The New GPU Models

The new motherboard GPUs for the Intel platform will consist of three models. Matching the top offering for the AMD platform is the GeForce 7050, which will be part of the nForce 610i chipset. This will be the lowest-end model for the Intel LGA775 platform.

The nForce 630i chipset will either feature the GeForce 7150 or GeForce 7100 GPUs. To be honest, the GeForce 7150 and GeForce 7100 are just marketing differentiations of the same GPU.

The only difference between the two is the speed at which they run. The GeForce 7100 will run at 600MHz while the GeForce 7150 will run at over 600MHz. NVIDIA has yet to decide what the final clock speed will be.

Other than the difference in clock speed between the GeForce 7150 and GeForce 7100, the rest of the nForce 630i chipset are the same. It supports a 1.33 GHz FSB, and supports one PCI Express X16 and two PCI Express X1 slots. It has four SATA channels and a single PATA channel, supporting a total of six hard drives. It also has Gigabit Ethernet support built-in, as well as 10 USB ports. Video display output options include the standard RGB and a choice of either DVI or HDMI.

In comparison, the GeForce 7050 will only be available in the entry-level nForce 610i chipset. The GPU itself runs at 500MHz, 17.6 % (75 MHz) faster than the GeForce 7050 PV GPU used in the nForce 630a chipset for the AMD AM2 platform. The nForce 610i is a less-capable chipset, offering a FSB speed of 1066 MHz and support for only RAID 0 and RAID 1. It also does not come with a Gigabit Ethernet controller and can only output to RGB.

Performance, Availability & Price

NVIDIA did not provide any detailed specifications of the GeForce 7150, 7100 and 7050 GPUs though. All we know is that they support DirectX 9 and Shader Model 3, like all GeForce 7 series GPUs. NVIDIA claims that these new motherboard GPUs' performance "will be very competitive", whatever that means.

They later clarified that the GeForce 7150 will have better performance than the GeForce 7100 GS. That would mean that the GeForce 7150 will have a fill rate higher than 1400 Megapixels/s and a vertex processing speed greater than 263 million vertices per second.

Although NVIDIA is announcing these new GPUs on September 25, 2007, they will not be available until next month. NVIDIA promised us that nForce 630i and nForce 610i motherboards will be available from their partners by October 2007. At launch, NVIDIA says that the nForce 610i motherboards will be priced around $60 (RM 200) while nForce 630i motherboards will be priced from $115 (RM 399) onwards.

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