nForce 3 (PR)

c/p:

NVIDIA enterprise-class networking technology
• NVIDIA IEEE 802.3 MAC (Media Access Controller)
• Supports 10/100 BaseT Ethernet/Fast Ethernet
• ACR and CNR Interface Support
• Enterprise-class network management features
- ASF 1.03 compliant
- Auto negotiation plus
- Flow control
- Traffic prioritization
- ACPI 2.0
- Wake On Lan (WOL)
• NVIDIA StreamThru™ technology
- Isochronous Controller Paired with HyperTransport Results in Fastest Networking Performance

NVIDIA RAID technology
• RAID 0 disk striping support for highest system and application performance
• RAID 1 disk mirroring support for fault tolerance
• RAID 0 +1 disk striping and mirroring support for highest performance with fault tolerance
• Support for both SATA and ATA-133 disk controller standards

Triple Fast Ultra ATA-133 Disk Drive Controllers
• Each interface supports two devices, for a total of six devices
• Third IDE interface can support two IDE-to-SATA bridge master/slave configuration devices to support up to two SATA ports
• Third IDE channel additionally supports an over-clocked mode to achieve UDMA-150 to match the 150MB/sec. of the SATA link interface
• Industry-standard PCI bus master IDE register set
• Separate independent IDE connections for 5V-tolerant primary and secondary interfaces

AGP Interface
• Supports AGP3.0—0.8V signaling for 8x and 4x with Fast Writes data transfers
• Supports AGP2.0—1.5V signaling for 4x, 2x, and 1x modes with 4x and 2x Fast Writes data transfers
• Supports graphics address remapping table (GART) features
• The AGP3.0 8x 533MT/s (million transfers per second) interface provides the user with the ability to upgrade the external graphics card, thus avoiding obsolescence. An external AGP add-in card achieves higher performance than it would on existing platforms.
• AGP interface is backward compatible with the AGP2.0 specification

HyperTransport
• High Throughput (3.6GB/sec.)
• Low Voltage
• Differential
• Low Pin Count Interface
• Isochronous Link between NVIDIA nForce3 Professional and AMD Opteron processor

USB 2.0
• Single USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller Interface (EHCI)/Dual USB 1.1 Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI)
• Support for up to 6 ports
• Supports transfer rates at high speed (480Mbps), full speed (12Mbps), and low speed (1.2Mbps)
• Dynamically configures slower devices for best utilization of bandwidth
• Allows USB concurrency
• Dual AC-Link—supports up to two CODECs
• 16-bit or 20-bit stereo output and 16-bit input streams
• Supports input, output, and GPIO channels for host-based modems
• Separate independent functions for audio and modem
• Supports ACR and CNR interface

SPDIF Output (Stereo or AC-3 Output)

PCI Interface
• The NVIDIA nForce3 Professional integrates a fast PCI-to-PCI bridge running at 33MHz. It includes an arbiter that supports six external master PCI slots.
Features of the PCI interface include:
• PCI 2.3-compliant, 5V tolerant
• Supports six external PCI slots at 33MHz
• Supports six bus master arbitration
• PCI master and slave interfaces
• Supports both master-initiated and slave-initiated terminations
• Bidirectional write posting support for concurrency
• Flexible routing of all four PCI interrupts
• Supports read ahead: memory read line (MRL) and memory read multiple (MRM)



he Products

As I said earlier, NVIDIA has 2 versions of the nForce3:

nForce 3 Pro 150
• Out now
• AGP8X Interface for Quadro and other workstation graphics cards
• NVIDIA 10/100 Fast Ethernet with Enterprise-class features
• 3 Ultra ATA-133 Channels with RAID 0, 1, 0+1 NVIDIA
• USB 2.0, AC ’97 Audio, PCI

nForce 3 Pro 250
• Out Fall
• AGP8X Interface for Quadro and other workstation graphics cards
• NVIDIA Enterprise-Class Gigabit Ethernet
• 4 Serial ATA ports and 2 ATA-133 Channels
• USB 2.0, AC ’97 Audio, PCI


onclusion

The key-points of the nForce3 Pro are:

• Designed specifically for the new AMD Opteron 64-bit processor and professional workstation computing environments
• High-performance, single-chip solution
• Industry's only 1P workstation solution for Opteron
• Two products: nForce3 Pro 150 (available now) and nForce3 Pro 250 (available this fall)
• Enterprise-class 10/100 and Gigabit Ethernet networking features including IP v. 6 and ASF
• Hardware accelerated RAID 0, 1, and 0+1 solutions
• NVIDIA commitment to a minimum 6-quarter product availability

With the nForce2, NVIDIA managed to create a kick-ass product for the desktop. It is only natural that they continue the fine tradition and create a chipset for the professional market. The nForce3 Pro promises a lot, and if these promises are fulfilled, NVIDIA has another winner on their hands.

Ne vem, namreč pozabil sem nVidiin Roadmap za 64bitno arhitekturo. IIRC ni bil nForce3 nikjer omenjen (Crush mogoče?), morda je bil pod drugim imenom.

Kje pa piše da naj bi bil hardware RAID? Pa zaka ni gor gigabit lana ter a so SATA, lan in IDE kontorlerji spelan direkt na southbridge al prek PCIja? Kr Catherwood ma tko če se ne motim.

Dami imas dve varianti Nforce 3. ena je z gigabit lanom. V obeh inancicaj imas tako SATA kot normalen kontroler na plati.
Itak je to one chip solution. ker north bridge odpade. saj je mem kontroler v Hammerje ze vgrajen.

Drugace je pa itak pci vodil na svojem HT vodilu.
in ne deli bandwitha z memoryjem.