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The Verdict
So it's like this, I think the NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition is a very impressive setup. Sure we ran into some problems (installing a beta nForce driver and not even being able to boot into safe mode is always a good one) that I rather would not have seen, but hey this is a reference board / engineering sample. We expected some small issues. Another fun once was setting the PC at T(CAS) [3, T(RCD) [2], T(RP) [2], T(RAS) [7], T(RC) [2] timings, which ran be-a-utiful at an 800 MHz FSB. Experimenting a little with a 900 MHz FSB caused the BIOS to never verer to even post again, clearing the CMOS will fix that but these things are not supposed to happen with overclocking protection in place (which this mainboard has). Also the lack of temperature monitoring combined with safety shutdown features at BIOS level were missing. Well, engineering stuff I guess and not even something to worry about.
Despite the minor issues we ran into I must say that this is a very promising platform. I say promising as I believe that once we will see actual retail boards from the big manufacturers these tiny bugs will be squashed.
The nForce4 chipset for Intel processors offer a lot of features and technology that for the bigger part ran straight out of the box. Serial ATA 2, Hardware Firewall, SLI, good DDR2 controller and the list goes on. When we look at performance we can see very exciting figures. It's too bad that our Extreme Edition processor had to be returned to Intel days before this mainboard sample arrived because I'd like to have used that processor on this mainboard to do a 1:1 performance comparison. However I'm confident that this chipset will perform just as good as Intel's 925XE platform. And with NVIDIA's advanced new memory controller and excellent RAID configuration in the form of MediaShield there are certainly a few more items to impress you then Intel's 925XE part.
One thing that bothers me though is the pricing level of building an SLI edition Pentium 4 based system, for you gamers out there I mean. If you go for SLI on an Intel processor based rig by default the mainboard will be slightly more expensive due to a very expensive Intel license. That price will settle at the AMD nForce price point at a given point in time though. But it's not just that. Next to that you'll need some quality DDR2 memory in the system. And to be able to feed your SLI graphics cards you'll need one beast of a processor as you will most definitely run into a CPU computing power bottleneck. Now let's place this in contrast to the an AMD rig. With your AMD 64 setup you can use standard and much cheaper DDR memory, a slightly cheaper CPU and a slightly cheaper mainboard. The sum of all this madness is that performance between the two platforms is roughly the same while the AMD PC will be much cheaper.
In contrast to all that I must add that this platform is Dual Core CPU ready, and as it looks right now Intel's Dual Core CPU's are going to be significantly cheaper compared to AMD's Dual Core products. At this point that however remains speculation though.
What to me is most impressive, yet probably rather boring to the end-user, is to see what NVIDIA has done with the memory controller that is integrated into the SPP unit. NVIDIA noticed the true value of memory bandwidth for a Pentium 4 system. These processors are memory bandwidth hungry and to see the efficient memory controller in this shape and form is truly exciting. The MCP is also something that can compete with Intel's ICHR6 (Southbridge) very well. A small minor in that part is the AC97 audio, which I simply am not a fan of. More expensive? Yes, but NVIDIA should listen a bit more carefully to the consumers... they want SoundStorm back integrated and are willing to pay for it.
Of course there will always be a large group of people that simply refuse to buy AMD or vice versa, it is targeted at those people that would like to enjoy the muscle that is called nForce4, with or without SLI yet, with that Intel processor inside that'll buy this product. And that crowd might be bigger then you and I think. It's good to have choices and that is exactly what NVIDIA can offer you right now.
Overall I can only say that I was very much pleased with overall performance and stability, it simply was great. Next to that this system, once setup properly, was extremely stable even when overclocked to 4GHz + speeds. The nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition mainboards will be a hip and trendy product for those that opt the high-end path. For the first time ever an NVIDIA chipset supports the Pentium 4 processor and I must congratulate NVIDIA for a job well done.
Special thanks to NVIDIA UK for their everlasting support and dedication to Guru3D.com!
