nForce 3 & 4

[Maxil223]

What are the differences? I cant seem to find many, i want nForce 4 but i dont know if its worth the risk.

 

[Jeffyboy]

Me too. Actually... nforce 3 and 4 are good... Maybe 4 still needs to go thru a few revisions (the boards i mean) before i would trust them totally. May wanna look at a board like the Asus A8V (2000fsb). Nice board. My next board will be nforce4 for sure

Jeff

 

[Jeffyboy]

Altho I am curious to see what nforce5 will offer

Jeff

 

[Rip the Jacker]

I'm curious what nforce6 will offer.

 

[ohnnyj]

They are actually quite different. For starters, nForce3 boards support AGP graphics cards while nForce4 is PCI Express based. Some of the nForce4s support a technology called SLI which allows two graphics cards to run together for much better performance. Aside from that I am not sure of the other benefits as nForce3 boards are quite capable as well. You may want to head on over to nVidia's site, they have a bunch of tech specs on both.

 

[Architect]

Aside from that I am not sure of the other benefits as nForce3 boards are quite capable as well. You may want to head on over to nVidia's site, they have a bunch of tech specs on both.

They are entirely different chipsets, so comparison is something that cannot be done. Though, there are some features that make each chipset stand out. nForce4 on one hand can come in the model called SLI, which was mentioned before. nForce4, well the majority of them support only the Socket939 CPUS, where as most nForce3 boards support Socket754 as well as an AGP Bus, not PCI-E.

Other features involve different overclocking capabilites, as well as improved onboard-sound. Some nForce4 boards even support SATA2, which is almost the same, but instead of speeds of 1.5GB/s, it sends/recieves at 3GB/s. The one thing that is identical to eachother on either chipset is the RAM compatability. Both chipsets only support DDR, not DDR2, until nVidia state so; DDR2 is not going to be used, but DDR2 presuccessor, or equivalent to DDR3. Otherwise, the are very similar.

 

[S Random]

i expect DDR2 to come out when ever nvidia does nforce 5 or what ever they wish to call their next chipset

 

[imported_Computer MAn]

Originally posted by: Architect

Aside from that I am not sure of the other benefits as nForce3 boards are quite capable as well. You may want to head on over to nVidia's site, they have a bunch of tech specs on both.

They are entirely different chipsets, so comparison is something that cannot be done. Though, there are some features that make each chipset stand out. nForce4 on one hand can come in the model called SLI, which was mentioned before. nForce4, well the majority of them support only the Socket939 CPUS, where as most nForce3 boards support Socket754 as well as an AGP Bus, not PCI-E.

Other features involve different overclocking capabilites, as well as improved onboard-sound. Some nForce4 boards even support SATA2, which is almost the same, but instead of speeds of 1.5GB/s, it sends/recieves at 3GB/s. The one thing that is identical to eachother on either chipset is the RAM compatability. Both chipsets only support DDR, not DDR2, until nVidia state so; DDR2 is not going to be used, but DDR2 presuccessor, or equivalent to DDR3. Otherwise, the are very similar.

 

[biostud]

nForce 5 will be a Intel chipset supporting SLI and PCIe for P4 based systems.

It's AMD that decides when DDR2 will come for A64, as the memory controller is on the CPU, nvidia has nothing to do with this.
I doubt that AMD will start using DDR2 before 2006.

The only really significant difference between nForce3 and 4 is AGP/PCI vs. PCIe/PCI setup. PCIe is the future slots for videocards and other cards so if you start from scratch go for a nForce 4 setup.

 

[Monkey muppet]

how about support for

Dual Gb ethernet
Nvidia Armour (hardware firewall)
SATA II
PCIe support
SLI
Firwire 800
10x USB2's

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: S Random
i expect DDR2 to come out when ever nvidia does nforce 5 or what ever they wish to call their next chipset

DDR2(or DDR3 for that matter) support will come when AMD supports it, nVidia can't do a thing about it.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Monkey muppet
how about support for

Dual Gb ethernet

I don't need *one* GbE port, let alone two (when the phone company runs fiber optic straight to my house, we'll talk). Most motherboards these days come with one onboard GbE anyway.

Nvidia Armour (hardware firewall)

I have a hardware firewall in my router, thanks.

SATA II

NCQ *might* be slightly useful. I'm not convinced it does anything for regular desktop use yet, though, and you have to buy brand-new SATA2/NCQ drives to use it. Otherwise, it performs identically to regular SATA.

PCIe support

Just about the only useful feature you're getting over NF3.

SLI

Only if you pay through the nose for one of the SLI models, and even then it only makes sense if you want to buy two high-end video cards. Could be useful, but only if you have a LOT of cash. Also seems like there are still some driver issues, etc.

Firewire 800

Might be useful if you edited a lot of DV from a digital camcorder. Otherwise, not so much. Not all devices support the higher transfer speeds anyway, and 400Mbps is not bottlenecking most external drives.

10x USB2's

You can get plenty of USB2 ports on just about any motherboard these days. Also, how many people have more than three or four USB devices plugged in all the time?

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Monkey muppet

Nvidia Armour (hardware firewall)

You can get plenty of USB2 ports on just about any motherboard these days. Also, how many people have more than three or four USB devices plugged in all the time?

This one I couldn't agree more on.
This hardware firewall and TCP/IP assist hasn't even been hyped much by nVidia(as far as I've seen anyway) and yet so many people think it's needed for desktops.

 

[biostud]

-> Matthias99

Thanks for saving me the time to write what you wrote