Intel 4x4? Nvidia Xeon chipset

[dogeatdog]

This has been reported twice by Inq now.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35428

However, the most interesting question is what kind of memory will the upcoming Nvidia Nforce chipset for the Intel dual-FSB Woodcrest and Clovertown chips use? If that ends up to be standard DDR2 and/or DDR3, it could accelerate the (probably inevitable) end of the fully buffered DIMM saga

Put two clovertowns with 2 8800GTXs and you will get 8 cores on one power-hungry platform. Intel is probably looking at Nvidia as a high-end chipset partner.

 

[Poncho]

LOL... that's what I want. A shitty 3rd party chipset for my server/workstation platform. Sorry... but the AMD fans can keep their "quadfather" BS on that side of the fence.

 

[DemonDiablo]

Intel is probably looking at Nvidia as a high-end chipset partner.

I highly doubt it. Last thing Intel needs is somebody elses help on making chipsets. If anything its the other way around.

 

[NulloModo]

I agree that Intel has always made far better chipsets than nVidia (or anyone else for that matter) but after tha ATI/AMD 'Merger' it seems like good business sense for Intel to just flat out buy nVidia. They could profit from their add-in graphics card business, and could use nVidia to really update and improve their GMA line.

 

[Poncho]

but after tha ATI/AMD 'Merger' it seems like good business sense for Intel to just flat out buy nVidia. They could profit from their add-in graphics card business, and could use nVidia to really update and improve their GMA line.

Actually it's a terrible idea. First... the profits from high end graphics cards are small, and I doubt intel would keep nVidias chipset line (intel's are better and they aren't going to make AMD chipsets ). Second... Intel already has over half the graphics market, can you imagine the bloody murder AMD/ATI would be screaming if Intel had 70+% of the graphics market? "OMG... anti trust, monopoly, blah, blah, blah." There is no reason for an Intel/nVidia combo... it wouldn't help either company. Oh... and Intel's GMA line is actually pretty damn good... especially with the latest generation.

 

[dogeatdog]

The advantage here is that, Nvidia is developing the chipset: which means Dual-SLI. It would also have support for 8 processing cores. And if it has native DDR2 support, it will make a superb workstation platform. Since Woodcrest is currently 15-20% slower than Conroe due to the slow, expensive and hot FBDIMMS. If Nvidia pulls it off, they will rule the high-end market. They may even end up in Apple.

 

[ND40oz]

What advantage is it for intel? They already have Quadro SLI woodcrest (with clovertown support) workstations. Dell may be the only one making them currently but that doesn't mean others can't. The Intel 5000x chipset supports 24 PCIe lanes, couple that with the 6321ESB ICH which supports 12 PCIe lanes and you should have more then enough for your dual graphics card configuration. Atleast, this is how Dell appears to do it on the 690.

 

[As I Lay Dying]

Folks if you can plx clarify but how long has the nforce 590 chipset for intel been around? Also what about the 570 chipset? From what I can tell, they seem to be flops, it seems from what I am seeing, most core2duo motherboards being purchased are all intel based chipsets. Also anyone know if future Intel chipsets, will still support crossfire. I cannot see, why all of a sudden nvidia will be making intel high end chipsets.......when intel seems to be making better chipsets.......maybe its me.....

 

[dogeatdog]

What advantage is it for intel? They already have Quadro SLI woodcrest (with clovertown support) workstations. Dell may be the only one making them currently but that doesn't mean others can't. The Intel 5000x chipset supports 24 PCIe lanes, couple that with the 6321ESB ICH which supports 12 PCIe lanes and you should have more then enough for your dual graphics card configuration. Atleast, this is how Dell appears to do it on the 690.

The Intel 5000x chipset is a dual PCI-X one. But it is a 16x4 config, not a 8x8 or 16x16, which you need for high-end gfx performance. Besides the 5000x chipset costs around $400 for the full-featured version.

Second is the lower latency of DDR2 memory, which means you will actually see performance improvements for Woodcrest and Clovertown, which are really held back by the larger latency of FB-DIMMs, which also worsens as you add more of this memory.

Intel would need to encourage this, because if not, you may soon see AMD 4x4, or dual AMD quad-cores end up in Apple's future Mac Pros. It needs to offer alternatives.

 

[ND40oz]

The Intel 5000x chipset is a dual PCI-X one. But it is a 16x4 config, not a 8x8 or 16x16, which you need for high-end gfx performance. Besides the 5000x chipset costs around $400 for the full-featured version.

Second is the lower latency of DDR2 memory, which means you will actually see performance improvements for Woodcrest and Clovertown, which are really held back by the larger latency of FB-DIMMs, which also worsens as you add more of this memory.

Intel would need to encourage this, because if not, you may soon see AMD 4x4, or dual AMD quad-cores end up in Apple's future Mac Pros. It needs to offer alternatives.

First off, I believe your talking about PCIe, not PCI-X.

A motherboard manufacturer can configure the lanes anyway they want to, it doesn't have to be x16 and x4, that's just how supermicro's done their first boards. There are enough lanes to do 2 x16, both my FX 4500s have full x16 connections on my board.

FB-Dimms my take a small hit for latency but they offer quad channel performance on the 5000x platform and can go up to 6 channels depending on the memory controller. They also offer a lot more memory capacity then you can ever get with DDR2.

Apple isn't going anywhere this round, it's taken over 9 months for Dell to release there first AMD systems since it was formally announced. By the time Apple took the time to get contracts negotiated and switched manufacturing we're already two generations down the line. Besides, why switch to an nVidia chipset when you already have Intel. Intel makes the best chipsets hands down and AMD hasn't shown that 4x4 will compete competively with woodcrest/clovertown. We'll see how it fares against kentsfield and go from there.