nVidia names nForce partnerships
Vendor also unveils nForce 3 processor
NVidia has unveiled its latest nForce 3 processor, and announced key alliances with leading motherboard makers.
At Computex, the graphics chip heavyweight revealed deals that will see its nForce 3 Professional media and communications processor (MCP) being used by manufacturers Iwill and Tyan in their high-performance AMD Opteron server and workstation motherboards.
The new nForce 3 Ultra MCP is designed for AMD 64-based systems. The processor is touted as the first single-chip system with a native Gigabit Ethernet interface and a hardware-optimised firewall security solution.
It comes with the new AutoTuning performance tool, which automatically adjusts PC clock speeds to maximise overall system performance without user intervention.
The hardware-optimised firewall is designed to protect PCs and workstations against network-level hacking attacks, viruses, worms and other threats. It also boasts advanced features such as anti-hacking, logging capability, domain name filtering and remote manageability.
"Our nForce 3 Professional 250-based DK8N workstation motherboard, with support for dual AMD Opteron processors, is fast becoming one of our most successful products ever," said Sunny Chang, sales and marketing director at Iwill.
Danny Hsu, senior director of marketing at Tyan, said: "With nVidia, Tyan will be bringing professional users the compatible, stable and reliable 32bit and 64bit computing platform they have been asking for."
Drew Henry, general manager of platform business at nVidia, said: "Professional users demand performance, stability and reliability from workstation and server platforms, and we're excited about the possibilities Iwill and Tyan will be enabling in the professional computing market."
In other Computex news, nVidia furthered the cause of fast, Serial ATA (SATA) 3Gbps technology by announcing joint efforts with hard drive manufacturers, including Hitachi, Maxtor, Samsung and Seagate.
SATA 3Gbps is more than twice as fast as existing SATA and parallel interface technology in use today. NVidia has said it will incorporate SATA 3Gbps into future nForce MCPs by the end of the year.