We are still waiting for mainboards with nVidia’s new nForce3-chipsetseries, nForce3 250/250Gb, but there has already started to surface information about the manufacturer’s upcoming Athlon64-chipset.
The new chipset series goes by the codename CK8-04/Pro, is designed for Socket 939 platform and isn’t expected until the third or forth quarter of 2004.
According to information that X-bit labs has received CK8-04 will offer both a high quality soundcircuit, 24-bit 96kHz 7.1, and an optimized PCI Express-solution.
The PCI Express slots that will be used for graphics cards will in the future be known as PCI Express x16. The information that now has surfaced shows that NVIDIA will offer PCI Express x20 on their CK8-04 platform though.
Exactly what this means is uncertain though, but if it means a bandwidth optimized graphics card slot it could become a nice feather in their cap. If this theory is correct it will probably be feature that only NVIDIA’s own graphics circuits will be able to take advantage of in the beginning, which makes it even more interesting.
As usual with unofficial information you should take it with a big pinch of salt. But it would undoubtedly be interesting to see a bit bigger performance difference on the chipset market for Athlon64-processorers.
Source: X-bit labs.com
