NVIDIA Announces AMD Integrated Graphics
by Wesley Fink on September 20, 2005 1:08 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Our Take
NVIDIA C51 has been expected for quite a while. Without a real integrated graphics solution for the AMD market, NVIDIA had allowed that market segment to be controlled by ATI on the higher end and SiS on the lower end. Now that NVIDIA is introducing its own AMD Integrated Graphics solution, you can expect this market segment to heat up even more.
NVIDIA tells us that boards will be available in early October, but we have already seen at least one motherboard available online. Priced at just $80, the Biostar Tforce-6100 is a value oriented board. If you're interested in the more feature-rich 6150+430 configuration you will have to wait a bit longer. We should see more products hit the retail market in the near future.
Some of the options on NVIDIA's new chipsets are unique and promising, like the support for high definition Azalia audio and HDTV output in 1080i format. These features look very promising for multimedia PCs, a market also targeted by ATI with their Integrated Graphics.
There are also some disappointments in the 6100. No one expects the GeForce 6100 to be the choice of a gamer, but there was hope that nVidia would improve performance by using 4 pixel pipelines in the 6100. Instead, the shipping 6100 is only 2 pixel pipelines, the same as the ATI Radeon Xpress200. NVIDIA passed on the opportunity to bring 6200 level Graphics to integrated video. They have promised that most "mainstream" games will be playable on the 6100 series, but we are skeptical with just 2 pipelines.
We will be talking more about the GeForce 6100 when we get our hands on actual motherboards and systems. At this point, it looks as if the 6100 is stiff competition for ATI. In the end, competition brings value and even more innovation. It looks as if AMD Integrated Graphics will now be a hotly contested market, and that's good news for buyers of mainstream Athlon64 systems.
NVIDIA C51 has been expected for quite a while. Without a real integrated graphics solution for the AMD market, NVIDIA had allowed that market segment to be controlled by ATI on the higher end and SiS on the lower end. Now that NVIDIA is introducing its own AMD Integrated Graphics solution, you can expect this market segment to heat up even more.
NVIDIA tells us that boards will be available in early October, but we have already seen at least one motherboard available online. Priced at just $80, the Biostar Tforce-6100 is a value oriented board. If you're interested in the more feature-rich 6150+430 configuration you will have to wait a bit longer. We should see more products hit the retail market in the near future.
Some of the options on NVIDIA's new chipsets are unique and promising, like the support for high definition Azalia audio and HDTV output in 1080i format. These features look very promising for multimedia PCs, a market also targeted by ATI with their Integrated Graphics.
There are also some disappointments in the 6100. No one expects the GeForce 6100 to be the choice of a gamer, but there was hope that nVidia would improve performance by using 4 pixel pipelines in the 6100. Instead, the shipping 6100 is only 2 pixel pipelines, the same as the ATI Radeon Xpress200. NVIDIA passed on the opportunity to bring 6200 level Graphics to integrated video. They have promised that most "mainstream" games will be playable on the 6100 series, but we are skeptical with just 2 pipelines.
We will be talking more about the GeForce 6100 when we get our hands on actual motherboards and systems. At this point, it looks as if the 6100 is stiff competition for ATI. In the end, competition brings value and even more innovation. It looks as if AMD Integrated Graphics will now be a hotly contested market, and that's good news for buyers of mainstream Athlon64 systems.
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tanekaha - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
I`m glad some1 mentioned windows vistaI`ll bet that this chipset all ya need for vista`s eye candy.
In that case it`ll be good for business users.
Maybe gateway will do well with this chipset ;)
tanekaha
DeathByDuke - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
only two pipelines while the X300/9600 integrated in ATis boards retain the 4 pipelines of their namesakes?bleh.
dont expect fantastic performance.. definitely worser than a Turbocache 4 pipeline card
they had an opportunity to offer a good 4 pipelined, DX9 Shader 3 solution that would give a lot of people good performance for cheap. (475Mhz core 4 pipes would make a nice fast 6200)
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
It depends on clockspeeds and features as well. 2x475 (for the 6150) may compare well with the 4x[whatever] of RS480. All I know for certain is that Xpress 200 is hardly capable of playing any 3D games, so I expect similar performance from 6100/6150. For the all-in-one boards, though, hopefully the 6100 series has better overclocking support than RS480. (If you can go stably above a 205 MHz FSB, that would beat the RS480 testing I've done. LOL!) Not that overclocking is required for the market, but the ability to OC often says something about the quality of the design.bob661 - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
If a mobo with this chipset is around $80-90 US, I could use it a "cheap" machine.mja28 - Thursday, September 22, 2005 - link
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...bob661 - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
Wesley,Does Azalia support DDL encoding on this chipset?
Tanclearas - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
It would be nice for Nvidia to do one of two things.1) Acknowledge there is a problem with ActiveArmor and that they are working on it.
2) Stop advertising a broken function as a selling feature.
As I've said before, there are WAY too many people experiencing problems with NAM/AA for it to be coincidence. Even when it's working, it normally breaks once a driver upgrade is attempted, and the only option is a rollback.
Wes, can you not get us any answers?
Myrandex - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
I have problems with my activearmor as well. Stupid 6.66 drivers don't let me download anything without corrupting the download, and it seems any version isnt' letting Norton Antivirus 2005 liveupdate to connect. If I disable activearmor, then it is all good, but I don't want to use a software firewall, due to the software implementation, so it definitely needs to be fixed.Another point, is that other websites are advertising 10 USB ports, but AT is saying 8 USB ports. Current nForce4 solutions offer 10USB ports, so with imagining Nvidia taking their current design and adding a graphics core, I would imagine the total should be 10 and not 8.
Jason
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
Jason -nVidia specifications say EIGHT USB ports, not 10, on GeForce 6100 family. The chipset graphic in this review is a direct capture from Intel's release presentation and it also states EIGHT USB ports. Since no one received a board for review, the only info available is from nVidia, and I read my Press Release Kit.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
I have had no problems with Active Armor in my testing on a clean install, but I have relayed comments from many users to nVidia. nVidia said they were not aware of any current issues with ActiveArmor, but they agreed to look into the issue further. If readers can email me links to Forum discussions of the ActiveArmor problems (any website) I will make sure they get to nVidia.