Meet the new nForce lineup

NVIDIA’s latest nForce 700 series chipsets incorporate a number of new features such as GeForce Boost, HybridPower, and ESA, in addition to supporting tried and true technologies like SLI-Ready Memory and NVIDIA’s MediaShield and FirstPacket technologies. We’ve discussed many of these new technologies in our EVGA nForce 790i and GeForce 9800 GX2 articles, but we’ll provide a real quick refresher just in case you missed those articles.

GeForce Boost is designed to give low-end value systems with integrated graphics (IGP) a boost in performance when the IGP (which is based on the same architecture as the GeForce 8400 GS with 16 stream processors) is paired with a GeForce 8400 GS or 8500 GT discrete graphics card. HybridPower and ESA are probably the features most enthusiasts would be most interested in.

With HybridPower, discrete GPUs can be powered down when they’re not being heavily taxed, say for instance when you’re browsing the Internet or typing up a Word document. In these cases, the discrete GPU can be powered down, allowing the IGP to handle these 2D tasks, and since the IGP supports NVIDIA’s PureVideo HD, it can also be used for video playback duties as well. The only caveats are that a Phenom CPU (and its HyperTransport 3.0 link) is required when playing HD videos and that noise reduction must be disabled when using the IGP (Windows Vista’s Aero interface is also disabled when HD video is being played).

The IGP is capable of driving one single-link DVI or HDMI display (limiting the max resolution to 1920x1200), and with its 300MHz RAMDAC one VGA display with a max res of 1920x1440 at 75Hz.

ESA, NVIDIA’s Enthusiast System Architecture, is designed to provide a communications ecosystem for controlling and monitoring all the components inside the PC. This includes all fans within the system, as well as the CPU, GPU, power supply, RAM, water cooling, etc. With ESA the end user can manage and monitor the status, voltages, and temps of all these components.

This is just a quick refresher on the new features NVIDIA has announced inside the new nForce chipsets, but there are other changes. The following chart summarizes the key features found inside NVIDIA’s new 750a and 780a SLI chipsets:

nForce 7-series SLI Comparison
	NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI	NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI
CPU Support	AMD Phenom, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64	AMD Phenom, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64
Memory Support	DDR2-1066	DDR2-1066
HybridPower Technology	Yes	Yes
SLI-Ready Memory	Yes	Yes
PCI Express 2.0	Yes	Yes
NVIDIA SLI Technology	Yes 3-Way (x16, x8,x8)	Yes 2-Way (2x8)
PCI Express Lanes	35 lanes	19 lanes
PCI Express Links	7 links (Configuration 2x16 or 4x8 or 1x16, 2x8 3x1)	4 links (Configuration 2x8, 2x1 or 1x16, 3x1)
GPU-to-GPU Direct Link (PWShort)	Yes	Yes
Broadcast Support	Yes	Yes
ESA Technology	Yes	No
SATA/PATA Drives	6/2	6/2
SATA Speed	3Gbps	3Gbps
RAID	0, 1, 0+1, 5	0, 1, 0+1, 5
NVIDIA MediaShield	Yes	Yes
Native Gigabit Ethernet Connections	1	1
NVIDIA FirstPacket Technology	Yes	Yes
USB Ports	12	12
PCI Slots	5	5
Audio	HDA (Azalia)	HDA (Azalia)
NVIDIA Control Panel Utility	Yes	Yes
NVIDIA System Monitor	Yes	Yes
Onboard Display	RGB, DVI, HDMI	RGB, DVI, HDMI
NVIDA PureVideo	PureVideo HD	PureVideo HD

Notes

Based on the chart above, one of the key differentiators between the nForce 780a SLI and 750a SLI is the number of lanes supported by the chipset – 35 in nForce 780a SLI versus just 19 in nForce 750a SLI. These extra lanes allow the nForce 780a SLI chipset to support 3-Way SLI (two PCIe cards run in x8 mode, one x16) while the nForce 750a SLI is limited to just 2-Way SLI, and even in conventional 2-Way SLI, the nForce 750a SLI chipset is limited to running both cards in x8 mode (16 PCIe lanes are sent to each graphics card under the same 2-Way scenario with nForce 780a SLI).

So how did NVIDIA manage to add the extra lanes to nForce 780a? Take a look at the block diagram of the nForce 780a versus the nForce 750a:

As you can see, the nForce 200 chip makes a return in the nForce 780a chipset. If you recall, nForce 200 was previously used to add PCIe 2.0 support to the nForce 780i SLI chipset for the Intel platform. Apparently NVIDIA has recycled it again to add PCIe lanes to yet another 780 chipset, in this case the nForce 780a SLI chipset.

Other than the difference in PCIe configuration, the 750a and 780a chipsets are very similar. Both chipsets support HybridPower, PWShort, and Broadcast Power (which we’ll discuss on the next page), although only the nForce 780a chipset supports ESA.

The nForce 730a chipset is NVIDIA’s chipset for gamers looking for a single GPU motherboard. Here’s the block diagram for the 730a chipset:


In terms of pricing, nForce 780a motherboards are expected to sell for $250 and up, while nForce 750a motherboards will start around $120+. Pricing on nForce 730a motherboards is expected to start at $80 and go up from there.