Back when the original nForce was announced, we were eagerly anticipating what seemed to be cutting edge features at the time. While VIA was trying to get more performance out of the VIA KT266, and companies such as Intel and SiS were producing motherboards with laughable onboard graphics, the nForce looked like it was going to clean house in almost every segment of the motherboard market.

As everyone knows, especially those who were waiting, the nForce was very late. We had our own problems acquiring our nForce board, as retail samples were very hard to come by. Although we were quite pleased with the end result, it didn't quite turnout to be as revolutionary as originally anticipated. There were serveral things that held the n420 (the version of the nForce we looked at) back in the eyes of enthusiasts...

Timing: Had this board been released in the early summer of 2001, I really think nVidia could have staked it's share in the market. Instead, it merely performed on par (winning some benchmarks, losing some benchmarks) with the VIA KT266A. This wouldn't be a problem normally, if it weren't for the price of most nForce motherboards.

Price: One of the high points of most nForce boards were that they were feature-rich. Everything you can possibly need (though not what everyone may want) was included. Of course, the end result was not only a loaded motherboard, but also an expensive one. Granted, there are cost savings. Should you want to buy everything the nForce includes separately, you'll probably end up spending more. Then again, most users already have these items, thus it doesn't make economic sense to pick up the the n420 based motherboards, as the KT266A provided similar performance and a much lower cost.

IGP: The Integrated Graphics Processor caused the most uproar in our forums and private emails. The IGP was comparible with the GF2 MX, but by the time the nForce was released, most enthusiasts probably had GeForce 3 level graphics. For hardcore gamers, the IGP was woefully underpowered. The arguements, however, were not of the power of the IGP, but rather, the integration. Nobody wanted to pay for graphics they were probably never going to use. Thankfully, nVidia released the n415 shortly after, which has the same featureset as the n420, minus the IGP. Unfortunently, this may be a story of being too little, too late.

Despite the criticism, the nForce really was a decent chipset. For first-time buyers, or casual gamers, the nForce IGP was more than enough, and cheaper than buying every component separately. Performance was very good, and the Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding was excellent. nVidia has listened to the public, and will hopefully address the mistakes they've learned from their last attempt to get into the chipset market.

System Platform Processor (SPP) and Integrated Graphics Processor (IGP)

Similar to the Northbridges most of us are familiar with, the SPP is nVidia's solution. You'll need a graphics card, as the SPP does not have an integrated graphics core, but it will support up to AGP 8X. Other noteworthy features are as follows:

DDR400 Support: Yes folks, that DDR333 ram you've been stockpiling is now yesterday's news. Well, we're exaggerating somewhat, as DDR266 and DDR333 will be backwards compatible. We'll get more into this later.

AGP8X: Although AGP8X video cards are not exactly gracing everyone's PCs right now, you can expect future video cards to support this new spec. Assuming it reaches it's theoretical maximum, up to 2.1GBs/sec of bandwidth is possible. Now, in reality, this will probably not happen, but the headroom is there for developers to make use of.

Hypertransport: Like the original nForce, Hypertransport and its 800MB/sec bandwidth makes it's return. This AMD technology is primarily responsible for communications between the north and southbridges.

Dynamic Adaptive Speculative Processor (DASP): This was a feature that was also included in the original nForce. The DASP watches the CPU and predetermines the requests that the CPU may make with the memory. Much like how cache works with your memory, the DASP works much the same way, where if it predicts correctly, the CPU will never have to go to the memory for information, thus speeding things up. In theory, this sounds great, but the reality is, we've never gotten the chance to see much improvement in our benchmarks with the nForce. There have been some changes to streamline the DASP, and to make it more efficient, but at this time we have no way of testing this. This will be a feature we'll be sure to look at in the future.

The IGP supports the same features as the SPP, but includes (NV18) GeForce 4 MX level graphics. I'm sure most of you are aware that the GeForce 4 MX isn't a popular choice for most enthusiasts, as it lacks a lot of Direct X 8.1 features, as well as some of the more advanced GeForce 4 Titanium features. I do think there is a place in the market for this IGP, and that would be for casual, or non-gamers. For todays games, the NV18 is more than enough at resolutions of 800x600 and 1024x768. If gaming isn't your thing, the IGP does support features such as TV encoding and HDTV. It'll be up to the motherboard manufacturers to include the supported features.

To get an idea of what to expect from the IGP, you can check out our GeForce 4 MX brief, but here's a quick summary...

AGP8x Graphics: After you're done rubbing your eyes, yes, you are reading that correctly, The IGP will be 8X compliant. Considering the fact that we're talking about the NV18 here, I'm sure some of you are wondering why all this bandwidth is needed? Well, outside of the fact that AGP8X support is built into the SPP/IGP anyways, the extra bandwidth may come in handy when doing chores such as video editing.

Accuview Antialiasing: This is a feature found on all cards named "GeForce 4", and is an excellent method of removing jaggies. Unlike before, where specific points of a pixel(s) were selected for sampling, what Accuview does is pull random spots of a pixel.

This method is not as rigid, or as mathematically correct as before, and the end result is a better looking image. Because everything is faster now, AA gaming is more playable, and with the addition of dedicated hardware multisampling on-die, the AA architecture is just plain meaner.

Video Processing Engine (VPE): The VPE is something that home entertainment buffs might find interesting. In the past, video decoding was quite CPU intensive. With the VPE, video decoding is now done in hardware. According to our press documents, a full MPEG-2 decoding engine is now integrated into hardware, using only 1/10 of the CPU processing power needed before.

nView: nView makes an appearance with the IGP, and works quite the same way as we're familiar with in the GeForce 4. What makes this remarkable is that for graphics, and multimedia authorers looking to build a cheap workstation can conceivably purchase a nForce 2 board, and have multiple scree support built right on the motherboard. Other nView features such as an integrated TV encoder and HDTV processor are also present.

Although we don't have a working production board to test with, we did receive some preliminary benchmark scores from nVidia. I'm choosing not to publish them, since it wasn't us that did these tests, but according to their scores, you can expect from 50% to 75% better scores when compared to the original n420.

Rounding out the features of the SSP/IGP is one of the big features, Dual DDR. Much like TwinBank of yesteryear, this time around, the goal of DualDDR is to increase memory bandwidth, while at the same time lowering latency. Taking the TwinBank architecture as a model, they've redesigned it to make use of two 64-bit memory controllers resulting in a 128-bit setup. Let's take a look at how nVidia breaks it down...

Lower Latency: Although DualDDR is effectively a 128-bit interface, you have to remember that we're talking about two 64-bit controllers. nVidia refers to the controllers as "independent, complementary, and intelligent". What you need to know is the memory controllers are designed to help one another out. For example: The first controller can be gathering information, while the second controller is publishing it. Basically, both hands are working independently of one another, while still working towards the same end result. Therefore, latency is effectively cut in half. This is also where the Dynamic Adaptive Speculative Processor (DASP) we talked about earlier can come into play to complement the controllers. There isn't much documentation on this feature outside of what I explained previusly, but in nVidia's DualDDR whitepapers, the DASP has been "re-architected with a more aggressive algorithm".

High Memory Bandwidth: With support for DDR400, there's a lot of memory bandwidth for the nForce2 to play with. Consider that with dual 64-bit controllers, each handling a bank of DDR400, we're talking about up to 6.4GB/sec of bandwidth. Before you get overly excited, we've mentioned in our Crucial DDR333 review that the Athlon family of processors are only capable of 2.1GB/sec of bandwidth, since it only rides the 133MHz bus. For the KT333, a lot of the bandwidth got wasted, and the same may hold true for the nForce2. However, nVidia is aware of this, and designed the nForce2 to work a little differently. The CPU bus, DDR, and AGP can operate asynchronously of one another. In other words, everyone has their own line, and doesn't have to wait for the other to complete their task before it's their turn.

In reality, it's unlikely we'll see huge gains, outside the expected improvements of DDR400, when using the standard SPP. The extra bandwidth will likely come in handy for the IGP, as with more memory bandwidth available, the better the performance.

DualDDR will be able to address up to 3GB of memory. You'll be able to mix and match DIMMs, although it will adjust itself to what your ram can handle. It will require two DIMMs to be used though if you want access to both memory controllers. As for those of you who've stockpiled on the DDR266 and DDR333, don't worry, support will still be there.

The Media & Communications Processors (MCP & MCP-T)

Where the SPP/IGP is the Northbridge, the MCP is nVidia's Southbridge. Like most Southbridges, the MCP will handle all "lower" level I/O functions.

However, the MCP-T isn't something that should be taken too lightly. It offers the same functionality as the MCP, and has features that makes a mockery of other traditional Southbridges. Like most, Ethernet 10/100 support, USB 2.0, ATA133, and AC'97 Audio are included, but the more impressive features are found in the MCP-T...

DualNet Architecture: The original nVidia ethernet controller returns with some help by 3Com. Whereas the first controller is integrated on-chip, you gain access to the 3Com NIC. What this allows for is two NICs to be present on the motherboard which is going to come into play for those who wish to use Microsoft's Internet Connection Sharing. Although this makes for an easy home network setup, I question the need since home cable/dsl routers are so cheap, and the "primary" PC with the MCP-T Southbridge will need to be powered on for other computers to access the Internet.

Firewire Support: For digital camera and film buffs, Firewire makes it's debut on the nForce. This, along with all the other multimedia aspects of the nForce technology, will work towards nVidia's goal of an entertainment hub powered by nForce. Although support is somewhat shrinking, thanks to USB 2.0's emerging popularity, the addition of Firewire may sit well for A/V junkies.

Audio Processing Unit (APU): The APU remains unchanged from the previous MCP found in the original nForce. What makes the APU uniques is it's Dolby certification. Like before, the MCP-T will provide true 5.1 stereo surround sound, doing the Dolby Digital encoding all in hardware. You also have Direct X Audio support, and support for up to 256 hardware-processed audio streams, and 64 hardware voices in 3D.

Did I mention this is all done in hardware? Let's see other integrated sound, let alone stand alone sound cards do all that. The end result is extremely high quality sound, with a minimal-to-no hit on the CPU. Keep in mind that although the nForce will output Dolby Digital 5.1, you'll still need either an amplifier that supports Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding or amplified speakers.

What may confuse people is that although the MCP may support all the fancy APU features, you might not get all of them without the necessary hardware. SoundStorm is actually the name of an addon card that will plug into the nForce2's ACR slot...

You'll be able to have access to all the hardware features of the MCP-T, as well as physical connections for Dolby Digital encoder, speakers, mic-in, headphones and more.

Industry Support

When we first looked at the nForce at the beginning of this year, we were only able to obtain the MSI K7N420-Pro. If asked, I'd be hard pressed to name other nForce manufacturers other than Abit and Asus. This proved to be a problem for nVidia getting market penetration. There will be six partners to assist the launch in a couple months, so expect boards by Abit, Asus, MSI, Chaintech, Leadtek and Epox.

OEMs and system builders will likely be major supporters, as the integrated IGP/MCP would be very appealing to those looking for a budget integrated solution.

Another player recently announced is Shuttle. I'm pretty sure most of you are aware of their Small Form Factor (SFF) barebone PCs. One complaint (well, other than a lack of AGP slot) is the substandard graphics solution. Audio was acceptable, but with the nForce2, the Shuttle SFF PC can look to be the entertainment hub or LAN rig people may have been waiting for.

Personally, I think this will probably help put the SFF PCs into the mainstream, although for true power users, let's hope that Shuttle includes the AGP slot. You can read the press release about this partnership .

Final Words

If nVidia can execute on schedule, I think the nForce2 would be worth a look upon release. Of course, I'm just speculating at this point, given there still isn't any silicon in reviewers hands, but on paper, the features alone certainly look interesting.

For those of you who need it, the IGP will certainly be the most powerful solution on the market. Even if you don't, it's good to see nVidia develop the SPP. With two choices for the MCP, board manufacturers can make "budget" nForce2 boards, or "performance" nForce2 boards.

If there is a downside to all this, it's the availability and pricing of DDR400. nVidia isn't hiding the fact that DDR400 will get you the most out of your Athlon, and if the recent history of DDR333 holds steady, expect to pay a premium for it.

nVidia is making a lot of bold claims about the performance of the nForce2. Until the boards are released, we'll reserve some enthusiasm until we see final boards. Hopefully, the nForce2 won't pull a Parheli....

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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