Nforce 3 250, a Peak

Spode · Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:18 pm Post subject: Nforce 3 250, a Peak

I went to the Nvidia UK offices today to be breifed about the latest Athlon 64 chipset.

I don't make a habit of commenting on these things, but I figured perhaps I should start to do so. It seems a lot for an article though. So instead, I think I'll start putting forum posts in a rather casual manner. And if people ask questions, I can try my best to answer them from what I know.

Apart from the usual extra this, extra that, the main emphasis of the briefing was of their gigabit ethernet and integrated native firewall solution. So I thought I would comment on this a little.

The Nvidia NIC connects straight to the MCP while other cards are limited by the PCI Bus. To demonstrate this difference they took an Intel Gigabit PCI card and the onboard nForce3 Gigabit connection and used a program called Chariot (http://www.netiq.com/products/chr/howchariotworks.asp) to perform a bandwidth test.

The Intel card scored bi-directionally using 12 streams, roughly 800mbps and 80% cpu utilization. The nForce3 scored a massive 1800mbps and only 55% cpu utilization.

But, this is only the start to their supperiority as far as their gigabit solution is concerned.

They have now included an integrated native firewall. It's not software based like the built in Windows Firewall, it uses hardware. It is both a stateless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateless_firewall) and stateful (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateful_firewall) firewall and is independent of the operating system.

It runs a webserver on the firmware so presents you with a similar interface to that of a router. There are some nice features like a wizard for opening up ports your game might need to function. Generally, it seems simple to use and perfect for any dumb user Razz

Despite it apparantly being OS independent, they say it needs part of the Driver to function correctly. So that rules Linux out (for the moment). Which is annoying, as I can see this being popular in servers and highend workstations. But then it's hardly difficult to set up ipchains/tables.

Being a hardware firewall, it uses a lot less of the CPU and also keeps the bandwidth high on transfer. I forget these figures but it was about 3 times the transfer of other software based firewalls.

To me, this sound like a perfect solution for enthuast gamers and even the office.

Please do ask questions as I have not exhuasted the subject.

Spode · Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:57 pm Post subject:

I forgot to mention. Only the Gb version will have the Gigabit and firewall.

matty c · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 1191 Location: NW London, UK

sure looks impresive... Smile

d2thez · Joined: 06 Mar 2004 Posts: 6

That is absolutely great. But did they tell you in the press conference when they would actually show up on e-tailer's sites???

I have been waiting forever for the promises of this chipset!!

Spode · Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2004 5:18 pm Post subject:

Well, they had boards there and I know quite a few other journos have the boards too. And becuae they are pin-compatible with the 150. The modifications they have to make are minimal.

So I reckon VERY soon.

d2thez · Joined: 06 Mar 2004 Posts: 6

You mentioned that several Journos had motherboards in hand. Do you know of any specific brands?

I was looking at maybe Leadtek, DFI, or Chaintech. Any board specific info or anything??

Spode · Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:25 pm Post subject:

I can't say any particulars were mentioned.

I've given Gigabyte an e-mail for you, see if we get a responce.

Spode · Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 5:30 pm Post subject:

They say middle of Q2.

halcyon · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 3

Did you get any info on the following:

- PCI/AGP lock actually working this time?
- does native SATA interfaces (on the built-in Serial ATA PHY) support ATAPI devices?
- does the native SATA support NCQ?
- what was the model of the Gigabyte board?
- any word on release dates of any of the boards? I'm assuming CeBit announcements, but availability info would be nice Smile

I assume the Asus board using nforce3 250 for socket 754 should be k8ne, Chaintech's should be ZNF3-250 and ANF3-250.

Thanks for any additional info!

Cheers,
halcyon

Spode · Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:59 am Post subject:

Ok, here is Nvidia's response.

halcyon · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks Spode! You're the man!

I've been trying to find answers for all these and you provide them straight from the horse's mouth.

Smile

d2thez · Joined: 06 Mar 2004 Posts: 6

That is some great news. I have more questions:

--If I end up with a regular 250 and not a 250gb, will I still have the proven Nvidia Fast Ethernet integrated into the chipset?

--Does the regular 250 have a PHY layer to allow third-party gigabit ethernet contollers to operate at full duplex gigabit speed?

I ask because the new Chaintech ZNF3-250 looks so nice, but the thing does not use the 250gb, only the 250. It does have a Broadcom gigabit contoller, but I like Nvidia's drivers and their next to no CPU utilization!!

halcyon · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 3

This is slightly OT, but I've read a recent Gigabit controller chip test in c't magazine 4/2004. The ONLY chip that performs anywhere near GbE standards and does so with low CPU utilization is the Intel chipset. All others (Broadcom, Via, Realtek, etc) perform significantly worse. nForce3 250 built-in GbE controller was not included in that test, of course.

Spode · Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 1:46 am Post subject:

Well, from what I saw, the Nvidia Gigabit offering is offering considerable speed increases over an Intel PCI card becuase of the limitations of the PCI bus. Wether this can be said of the Intel chipset solutions is another question.

"If I end up with a regular 250 and not a 250gb, will I still have the proven Nvidia Fast Ethernet integrated into the chipset?"

I was under the impression, that the 250 comes with 10/100 and no firewall, while the 250gb comes with the Gigabit and Firewall solution. AFAIK, this is the ONLY difference in the two chipsets, therefore I would think that the regular 250 also has the "PHY layer to allow third-party gigabit ethernet contollers to operate at full duplex gigabit speed".

matty c · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 1191 Location: NW London, UK

Ebuyer have recently add3ed some GB Ath64 boards to their range, e.g.: http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=55013

This one seems to use the nForce3 chipset, but it don't specifiy whether it's the 250 or not.

Spode · Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 7:01 pm Post subject:

More than likely it's a 150. They would state otherwise I would have thought.

matty c · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 1191 Location: NW London, UK

EB aren't usually very forward withinfo on their products. Possibly hoping that p33p$ will buy the wrong thing and not bother returning?

Spode · Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2004 7:19 pm Post subject:

I dunno. They often have pretty full specification tables.

matty c · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Posts: 1191 Location: NW London, UK

Not for new products they don't! Smile

Often, it's a while before they put ANY specs up... but to be fair, they do tend to be quite thorough once they are up.

Allan · Joined: 07 Apr 2003 Posts: 185 Location: Denmark

Mmmm. I would sure like to have one of these new, nice thingies... Smile

And a CPU to go along with that too, while we're at it, LOL