but i'm sure that more than 1% of users could take advantage of additional bandwidth for file transfers on the LAN level.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: LeeTJ

Originally posted by: thorin
1) Extrememly negligable usefullness for Joe Average. (You're cable/DSL connection doesn't even test your 10mbit or 100mbit Hub/Switch/Router/NIC)
2) Cost (not just of the NIC you want them to implement but also of other hardware).
3) Market saturation of Gigabit components is still low. (This relates to points 1 & 2).

"99% of users only need a 100Mbps connection for the computer. " Actually I'd have to argue that one with you. 99% of users only require 10Mbps .... actually only 2Mbps for their cable/DSL connection. 100 is a nicety if you have a home LAN but ALOT of users still only have 1 computer inthe house.

thorin, ur basing it on internet speeds and yet I would like it for the file transer aspect of speed. nics are not used exclusively for internet access but also used for LAN access.

i won't venture to guess a number but i'm sure that more than 1% of users could take advantage of additional bandwidth for file transfers on the LAN level.

Uh perhaps you didn't read my whole post or something but I already addressed that issue: "100 is a nicety if you have a home LAN but ALOT of users still only have 1 computer in the house."

I should also point out that altough our chipsets and interfaces can likely handle the possible traffic generated by 1Gbit networking our IDE HDs can't. 100mbit no problem that's only 12.5MB/Sec max current hard drives can easily write that quickly. However 1Gbit is a different story the best IDE HDs on the market max at ~59MB/Sec which is BELOW half of the possible 125MB/Sec that Gigabit networking could push.

Thorin

 

[LeeTJ]

Originally posted by: thorin

Originally posted by: LeeTJ

Originally posted by: thorin
1) Extrememly negligable usefullness for Joe Average. (You're cable/DSL connection doesn't even test your 10mbit or 100mbit Hub/Switch/Router/NIC)
2) Cost (not just of the NIC you want them to implement but also of other hardware).
3) Market saturation of Gigabit components is still low. (This relates to points 1 & 2).

"99% of users only need a 100Mbps connection for the computer. " Actually I'd have to argue that one with you. 99% of users only require 10Mbps .... actually only 2Mbps for their cable/DSL connection. 100 is a nicety if you have a home LAN but ALOT of users still only have 1 computer inthe house.

thorin, ur basing it on internet speeds and yet I would like it for the file transer aspect of speed. nics are not used exclusively for internet access but also used for LAN access.

i won't venture to guess a number but i'm sure that more than 1% of users could take advantage of additional bandwidth for file transfers on the LAN level.

Uh perhaps you didn't read my whole post or something but I already addressed that issue: "100 is a nicety if you have a home LAN but ALOT of users still only have 1 computer in the house."

I should also point out that altough our chipsets and interfaces can likely handle the possible traffic generated by 1Gbit networking our IDE HDs can't. 100mbit no problem that's only 12.5MB/Sec max current hard drives can easily write that quickly. However 1Gbit is a different story the best IDE HDs on the market max at ~59MB/Sec which is BELOW half of the possible 125MB/Sec that Gigabit networking could push.

Thorin

thorin, ur basing it on internet speeds and yet I would like it for the file transer aspect of speed. nics are not used exclusively for internet access but also used for LAN access.[/quote]

Uhh, i read you entire post.

i still disagree w/ this particular statement tho.

"99% of users only need a 100Mbps connection for the computer. " Actually I'd have to argue that one with you. 99% of users only require 10Mbps .... actually only 2Mbps for their cable/DSL connection. 100 is a nicety if you have a home LAN but ALOT of users still only have 1 computer inthe house.

Obviously i don't have the numbers in front and me and neither do you. but with the number of cable / dsl routers that are being sold lately, i'd have to think more and more broadband users ARE setting up lans in their homes.

 

[thorin]

Obviously i don't have the numbers in front and me and neither do you. but with the number of cable / dsl routers that are being sold lately, i'd have to think more and more broadband users ARE setting up lans in their homes.

Agreed I definately don't have numbers in front of me. And I agree more and more ARE setting up LANs. But I would 1) also have to say that a large number of people who purchase routers are simply using them as 'firewalls' and 2) Also have to say that those people are still a small group in comparison to all the Joe Average users/households that only have one system. 3) Even if those people ARE setting up home LANs they still don't have HDs that can write the data quickly enough to handle a full speed feed from a Gigabit host (connection). Also consider the number of people that still purchase 10Mbit hardware (hubs) since they are sooo cheap and the very very small number of people (even companies) that purchase 1Gbit equiptment because of it's cost.

Thorin

 

[Ioman]

Because there is no need for Gigabit ethernet. How many manufacturers make Gigabit ethernet routers/switches for the home? How many are wireless? While I admit that having a faster home network is the bomb, it probably is not cost wise to incorporate a Gigabit Ethernet adapter for less than 1% of the homes....

 

[Eug]

Yeah, I dunno. Cost I guess. But I would love to have Gigabit Ethernet:

1) My laptop already has Gigabit Ethernet.

2) If I were to build a new house, I would incorporate the cabling to accomodate Gigabit Ethernet. Only a few hundred dollars worth of cabling. (I tried that with my townhouse builder but they refused to put in any sort of network cabling. However, the townhouse is small, and with only 2 computers, so I am using 100 Mbps wired (self-installed), and wireless 802.11b at the moment.)

3) I do DVD stuff from time to time. The files are in the multi-gigabyte range often, and thus transferring files via 100 Mbps is already a bit of a bottleneck. Unfortunately, Firewire from my XP box to my laptop isn't any faster. (For some reason, I get much faster speeds over direct Firewire to IDE, up to the >30 MB/s range (~250 Mbps), but only around 8 MB/s via Firewire networking.) Because of my speed limitations of Firewire networking and 100 Mbps networking, I've taken to using external Firewire harddrives for a lot of video stuff that needs to be shared between computers.

 

[BoberFett]

Here's the cheapest gigabit switch I could find.

Nobody but the most extreme enthusiast has any interest in gigabit right now. Nobody is going to develop a product just so that 8 people on Anandtech will quit their whining.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Here's the cheapest gigabit switch I could find.

Nobody but the most extreme enthusiast has any interest in gigabit right now. Nobody is going to develop a product just so that 8 people on Anandtech will quit their whining.

Yeah, and I can't believe the lethargy.

All higher end Macs have Gigabit Ethernet, and have had it for years. I wonder why the PC side is always 2 years behind. The same was true for 802.11b, and I betcha the same will be true for 802.11g.

Call me a whiner, but I want Gigabit Ethernet. It's not as if we need enterprise-class Gigabit products. I wish I could find a $200 Gigabit 4-port switch and $50 Gigabit Ethernet card from my Windows desktop.

ONE DVD is over 4 GB. ONE hour of DV footage is 13 GB. That fits on one tape. And many people have $400 DV cameras with 10 tapes. Thus, the need is here, even in the consumer class.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Eug

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Here's the cheapest gigabit switch I could find.

Nobody but the most extreme enthusiast has any interest in gigabit right now. Nobody is going to develop a product just so that 8 people on Anandtech will quit their whining.

Yeah, and I can't believe the lethargy.

All higher end Macs have Gigabit Ethernet, and have had it for years. I wonder why the PC side is always 2 years behind. The same was true for 802.11b, and I betcha the same will be true for 802.11g.

Call me a whiner, but I want Gigabit Ethernet. It's not as if we need enterprise-class Gigabit products. I wish I could find a $200 Gigabit 4-port switch and $50 Gigabit Ethernet card from my Windows desktop.

ONE DVD is over 4 GB. ONE hour of DV footage is 13 GB. That fits on one tape. And many people have $400 DV cameras with 10 tapes. Thus, the need is here, even in the consumer class.

So all those people with 10 tapes with 13 GB each that need to be transferred are going to send them across the network and store them all on their 40GB hard drives?

 

[Eug]

It's no surprise that external hard drives (and bigger internal drives) are becoming extremely popular, now that multimedia content is so big. If they weren't popular, mom and pop stores wouldn't be selling so many of those 2 MB cache 120 MB drives to all those Joe Schmoes. (The 8 MB drives are for the AnandTechers.)

I'm not saying I have to have Gigabit Ethernet now, but it sure would be nice and I would be willing to pay a premium over 100 Mbps equipment for it. But I sure am not going to pay $400 for a 16-port switch.

Interestingly though, when I first starting looking, a 100 Mbps router was about $350. About a year later they were about half that. Now combo wireless and 100 Mbps Ethernet routers can be had for less than $100.

I remember the same arguments about 100 Mbps being made when 10 Mbps Ethernet equipment was the norm. Now look where we are.

 

[BoberFett]

Are there really a lot of 120+ GB drives being sold? I don't know anybody with one that isn't a hardcore techie. Hell, I still have a 15 GB drive.

 

[CZroe]

So all those people with 10 tapes with 13 GB each that need to be transferred are going to send them across the network and store them all on their 40GB hard drives?

I don't know who would buy one if they didn't plan on doing a little video editing. They probably also have a DVD-R drive to offload it all onto when they're done. I plan on keeping my CD library as images stored on DVD-Rs and using a virtual disk like 1disk to consolidate it all in one share (The PC will ask for the disk if a network user accesses it. It's a personal network so it's no trouble...). Also, my HDDs are dropping like flies. I'm surviving with a few new 100GB WDSE drives now. A RAID5 file server with these could easily saturate 1000Gbps 15GB drives can't last forever! (Though I'm putting a secondary 5GB laptop drive in my XBOX...gulp) Soon most everyone will have something faster...

 

[touchmyichi]

dammit who the hell needs the gigabyte ethernet? At most we play on lan games offering 100 mbps. Our internet connections are only 10. If you are so rich to have gigabyte ethernet somehow, then you should certainly have enough money to buy a 40 dollar add in card.


People these days!

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
dammit who the hell needs the gigabyte ethernet? At most we play on lan games offering 100 mbps. Our internet connections are only 10. If you are so rich to have gigabyte ethernet somehow, then you should certainly have enough money to buy a 40 dollar add in card.


People these days!

Hehe! Well, one of the reasons we would like to see it integrated, is so that it is NOT riding the PCI bus. For example, if I had a gigabit ethernet card plugged into a PCI slot, it's capable of consuming the entire bandwidth of the PCI bus all by itself, leaving none for my SCSI card that hosts my hard drive.

Now, if the gigabit ethernet card were embedded in the southbridge, it would be on the 800Mb/sec Hypertransport link that links the northbridge and southbridge, leaving the 133Mb/sec PCI bus free for my SCSI card to operate at full speed without having to wrestle against the ethernet card for bandwidth. That make sense?

At work, we're hoping to budget for some gigabit switches and server adapters for next fiscal year, because we do need more bandwidth on our LAN at times. I certainly wouldn't mind having a gigabit connection for my daily work, which is indeed limited by my LAN connection's speed at times.