NForce2
Chipset
The Nvidia nForce2 chipset was released by Nvidia in July 2002 as a refresh to the original nForce product offering. The nForce2 chipset was a platform for motherboards supporting AMD's Socket A CPUs along with DDR SDRAM. There were multiple variations of the chipset including one with an integrated GeForce4 MX graphics processor (IGP), and one without.
01Refresh
In 2003, Nvidia released refreshed nForce2 chips, called "nForce2 400" and "nForce2 Ultra 400". The nForce2 400 and nForce2 Ultra 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, MCP-RAID had additional RAID-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.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “NForce2”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Nforce2.png by Unknown author, Fair use
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