nForce and memory

[badgers]

vid cards come with 32 or 64 megs of memory now a days...
Is the nforce going to use 64 megs of my system memory for its graphics processor?

If it is, then wont that cut down on the effective memory bandwidth that the processor can use?

Everyone has been hyping the nForce, but to me it seems like trying to get something for nothing.

MSI has a board out now, has anyone seen one?

 

[Paul -The Mad Hatter]

Yes it will use alot of memory bandwich. Buying the nforce to use the onboard geforce doesn't seem like a good choice.

 

[bruce]

Wild Andy C has the scoop on this one, he posted info about an Nforce reference board he was playin with and from what he says, it's gonna school all those other boards out there. First and formost Nvidia is a Graphics Card Company!!! do you really think they are gonna put the regular old crappy integrated video we've all become accustomed to on their boards? Come on folks! This thing was built from the ground up with killer graphics in mind!!! This isn't the same old board you're used to, this is the real deal! If you want more info, Hard OCP has an article explaining the tech behind these boards, and so does Tom's. Wild Andy, please educate these people so that they may be as enlightened as the rest of us!

 

[Tacoman667]

Ok, I got a question about NForce too. If it's so good on onboard graphics, does this mean that it will be far more compatable with my Visiontek G3 or will that function be the same on any board, nforce or not?

 

[bruce]

From a former posting, as I recall, Wild Andy said the on board MX's performance was at the same level as a GF2 GTX, that's pretty DARN impressive if you as me. Also, since Visiontek makes Nvidia's reference cards, as I've been informed by Hard OCP, I'd imagine as long as the manufacturers follow the specs., and with GF cards they generally do, Nvidia products should be very compatible, just a guess though, I hope Wild Andy sees this and can give us the lo down, I'm pretty excited and I imagine an Nforce will be my next board as long as they can deliver the goods, and Nvidia usually does...

 

[badgers]

Here is where I am going with this:
not everyone plays games on their machines.

if the nforce chipset is using one of its memory channels for the graphics then that would limit the memory bandwidth for software such as AutoCAD, VC++, 3d studio viz, Power tools, or lumen micro.

it also seems as if I am going to end up with a quadro2 card for these apps anyway.

Would it be possible to have the 2 memory channels for the system to use for data and a seperate vid card?
also, wont the graphics need to use the system memory?
sometimes autocad uses 300 megs of memory alone. I don't think that loosing 64 megs of memory to the integrated vid will help much.

please somebody explain how using system memory for the video, and using a memory channel for the video processor is going to help
thank you for your time and have a good day

 

[Nagorak]

bruce (Jul 06, 2001 01:11 p.m.):
From a former posting, as I recall, Wild Andy said the on board MX's performance was at the same level as a GF2 GTX, that's pretty DARN impressive if you as me.

I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised about this... The difference in performance between the MX and the GTS is due to one thing: MEMORY. The GTS uses 128 bit DDR while the MX is limited to either 128 bit SDR or 64 bit DDR. The GTS is technically more advanced in some ways, but the whole GF2 series was basically badly designed. Before you start shouting, hear me out! The GF2 chip itself was made to be very powerful, but it was far too reliant on memory bandwidth in order for it to perform well. In the end memory bandwidth is all that matters for the GF2.

So even though the GTS is a little bit better than the MX, an MX with more memory bandwidth is going to run faster. It's nothing really to be surprised about.

 

[Nagorak]

badgers (Jul 06, 2001 01:49 p.m.):
Here is where I am going with this:
not everyone plays games on their machines.

if the nforce chipset is using one of its memory channels for the graphics then that would limit the memory bandwidth for software such as AutoCAD, VC++, 3d studio viz, Power tools, or lumen micro.

it also seems as if I am going to end up with a quadro2 card for these apps anyway.

Would it be possible to have the 2 memory channels for the system to use for data and a seperate vid card?
also, wont the graphics need to use the system memory?
sometimes autocad uses 300 megs of memory alone. I don't think that loosing 64 megs of memory to the integrated vid will help much.

please somebody explain how using system memory for the video, and using a memory channel for the video processor is going to help
thank you for your time and have a good day

I'm sure you can disable the onboard video if you are using your own video card, so this will not be a problem. Then again you're still paying for the onboard video whether you choose to use it or not.

 

[bruce]

I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised about this... The difference in performance between the MX and the GTS is due to one thing: MEMORY. The GTS uses 128 bit DDR while the MX is limited to either 128 bit SDR or 64 bit DDR. The GTS is technically more advanced in some ways, but the whole GF2 series was basically badly designed. Before you start shouting, hear me out! The GF2 chip itself was made to be very powerful, but it was far too reliant on memory bandwidth in order for it to perform well. In the end memory bandwidth is all that matters for the GF2.

So even though the GTS is a little bit better than the MX, an MX with more memory bandwidth is going to run faster. It's nothing really to be surprised about.

Ahh, as opposed to the tons of other video cards by ATI ect... that don't rely on high bandwidth/high speed memory! Come on here, it's pretty simple, you want 3D you need bandwidth&speed (with the exception of tile-based rendering of course)! The argument is a moot point and it does not address the major improvements of the crush chipset ( to get schooled go here: http://hardocp.com/articles/nforce/ ). The MX chipset has been out for a while, and it is not the reason to buy this board, the reason people are talking about this board is because there is NO other board to talk about!!! Intel has been distracted with Rambus and the lackluster sales of the P4, and it is amazing if Via can actually get out a chipset that works!!! Finally someone has come along and built a chipset around the graphics chip that also addresses many of the issues that have plagued mobos for some time now including latency and memory access!!! You don't do 3D, fine, DON'T BUY THE DARN BOARD!!! but keep in mind the improvements to the motherboard speed up things across the board!!! Call me crazy, but I tend to think innovation is a good thing!!!

FYI, for the Quattro guy, I'm sure someone will come up with a way, if it's not already available, to convert the onboard GeForce to a Quattro much like the current software or hardware conversions that are available. You'd save cash and probably get almost equal or better performance.

 

[bruce]

Before you go ripping me, rember only idiots buy first, I'm sure they're gonna come out with a crush (Nforce) board with on board GeForce 3 MX eventually, and that's the board I'm gonna buy, till then I'll have to make do with my KK266... oh, I'm really suffering (yeah right).

 

[Nagorak]

bruce (Jul 06, 2001 05:05 p.m.):
Ahh, as opposed to the tons of other video cards by ATI ect... that don't rely on high bandwidth/high speed memory! Come on here, it's pretty simple, you want 3D you need bandwidth&speed (with the exception of tile-based rendering of course)! The argument is a moot point and it does not address the major improvements of the crush chipset ( to get schooled go here: http://hardocp.com/articles/nforce/ ). The MX chipset has been out for a while, and it is not the reason to buy this board, the reason people are talking about this board is because there is NO other board to talk about!!! Intel has been distracted with Rambus and the lackluster sales of the P4, and it is amazing if Via can actually get out a chipset that works!!! Finally someone has come along and built a chipset around the graphics chip that also addresses many of the issues that have plagued mobos for some time now including latency and memory access!!! You don't do 3D, fine, DON'T BUY THE DARN BOARD!!! but keep in mind the improvements to the motherboard speed up things across the board!!! Call me crazy, but I tend to think innovation is a good thing!!!

FYI, for the Quattro guy, I'm sure someone will come up with a way, if it's not already available, to convert the onboard GeForce to a Quattro much like the current software or hardware conversions that are available. You'd save cash and probably get almost equal or better performance.

I never said anything positive or negative about the board...I just noted that it was no surprise that the MX on the nforce is as fast as a GTS normally. This was not meant as a comparison to any other graphics cards either, so there's no need to get so defensive about it.

The problem with integrated chipsets is you get everything integrated INCLUDING things you don't want. From a purely business standpoint I'm pretty sure most of the other integrated mobos are also going to be more attractive for OEMs. OEMs generally don't care about performance, they just want price, price, price.

If the performance of the nforce is really that good, it may develop a large following in the enthusiast market. BUT, I'd still personally prefer a non-integrated chipset so I can mix and match my own components (many of which I already own and do not need integrated into a mobo).

So far the technology behind the nforce looks good in THEORY, but we have yet to see any real numbers. How much of a gain over current DDR setups can we expect? At most I would guess ten percent. Ten percent might be a pretty nice improvement, but it's not going to be earth shattering. I really don't see this board being able to live up to its hype (none of Nvidia's products ever do, and that's not saying that they are bad products, but rather Nvidia is the master of marketing and hype).

At the moment my attitude towards the nforce is "wait and see". I really doubt I'll be upgrading to it in any case, unless it offers something ridiculous like a 30-50% increase in performance (not likely).