New Nvidia chipsets tweak Athlon 64 motherboards

Santa Clara-based graphics manufacturer Nvidia today announced new integrated graphics chipset offerings for systems based on the AMD Athlon 64 platform.

The new chipsets, designed for AMD64 system motherboards, will pair an nForce 400 series MCP south bridge chip with a GeForce 6000-series north bridge that features integrated DirectX 9 and Shader Model 3.0 graphics.

Nvidia will offer two GeForce 6000 variations--the GeForce 6100 and the GeForce 6150--with different feature sets to bring DX9 graphics and two levels of video playback support to entry-level and mainstream AMD64 systems.

3D performance will be comparable--both chips will feature 2-pixel pipelines and a single vertex unit, but the GeForce 6150 will have a higher 475MHz clock speed compared to the GeForce 6100's 425MHz clock. The integrated graphics aren't as powerful as today's basic 4-pixel or 8-pixel pipeline video cards, but no other manufacturer currently offers integrated DX9, SM 3.0 chipset graphics.

The GeForce 6100 unit will have basic standard video support, but the GeForce 6150 will have hardware-accelerated HD video playback and support for component and DVI output in addition to the standard composite and S-Video output built directly on the motherboard.

Nvidia will also have two different nForce 400-series chips. The entry-level nForce 410 will offer nForce4 south bridge communications and basic hard drive RAID support. The advanced nForce 430 will have a hardware network firewall, Gigabit Ethernet networking, and support for additional RAID configurations.

The first nForce 400- and GeForce 6000-enabled motherboards will be available in late September, and PCs from system manufacturers will be ready for sale in October.