Thoughts
From what we can ascertain, NVIDIA had two aims when engineering a chipset for the Pentium 4. The first was to break into a lucrative market that had been hither-to closed to it. The second was to replicate the performance success of its SLI chipset for AMD-based CPUs. It, I feel, has succeeded on both counts. The reference NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition is competitive against Intel's 925XE/955X when evaluated on both features and pure performance. Indeed, there's very little to choose between the nF4 SLI I.E. and any number of 925XE boards right now, highlighting the good job NVIDIA's engineers have done with a first-time attempt at architecting an efficient memory controller.NVIDIA has also made a successful transition of its SLI tech. over to an Intel-based platform. SLI works exactly in the same way it does on a current AMD machine, and performance, if equivalent processors are used, is largely the same as a well-tuned AMD machine. Intel's 955X Express and the nForce4 SLI I.E opens up the market for a vast range of partners to launch pre-SLI'd machines. Expect the likes of Dell, an Intel-only partner, to have a number of configurations ready at short notice.
The biggest loser, for want of a better word, in the launch of two SLI-capable chipsets for LGA775 processors is AMD. The collaboration with NVIDIA gave it a short window of opportunity as the sole provider of SLI-equipped machines. That window is closed now, and it will be interesting to see just how the high-end chipset/graphics card market pans out of the forthcoming months. At least you now have more choice with regards to high-performance LGA775 chipsets, and a first-time choice on which CPU company to base an SLI'd powerhouse machine around.
