The Nvidia nForce2
chipset
In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chips ...
was released by
Nvidia
Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...
in July 2002 as a refresh to the original
nForce product offering. The nForce2 chipset was a platform for
motherboards supporting
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...
's
Socket A CPUs along with
DDR SDRAM
Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR SDRAM) is a double data rate (DDR) synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) class of memory integrated circuits used in computers. DDR SDRAM, also retroactively called DDR ...
. There were multiple variations of the chipset including one with an integrated
GeForce4 MX graphics processor (IGP), and one without.
Refresh
In 2003, Nvidia released a refreshed nForce2, called "nForce2 Ultra 400". The nForce2 Ultra 400 and nForce2 400 presented official support for a 200 MHz FSB and PC-3200 DDR SDRAM, whereas the older nForce2 only supported a maximum of 166 MHz FSB. Ultra 400 offered dual-channel support, while the plain 400 was single-channel PC-3200-capable. Both performed very similarly because neither had the IGP. Athlon XP did not benefit significantly from the added bandwidth because the Athlon XP's bus was only capable of bandwidth matching a single channel of PC-3200.
The new chipset was partnered with several different southbridges, including one with (MCP-T) and one without (MCP) SoundStorm and dual Ethernet NICs. In 2004 three new southbridges were introduced: MCP-S integrated
Serial ATA
SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host adapter, host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PAT ...
, MCP-RAID had additional
RAID
RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...
-functions and MCP-Gb featured Gigabit Ethernet. These newer southbridges did not integrate the SoundStorm unit nor the dual-Ethernet capabilities of the MCP-T.
See also
*
Comparison of Nvidia chipsets
References
External links
Nvidia: nForce2Anandtech: Nvidia nForce2 PreviewAnandtech: Nvidia's nForce2 Performance ReviewAnandtech: Nvidia's nForce2 Part II: Diving Deeper
{{Nvidia chipsets
Nvidia chipsets