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NVIDIA nForce3
CPU support	Athlon 64, Opteron
Predecessor	nForce2
Successor	nForce4

The nForce3 chipset was created by NVIDIA as a Media and Communications Processor. Specifically, it was designed for use with the Athlon 64 processor.

Contents 1 Features of the nForce3 2 Windows Vista Incompatibility 3 References 4 External links

When the Athlon 64 was launched, the NVIDIA nForce3 150 and VIA K8T800 were the only two chipsets available. The 150 chipset was widely criticized at launch for using a 600 MHz HyperTransport interface, when VIA had implemented the full AMD specification at 800 MHz, even though overall performance of the 150 was still good.

Later revisions fixed this omission, and using a HyperTransport interface, the nForce3 chipset is able to communicate at up to 8 GB/s with the CPU. This reduces system bottlenecks when using high-bandwidth devices. For example, the Gigabit Ethernet transmits at 100 MB/s; if the Ethernet were not on the chipset, a saturated gigabit ethernet link would use 75% of the bandwidth of the 133 MB/s PCI bus.

The 150 also noticeably lacked features. Subsequent revisions of the chipset corrected these omissions. The chipset is offered in different versions, reflecting socket types and features.

• nForce3 250 - Socket 754, basic value chipset, 800HT, does not include on-chip Gigabit LAN or on-chip Firewall.

• nForce3 250Gb - Socket 754, 800HT, includes gigabit LAN and on-chip Firewall.

• nForce3 250Gb Ultra - Socket 939, 1000HT, gigabit LAN, Firewall, Dual-Channel unbuffered, for Athlon 64/Athlon 64 FX.

• nForce3 250Gb Ultra PRO - Socket 940, 1000HT, gigabit LAN, Firewall, for Opteron.

Perhaps most notably, the 250 revision of the nForce 3 featured the world’s first native Gigabit Ethernet interface and a hardware-optimized Firewall. The NVIDIA Firewall technology utilizes the ActiveArmor secure networking engine. This makes the firewall an on-chip function, in theory reducing the overhead on the CPU and increasing throughput. The firewall also uses IAM, or Intelligent Application Manager, to provide application-based filtering.

However, the most notable omission from the nForce 3 chipset is the quality integrated SoundStorm audio found in nForce2 boards, supposedly for cost reasons. The nForce 3 chipset is a single die solution, as opposed to the historical northbridge / southbridge combination, and reportedly there was not enough space left for audio functionality.

The nForce3 also supports SATA technology, as well as RAID 0+1 striping and mirroring. The chipset can accommodate up to four high bandwidth SATA-150 devices.

nVidia announced before the public release of Windows Vista that they would not release chipset drivers for the AGP-based nForce2 or nForce3 for the operating system and would focus only on PCI Express-based systems. nVidia thus is the first and only major mainboard chipset manufacturer for at present time that is not supporting a chipset designed for 64-bit processors. The chipset drivers packaged with Windows Vista are usuable, but as a result of not being specifically designed for the nForce2 and 3 chipsets, they do not take full advantage of the hardware and lose some functionality. One such problem disables safe removal of IDE and SATA drives.

One issue concerning the lack of natively supported drivers for the nForce3 chipset in Windows Vista has come up with the public release of the operating system and the affordability of dual core systems. In these dual core systems with ATI graphics chipsets above the Radeon 9XXX series, Windows Vista disables the ATI display drivers designed for the operating system and prompt it to default to the PCI-compatible drivers. Windows reports this as Code 43 Error. In PCI-compatible mode, all hardware acceleration is switched off, negatively affecting the performance of the display adapter.

This problem is caused by memory allocation routines in dual core systems with ATI display drivers^{[citation needed]}. With single core processors, this issue does not exist. ATI has claimed nVidia's chipset driver is the issue. AMD has released announcement about the matter in their knowledge base entry #737-24498. SiS and VIA had also problems with their chipset drivers (mainly agp.inf), but quickly released patches to correct these issues.

As recently reported,^[1] Nvidia seems to have changed their minds about not providing an update for the problem and are now saying that the problem will most likely be resolved with an "MCP driver update."

• NVIDIA: nForce3
• Anandtech: nForce3-250 - Part 1: Taking Athlon 64 to the Next Level
• Anandtech: nForce3-250 - Part 2: Taking Athlon 64 to the Next Level
• Anandtech: Which Boards Have On-Chip LAN?
• TechReport

NVIDIA Gaming Graphics Processors Early Chips: NV1 • NV2 Direct3D 5/6: RIVA 128 • RIVA TNT • RIVA TNT2 Direct3D 7.0: GeForce 256 • GeForce 2 Direct3D 8.0: GeForce 3 • GeForce 4 Direct3D 9.0: GeForce FX • GeForce 6 • GeForce 7 Direct3D 10: GeForce 8

Other NVIDIA Technologies nForce: 220/415/420 • 2 • SoundStorm • 3 • 4 • 500 • 600 Professional Graphics: Quadro • Quadro Plex Graphics Card Related: TurboCache • SLI Software: Gelato • Cg • PureVideo Consumer Electronics: GoForce Game Consoles: Xbox (NV2A) • PlayStation 3 (RSX)