Computex 2005 Early Bird Coverage: NVIDIA's G70, Athlon 64 BTX and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 30, 2005 8:53 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Affordable SLI Motherboards?
NVIDIA is very curious about ATI’s upcoming multi-GPU solution, as it will mark the end of NVIDIA’s exclusivity on multi-GPU platforms. In order to help expand the SLI market, NVIDIA appears to be ready to drop the price of their nForce4 SLI chipset. While currently priced at around $80, the chipset will drop in price to close to $40 later this year. The goal is to enable SLI motherboards to be priced at $100 or less. We have even heard some very aggressive motherboard manufacturers are looking to offer sub-$80 nForce4 SLI motherboards by the end of this year. At $80, it would be senseless not to buy a SLI motherboard; which is exactly what NVIDIA wants.
Epox has already demonstrated a concept board to be released later this year; the board is a Socket-754 motherboard but uses NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI chipset.
The idea is that the money you save by going with a Socket-754 CPU goes towards buying a better pair of graphics cards, which will give you better overall gaming performance in the end.
The board is only made possible by NVIDIA cutting the price of their nForce4 SLI chipset. Note that NVIDIA isn’t cutting the prices of their nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipsets nearly as much, only the AMD version.
The biggest reason for NVIDIA dropping the price of their SLI chipsets? ATI.
ATI’s new multi-GPU chipset will be priced on par with NVIDIA’s nForce4 Ultra chipset, not the nForce4 SLI. Need any more explanation?
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Waylay00 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Well if the G70 boards are supposed to be in manufacturer's hands by the 2nd week of June, then when does this mean that they will actually be available for people to buy?Brian23 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Sorry, I can't count. I ment to say #37.Brian23 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
#36, that's what the gigabit ethernet is for!bob661 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
#36Too bad you couldn't store any movies on it.
patrick0 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
How about using a SSD for a HTPC?! Now that's silence.bob661 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
The swap file idea is excellent. I think four 512MB sticks would be enough and would run about $160 on Newegg.sprockkets - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Of course if you use Linux it has no problems using the RAM as a HDD as it is; look at Knoppix and DamnSmallLinux, both use the ram as a HDD and DSL can run completely out of the ram. You can also do that with Knoppix if you have at least 1GB of ram.But then again, no permanent distro goes to ram soooo...
Beenthere - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
There simply is no justification for the BTX design. It isn't a good design and it doesn't cool Intel's overheating products sufficiently. It's just a marketing gimmick that the Mobo mfgs. were smart enough to NOT adopt despite arm twisting by Intel. Intel is on there way down and the Mobo mfgs. know it.semo - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
solid state storage has been around for some time but not as cheap.http://www.hyperos2002.com/
look for hyperdrive
tungtung - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
That RAMDISK card is quite interesting although there is a Japanese company that make similar product since 1998 (only for Mac though) ... the idea of being able to use older RAM sticks are also the main thrust for that old product ... but that old product (which I just can't seem to remember what or who makes them) has an external power connector + battery backup.It is a nice use for scratch disk / temp drive though.