When AMD launched the Athlon 64 last year we predicted that K7 chipset development was essentially over, with only VIA?s KT880 on the horizon.  With interest in the A64 running so high it wasn?t even clear how long AthlonXP would remain interesting to the enthusiast segment, though we knew even then that Athlon 64 wouldn?t ramp in volume until after AMD completed their .09 micron shift.

Despite having ceded the performance crown, AthlonXP sales remain strong.  It?s substantially cheaper than the P4 ($99 for an AthlonXP 2700+ compared to roughly $170 for a P4 2.6 GHz) and offers much higher performance when compared to the equivalently priced Celeron.  The recent discovery of the AthlonXP Mobile as a first-rate processor for either ultra-quiet operation or high-end overclocking has only further boosted interest. 

This continuing popularity explains why NVIDIA chose to update its core nForce2 platform with many of the features that?ll also appear on the nForce3 250 GB.  While Athlon 64 / nForce3 250 GB is undoubtedly the more advanced and faster of the two platforms, users needing a less-expensive CPU are still going to have access to most of the same advances that make the 250GB tick.

 

nForce2 Ultra 400GB (top) and nForce3 250 GB (bottom)

New Features Common to Both the nForce2 Ultra 400GB and nForce3 250 GB Platforms:

• Integrated Gigabit Ethernet
• Integrated SATA controller w/ RAID support.
• Integrated Firewall
• Additional USB 2.0 support (total of 8 devices now supported natively).

Features of the nForce3 250 GB Only:

• Expanded SATA Support (up to 4 devices)
• 16-bit / 800 MHz Hyper Transport Linkages

The only advanced feature of the NF3 250 that won?t be available to AthlonXP users, therefore, is part of its SATA support, which will discuss in more detail below. 

 

next >

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• Chipset Features Explained (1 of 5)
• DualNet, Sounstorm, and PCI Express=MIA? (2 of 5)
• NVIDIA System Utility (3 of 5)
• Hardware Firewall (4 of 5)
• Benchmarks, Conclusion (5 of 5)