NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition

Name: NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition - Page 3
Brand: NVIDIA

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, April 05, 2005, 08:00 AM EDT

The NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Chipset: Feature Overview Continued

Loaded with Good Stuff

nTune Performance Application:
NVIDIA's nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition also fully supports their nTune performance application (formerly known and NVIDIA's System Utility). With NVIDIA's nTune application, users can have the application automatically adjust key aspects of their system (FSB speeds, voltages, memory timings) to maximize performance for any given scenario.

NVIDIA's nTune Performance Application

For example, with nTune users can tweak their system to squeeze more performance out of it while gaming, or even clock down the system and lower fan speeds to keep the system quiet while playing a DVD or video file. With nTune users can alter FSB speeds, memory timings, and tweak key voltages. Changes are made within the application, while in Windows, eliminating the need to make changes via the BIOS or reboot the system.

nVMixer:
Although SoundStorm is a thing of the past, the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition does have an AC'97 2.3 compliment audio interface incorporated in the MCP. To compliment the integrated AC'97 audio, NVIDIA provides the nVMixer application with their Forceware driver package to give users the ability to control the audio output from the MCP.

NVIDIA's nVMixer Application

Some of the key features of the NVMixer application include control over all playback and recording volumes, simple tweaking of speaker or headphone configurations, and integrated help information that's available on the same page as the actual feature in question.

SLI (Scalable Link Interface):
The key feature offered by the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition chipset, is of course SLI. We're not going to go in-depth with an explanation of SLI here, because we've already covered the technology thoroughly in this article,and in this one as well. However for those of you that haven't read those articles, and aren't familiar with NVIDIA's current version of SLI, essentially what it does is allow users to install a pair of PCI Express GeForce 6x00 based video cards into their systems, to share the 3D graphics workload to increase performance. The 20 PCI Express lanes from the SPP can be configured in either a x16 / x1 configuration or in an x8 / x8 configuration to balance the bandwidth available to each video card.

Tags: Nvidia, Intel, nforce, sli, edition, force, id

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com