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This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. We covered the feature set of Nvidia’s back in July, shortly after it was announced. At that time, indications were that Nvidia had nailed the sweet spot in terms of features, signed up a larger cadre of motherboard manufacturers and looked to take the AMD chipset market by storm. Unfortunately, the chipset has suffered some delays, though not as substantial as the original Nforce.

1. Nvidia Nforce2 Agp Driver For Mac Pro
2. Nvidia Drivers Download Mac

Nvidia Nforce2 Agp Driver For Mac Pro

Still, the delays gave Via Technologies enough time to ship the KT400. Do the new Nforce2 boards deliver the oomph to take on market leader Via? Or will the chipset fall just short of greatness, as did the original Nforce? We ponder those questions — and run lots of benchmarks to see. First, let’s quickly review some of the key features of the chipset as configured on the motherboards we tested.

All of these boards use the Nforce 2’s SPP (system platform processor) chip as the north bridge, which lacks the integrated GeForce4 MX graphics core. And all use the MCP2 south bridge. Twin 64-Bit Memory Interface: Like the original, the Nforce2 north bridge chip has twin 64-bit memory interfaces that can be linked up to act as a single 128-bit wide memory interface using dual memory controllers (the original Nforce only had one memory controller).

In theory, this makes the TwinBank dual-channel feature more viable. In the original, TwinBank only offered a boost with the integrated graphics core. DDR400 and DDR333 Memory Support: Nvidia noted that running the clocks in “sync” with the frontside bus speed of the Athlon XP delivers the best performance; the system BIOS of all the tested motherboards supported this sync mode, though none by default. AGP 8X, ATA133: Support for faster interfaces, such as AGP 8x in the SPP and ATA133 disk interfaces in the MCP (South Bridge). The MCP/MCP-T also supports 1394a (FireWire) and USB 2.0.

An 800MHz HyperTransport link connects the SPP to the MCP. New Prefetch Unit: The prefetch unit, dubbed “DASP” (dynamic adaptive speculative preprocessor) has been redesigned to play well with the hardware prefetch of the Athlon XP. Improved Audio Software Support: Better software support for the MCP-T’s sophisticated audio engine, which consists of multiple programmable and fixed-function DSPs.

These include some pretty nifty equalizers, Note that the control software only seems to work with the MCP-T, not the less capable MCP. Dual Ethernet controllers: One is based on a licensed core from 3Com, which was specifically chosen to be more attractive to the corporate market. It’s a rich feature set, and each motherboard maker takes a somewhat different approach to implementing them.

However, due to shipping delays, the feature set isn’t quite as robust as it could have been. For example, the MCP-T delivers a superb audio engine, capable of encoding Dolby Digital on the fly, but the Nforce2 is limited to 20-bit audio resolution through the audio pipeline. Creative Labs has recently started shipping the Audigy2, which ups the ante with Dolby Digital EX support, full support for 24-bit/96 KHz multichannel audio and 24-bit/192KHz stereo. And you can play DVD-Audio media with it, something the Nforce2 can’t handle. On the memory controller front, Via has been shipping the KT400 for a few weeks now, and KT400 boards are both inexpensive and seem free of most of the stability problems that have plagued Via-based solutions in the past.

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Even Intel has upped the ante in the core logic game, shipping the single-channel 845PE with DDR333 support and the 7205 (“Granite Bay”) chipset with dual-channel DDR266 support. Nforce2 is shipping, though, and while the feature set doesn’t quite seem as leading edge as it seemed to be when it was first announced, it’s certainly a capable one, more than good enough for the majority of users — even power DIY types. This comparative review is organized into the following sections. You can read each sequentially, or jump just to the part you’re interested in.

Motherboard Feature Set: A comparison of the features of each of the six we tested. TestBed Setup: What we used and how we tested. Benchmark Results: How each board performed on our exhaustive application and component level testing. Performance/Review Summary: Overview of the test results.

Detailed Reviews of Each Motherboard Tested. Abit NF7-S. Asus A7N8X Deluxe. Chaintech 7NJS. Epox 8RDA+. Leadtek K7NCR18D-Pro.

MSI K7N2 So let’s jump right into a close feature comparison of these six motherboards. 1 of 17.