[Dave Baumann]

Today NVIDIA is announcing their latest chipset platform for AMD 64 processors, the nForce4. nForce4 is a PCI Express chipset that holds a number of similarities with its predecessor, nForce3, but brings a few other advancements to the platform as well. The main chipset features of nForce4 are:

• ActiveArmour – Dedicated hardware Firewall.
  GigaBit Ethernet and Hardware Firewall built within the chipset to reduce CPU overhead from running software firewall applications. Complete with browser based management capabilities and “Intelligent Application Manager” software.
• NVIDIA Storage Solutions
  nForce4 platform houses support for 4 new standard SATA2 3Gb/s drives, paired between two controllers for greater disk throughput. RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1 configurations are supported, even across a mixture of both SATA and PATA drives. nVRAID software enables software configuration and management of RAID arrays.
• nTune – Performance Optimisation Controls
  With nTune the system can be configured for running in different configurations for different tasks (e.g. high performance for gaming, silent running for DVD playback) and also most of the chipset functions can be monitored.

nForce4 will be available in three configurations: nForce4, nForce4 Ultra and nForce4 SLI. Click here for a list of features available on each of the platforms. Of the three systems nForce4 SLI may be of most interest here as it brings NVIDIA’s platform SLI capabilities.

Current platform solutions for multi PCI Express graphics boards in a system have relied on using a standard 16 lane PCI Express interface for one board and then the extra 4 lanes that may be available in chipset Northbridges being placed on a another 16x connector. The main drawback to this solution is that whilst the master board receives the full 4GB/s of downstream PCI Express bandwidth, the slave board, with only 4 PCI Express lanes, receives 1GB/s. nForce4 readdresses this issue somewhat with a solution that can still provide full 16 lanes of PCI Express when using a single graphics board, but still more to second board should you require an SLI solution.

Click Image to Enlarge

nForce4 SLI

As the diagram and image from an MSI motherboard above illustrates, nForce4 SLI boards will have a controller that the user can turn around to switch the nForce4 SLI based motherboard from single graphics board to multi graphics board control. In single mode all 16 PCI Express lanes are routed to the primary PEG x16 connector, however in SLI mode only 8 lanes are routed to the primary connector with the other 8 lanes switched to the second PEG x16 connector, giving both boards 2GB/s of downstream bandwidth. The chipset controller does some data arbitration to ensure that board boards are getting a duplicate of the data required.

[jb]

Dave,

FYI typo, 2nd setence:

nForce4 is a PCI Express chipset that holdsd a number of similarities with its predecessor, nForce3, but brings a few other advancements to the platform as well. The main chipset features of nForce4 are:

Edit found another:
Under the NVIDIA Storage Solutions section:

and eve supported across a mixture of bother SATA and PATA drives. nVRAID software enables software configuration and management of RAID arrays.

Was not sure if this is the proper place for this type of feedback.

[Himself]

No soundstorm, oh well..

[nutball]

Originally Posted by Himself

No soundstorm, oh well..

No Soundstorm oh well that means I won't be buying one

[plat]

where are the 1x connectors

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by plat

where are the 1x connectors

Good question.

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Originally Posted by nutball

No Soundstorm oh well that means I won't be buying one

Yeah, it's going to hurt Nvidia's sales, especially if rumours of an Azalia-compatible AMD64 chipset from ATI are true.

[Jawed]

So basically when NVidia implements virtual memory, the 2GB/s limit of each PCI Express slot is gonna hurt. So SLI has a lifetime of what, 18 months?

Jawed

[Sxotty]

To be honest I always figured that the only reason they were able to do soundstorm was b/c of the Xbox, and they acquired a dolby liscence thru it.

I wonder if someone else will acquire a liscence in the xbox2, or if this time dolby will realize what happened last time and make sure in the contract it cannot be used for a dual purpose.

With the demise of dolby digital encoding on PC's however I made sure that the receiver I bought most recently has 5.1 analog input so now I won't be screwed by the loss of digital encoding.

[Nick]

What's SoundStorm? Any SoundBlaster 16 compatible audio is ok with me. 8) nForce 4 has all the features that matter. If you need better audio, get a soundcard.

[Himself]

was nice to not have to pay $$$ for a soundcard and deal with crappy drivers and obsene control panels.. lol

Socket A works fine for me as it is, no compelling reason to upgrade..

[hikasl]

Originally Posted by Himself

was nice to not have to pay $$$ for a soundcard and deal with crappy drivers and obsene control panels.. lol

If you're really serious about sound, you have to spend a few dollars. Audiotrak has a pretty lowcost, decent quality 24 bit sound card out there. There's also the M-Audio Revolution 7.1, great bang for the buck. Alas, neither company has a PCI-E solution on the market yet, but that will come.

Socket A works fine for me as it is, no compelling reason to upgrade..

It sounds as if you'll never upgrade then.

[Temporary Name]

Honestly, it's a nice chipset. I'm not so concerned about Soundstorm, but is it true that it isn't even a IHDA/Azalia audio controller? Even SiS (SiS966 SB) and VIA (VT8251 SB) will be offering that shortly. Whether you want to buy a sound card or not, AC97 needs to die.

SLI is quite overrated, if you ask me. No game will ever require a dual high-end video card configuration to perform optimally, and the cost:benefit of selling your old "high end" card and putting that money towards a new high end card will probably always be lower than buying a second card (without achieving 2x performance, but incurring a 2x power penalty) and watching them both depreciate in value.

The NF4U, however, is something I will very seriously consider next month. I haven't ruled out the 925xe, but it is hard to argue with AMD's current superiority in the gaming arena.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Temporary Name

SLI is quite overrated, if you ask me. No game will ever require a dual high-end video card configuration to perform optimally...

Does any game even need one X800 or 6800? For the previous generation of games, 9600 had the best performance/price ratio, now it's 6600/9800. The only reason why X800 and 6800 sell is because there are people with too much money who want to be able to brag. SLI is the best bragging product - ever. Face it, ATI looses in terms of features, and in terms of performance.

Either way, I'm buying a single 6600.

[Anonymous]

Soundstorm was the only sound device able to encode directsound streams in ac3 and passes it to S/PDIF ie i can play doom3 and have an ac3 5.1 signal to any home cinema system.

I don't want to use my a/v receiver with a buncha rca cables, with nearly all dsp functions off and aproximative sound quality (parasites) .

WE want soundstorm with dolbyD or DTS encode 8)

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19177

[nutball]

Originally Posted by Nick

What's SoundStorm? Any SoundBlaster 16 compatible audio is ok with me. 8) nForce 4 has all the features that matter. If you need better audio, get a soundcard.

Can you point me to a soundcard that does Dolby Digital encoding of DirectSound streams? Didn't think so.

[Anonymous]

I forgot, some recent AC3filter builds can realtime ENCODE multichannel streams to ac3 format. But only with movies. A perfect solution for wmv9 HD, aac or ogg 5.1.

Still, no directsound (games, music) realtime input available. no software or hardware solutions could do this apart from nforce soundstorm.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by nutball

Can you point me to a soundcard that does Dolby Digital encoding of DirectSound streams? Didn't think so.

What would be the point of that in consumer systems? Sound professionals can afford whatever workstation hardware they need. I don't see why this would have to be a key feature on an nForce 4.

I don't know much about audio technology at all, so could you summarize what I'm missing? Thanks.

[Ylandro]

Originally Posted by Nick

What would be the point of that in consumer systems?

Simple:
Lots of people have their consumer tied to a Dolby Digital amplifier, for high quality surround sound in games.
In stead of running 6 analog (and often quite long) cables to your amplifier, as many have to do now, you can have one cheap noise free digital cable, running all channels.
With the added advantage, that you use the high quality DAC's of the amplifier, instead of the stuff on your soundboard...

[DeanoC]

Originally Posted by Ylandro

In stead of running 6 analog (and often quite long) cables to your amplifier, as many have to do now, you can have one cheap noise free digital cable, running all channels.

Just a minor correction, digital audio cables (carrying Dolby or DTS) are NOT noise free. They actually suffer from lots of noise errors due to (relatively) crappy error correction bandwidth. Still better than most analog cables but nowhere near noise free...

If you have good equipment you can physically hear the difference between optical and copper cables, even though the are both carrying digital signals. (optical has more errors than copper)

[martrox]

I have a soundstorm Nforce2 MB in my media room with a full 6.1/5.1 sound system and a HD projector. It's mindboggeling what Dolby digital with a 100'" screen does for gaming........ And NOTHING else encodes......at least at what I want to pay

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

The thing about Soundstorm was that it was significantly better than other intergrated solutions at very little extra cost, and for me personally it meant I could dump the ever-problematic Creative drivers and hardware.

Soundstorm is a well marketed and significant differentiator for the Nforce 2 products, and the disappointment shown from customers who wanted it on Nforce 3/4 shows that it is still wanted. In it's current form, Nforce 3/4 really doesn't offer anything significantly better than offerings from Via or (soon) ATI.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Ylandro

Lots of people have their consumer tied to a Dolby Digital amplifier, for high quality surround sound in games.
In stead of running 6 analog (and often quite long) cables to your amplifier, as many have to do now, you can have one cheap noise free digital cable, running all channels. With the added advantage, that you use the high quality DAC's of the amplifier, instead of the stuff on your soundboard...

Thanks for the explanation, but I still fail to see the great advantage. All surround systems I know are superb. I don't think a low bitrate digital signal would be such a better experience. A professional DJ I know -refuses- to use any kind of digital processing. Frankly if you want better audio the first things you need are better cables, better amplifiers and better speakers. You won't get good audio with 20$ equipment, even if digital.

For the market nForce 4 is really aimed at, I don't think it's a missing feature. And I don't want to pay 20$ extra for a feature I won't use on my 20$ speakers. Anyone seriously into the audio business should buy the proper equipment, seprately. Just my view...

[Dave Baumann]

A professional DJ I know -refuses- to use any kind of digital processing.

This isn't really a parallel in this case since his source is likely to be analogue in the first place. Any sound produced from a PC is going to be generated digitally, hence the longer you can preserve the digital representation and the higher quality the DAC the less likely you are to introduce unwanted noise and reproduce something closer to the original intended sound.

Frankly if you want better audio the first things you need are better cables, better amplifiers and better speakers. You won't get good audio with 20$ equipment, even if digital.

Well, actually, I think that was the point being made - many people do have better amps, cable and speakers as they are using full blown home cinema digital processors. Generally speaking you are only as good as the weakest link and using the DAC's on the integrated processor to go along six analogue lines on a noisy motherboard is going to yeild a worse quality sound than avoiding the DAC, encoding a 6.1 / 7.1 Dolby Digital signal as it is going to introduce less error / noise than the analogue route, and then you get to use you much more expensive DAC's in you home theather processor which were specifically built for this task and invariably likely to be higher quality (in some senses this has parallels with using a DVI out on a flat panel with DVI in, as opposed to using VGA).

[Nick]

Originally Posted by DaveBaumann

...in some senses this has parallels with using a DVI out on a flat panel with DVI in, as opposed to using VGA.

Not really. With VGA connected to an LCD, it's first converted to analog, then back to digital. We can't expect this to be lossless. DVI simply removes all the conversions, making the whole thing 100% digital. Here, the advantages are very obvious.

But speakers are not digital like an LCD display. Just like the amplifier they are analog. So the digital to analog conversion has to happen before the amplifier. Thus the biggest part of the system is really analog. The quality of the amplifiers and speakers are most important as far as I know. The only difference with a digital output from the motherboard would be the few meters of cable to the amplifier would be digital. With good cables I don't think the noise they pick up there is significant compared to the noise that is always introduced in the amplifiers and speakers.

A better analogue would be connecting a CRT to a DVI cable.