|
the goal of removing hazardous substances from
electronics - rohs / weee |
|
you may have started to notice a little garbage
can with an x running through it on appearing on motherboards, videocards
and other electronics circuit boards this year. it's a symbol used to
represent Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment, but it's also generally associated with RoHS
(Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliance as well. The latter is
a European Union initiative which targets hazardous materials in
consumer electrical and electronics equipment.
 RoHS aims to remove heavy metals used in
electronic components like Lead, Mercury, Cadium, Hexavalent Chormium, PBB
and PDBE. In order to comply with EU's RoHS legislation, all substances
must either be removed or reduced to within maximum permitted levels. This
applies to all electrical components that will be sold within the European
Union, so as a by product most electronics headed for North America are
now also made compliant.
RoHS was originally discussed in the European Union in July of 2003 and
was introduced as law as of July 1st 2006. Manufacturers caught
putting non-compliant products onto the EU market will face stiff fines
and have their products barred.
While manufacturers are primarily affected by RoHS, the law is also
seeking to change how we as consumers handle our old electronics at the
end of its life cycle. End users are advised to handle electronic waste as
"hazardous waste", and dispose of old electronics through proper waste
channels - not simply toss these items into the trash. It is no longer
okay to just throw old computer gear into the dust bin, and subsequently
our land fills. |
| Comments and Feedback? Suggest a
Tweak. |
The Flagship
AM2 Chipset - nForce 590 SLI
The flagship nVIDIA nForce
590 SLI chipset is aimed directly at the enthusiast market. If you want the
best, this chipset is your only alternative for an AM2-based system unit VIA or
SIS get their act together. If you are already
familiar with what the nForce 590 has to offer, feel free to jump ahead
to the next page, and our look at what 'Tri-mode SLI' really
means...
nVIDIA breaks the nForce 590 SLI down into two chipsets, the C51XE Northbridge which
is built on TSMC's 90nm manufacturing, and the MCP55PXE which is manufactured
on TSMC's 140nm manufacturing.
The nVIDIA
nForce 590 SLI chipsets have a total of 46 PCI Express lanes available, and
these are divided into 9 links. The C51XE SPP Northbridge supplies one PCI
Express x16 link while it's the MCP55PXE that has the rest of the PCI Express
lanes. The MCP55PXE also supports one PCI Express x16 link, which means users
get full videocard bandwidth when running two nVIDIA videocards in
SLI.
The MCP
Southbridge has a PCI Express x8 link and six PCI Express x1 links, depending on
what the motherboard vendor decides to implement. Whichever way you slice it,
there's plenty of high bandwidth PCI Express lanes to go
around!
The nVidia
MCP55PXE Southbridge is definitely the workhorse of the two, and it boasts a
whole host of other features as well. The Southbridge handles up to 5 bus
mastering PCI slots, but again it's up to the motherboard manufacturer to decide
how many PCI slots to equip on a motherboard. There is a direct link to the
Southbridge for two Gigabit Ethernet connections, and these will include
nVIDIA's DualNet technology of course.
| nVidia nForce 500 Series Feature
Breakdown |
|
nVidia nForce 590
SLI |
| CPU |
940-pin Socket AM2 |
| nVida SLI Support |
Yes, (2 x16) |
| nVidia LinkBoost |
Yes |
| nVidia FirstPacket |
Yes |
| nVidia DualNet |
Yes |
|
Native Gigabit Ethernet |
2 |
|
Teaming |
Yes |
|
TCP/IP Acceleration |
Yes |
| nVidia MediaShield Storage |
Yes |
|
SATA/IDE HDD |
6/2 |
|
SATA Speed |
3Gb/s |
|
RAID |
0, 1, 0+1, 5 |
| nVidia nTune Utility |
Yes |
| PCI Express Lanes |
46 lanes |
| USB Ports |
10 |
| PCI Slots |
5 |
| Audio |
High Definition Audio
(Azalia) | |
nForce 590 SLI Assorted Technologies
nVIDIA has
upgraded the integrated audio solution to include Intel's High Definition Audio
Azalia standard. With Serial ATA going the way it is, there is only one IDE
channels integrated now. To balance out storage requirements, the number of
Serial ATA II (3Gbps) ports has been increased to six. Continuing on the hard
drive front, nVIDIA's Serial ATA II channels adhere to the Serial ATA 2.0 spec
and support RAID mode 0, 1, 0+1 and 5.
nVIDIA DualNet technology
looks very interesting, and what it does is basically give
the user greater control over network processes. All high end and mainstream
nVIDIA chipsets will now by default support two Gigabit connections. Users can
combine the two connections for more bandwidth, and there is hardware TCP/IP
Acceleration which lowers CPU utilization. Another very cool feature is nVIDIA's
FirstPacket Technology which allows you to prioritize network traffic. So for
example, if you are a gamer that tends to do multiple things while you're
online, you can prioritize your game traffic so that ping times are not affected
by the other processes going on in the background.
When the nVIDIA nForce 590
SLI chipset is equipped with GeForce 7900GTX class or higher videocards, the
chipset will automatically activate the nVidia LinkBoost technology.
LinkBoost increases the PCI Express x16 buses to the videocard by
25%, and it also does the same for the HyperTransport link between the North and
Southbridge chipsets. While increasing the bandwidth PCI Express bandwidth to
GeForce 7900GTX might be a bit redundant, future generation videocards should
see a nice gain from this setting.
On the memory front, the
nVidia 590 SLI chipset introduces something called the Enhanced
Performance Profiles or EPP. This is an open memory standard put forth
by Corsair and nVIDIA which takes over where JEDEC's SPD leaves off.
As the Enhanced Performance Profiles description implies, it adds performance profiles to
the memory SPD in addition to the conservative compatibility settings already programmed
in.
EPP compliant memory is
dubbed "SLI Ready" memory on nVidia
platforms (great marketing on nVIDIA's part) and allows the system to
dynamically tighten up memory timings and increase voltages for better
performance with no fuss. Whether you're a novice or experienced computer user,
the benefits of EPP are immediate. Corsair is the initial memory manufacturer
out the door with this new technology but others are already following
suit.
Finally nVIDIA has greatly
upgraded its nTune software
which allow users more control
over their systems. Realistically with nTune, there is no longer a need to go
into the BIOS to adjust settings, now you can do everything within
WindowsXP!
Next up, what's this about three PCI Express x16 slots and three
videocards?
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