ABIT NV7-133R nForce 415D
March 2002
Manufacturer: ABIT
Intro
When the first nForce board first came out, we expected too much from it. I mean who can you blame, there was such a huge hype regarding this chipset that everyone's expectations were already set too high. The arrival of the nForce proved to be not that spectacular as people who have already been using KT266A boards were disappointed that it didn't surpass the performance of the current boards/chipsets already available in the market. New, to most means better performance of course over the current technology. Personally though, I think the problem was because the enthusiast market was expecting too much for this all-in-one motherboard. nVidia on the other hand wasn't too sure either whether what market its targetting, the inclusion of the AGP port somehow emphasized this. The consumer had mixed emotions. The main selling point of the nForce was its integrated everything especially its onboard GF2 MX200 graphics, obviously the most superior onboard graphics one can have. But being intended as a performance board too, it is still too weak for the power users and gamers. Although there is an option of disabling it and using a more powerful graphics card, it is not good to pay for a feature you wouldn't likely use. Also the performance didn't meet the expectation the market has set for it. Like the majority's conclusions, the blame is placed on the onboard graphics degrading the signal integrity of the AGP.
Well nVidia somehow heard all this complaints and came up with yet a new nForce chipset, the nForce 415-D. How is it different from the old nForce? Well let's just say that now you don't have to pay for a feature you don't want to use and instead you get a more souped up nForce complete with all the new technolologies of the present.
nForce 415-D
The nForce 415-D is pretty much like the old 420-D chipset but is absent of the integrated GeForce 2 MX 200 graphics core (IGP). It still uses the System Platform Processor (SPP) which is comprised of the TwinBank Memory Architecture, a Dynamic Adaptive Speculative Preprocessor (DASP) to help boost CPU performance. It also uses the nForce MCP redefining the total audio and commmunications package. The integrated Audio Processing Unit (APU) gives you the Dolby Digital 5.1 cinematic audio experience. On the communications front is StreamThru, which is an innovative technology providing an optimized pipeline enhancing networking and broadband and the most complete suite of integrated networking and communications devices including Ethernet, HomePNA 2.0, and six USB ports. Both the nForce MCP and nForce SPP feature AMD Hypertransport, a high-perfromance I/O bus interface technology delivering 800MB/sec of data between the two platform processors. With the birth of nForce 415-D together with the old nForce, nVidia has taken hold of all ends of the market now. Of course, the nForce 415-D has to proved that it is better than its old brother and with the IGP totally taken out of the picture, it should surpass or at least equal the performance of current high performance chipsets for the AMD DDR crowd.
ABIT NV7-133R
When it comes to high performance boards, the ABIT name will always be there. Seeing the promise this new nForce chipset could give, ABIT has decided to manufacture their second motherboard based on the nForce 415-D. Named NV7-133R, this ABIT nForce board has a lot of things to offer and has one of the most complete package I have seen present in a board. Incorporating the latest technology like ULTRA ATA133, RAID, USB 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, onboard LAN, etc this will surely be an excellent package if its performance proves to be very good.
