What happened to Nforce?

ubersonic · 20 May 2015 at 09:13

So yeah, before upgrading to my Rampage IV Gene and an i7 3820 (now a 4930K) two years ago I was rocking a XFX nForce 750i SLI with a 4GHz Q9650 which had been running strong as **** for about half a decade, but what happened to the Nforce boards? (and any other non intel/AMD chipset for that matter?).

Did Intel pull some kind of anti-trust job to stop Nvidia making chipsets or did they pull out voluntarily? :S

MasterOC · 20 May 2015 at 09:24

I was under the impression nforce chipsets were designed by nvidia for AMDs Athlon and Duron CPUs

ubersonic · 20 May 2015 at 09:30

MasterOC said:
I was under the impression nforce chipsets were designed by nvidia for AMDs Athlon and Duron CPUs

They made them for both AMD and Intel, according to the Nvidia site their last models were the AM3 nForce 980a SLI and the LGA775 nForce 790i SLI MCP, both of which supported tri-SLI hence the name.

Arcane · 20 May 2015 at 12:41

I had 3 evga 680i boards die on me, such a nightmare, really put me off them which is a shame as the earlier Athlon 939 boards were awesome, especially the DFI ones.

ScottiB · 20 May 2015 at 12:44

Nvidia weren't making any money because they weren't the most reliable chipsets so they pulled out of the market.

ubersonic · 20 May 2015 at 12:56

ScottiB said:
Nvidia weren't making any money because they weren't the most reliable chipsets so they pulled out of the market.

That's a shame, was the issue with the actual chipset or some of the boards?

Arcane said:
I had 3 evga 680i boards die on me, such a nightmare.

That pretty much mirrors my experience with the EVGA X79 SLi boards prior to springing for the Rampage lol.

pastymuncher · 20 May 2015 at 13:15

I believe it was the chipsets. The 680i and 780i were buggy as hell and were the final nail in the coffin. It's a shame really as the older NF3 and NF4 chipsets were very good.

ubersonic · 20 May 2015 at 13:27

That's a pity, the 750i was rock solid

Rroff · 20 May 2015 at 13:34

Yup too many issues with them - the 680 chipset was a total failure. The only good boards were the Gigabyte n650sli-ds4 and 1-2 "750i" boards that used a pared down 790 chip and even then they needed hardware voltmodding to really support quad cores and would eventually die.

Doogles · 20 May 2015 at 13:44

Rroff said:
Yup too many issues with them - the 680 chipset was a total failure. The only good boards were the Gigabyte n650sli-ds4 and 1-2 "750i" boards that used a pared down 790 chip and even they they needed hardware voltmodding to really support quad cores and would eventually die.

That sounds great

jasonmorris · 20 May 2015 at 14:14

Had a BFG 780 SLI board and it was rock solid. Also, bought the 2 x 8800 GTX cards which needed a small power station for juice and generated soooo much heat. Happy days.

stuie · 20 May 2015 at 14:34

im still rocking a 680i with a q6600 in my server cant say ive had any real issues with it

Silent_Scone · 20 May 2015 at 14:44

Intel.

elmuzzy66. · 20 May 2015 at 15:46

1st ever rig asus nf4 deluxe, sandy 3700 and corsair 400 drr ram. Dem days.

Steampunk · 20 May 2015 at 15:50

ubersonic said:
So yeah, before upgrading to my Rampage IV Gene and an i7 3820 (now a 4930K) two years ago I was rocking a XFX nForce 750i SLI with a 4GHz Q9650 which had been running strong as **** for about half a decade, but what happened to the Nforce boards? (and any other non intel/AMD chipset for that matter?).

Did Intel pull some kind of anti-trust job to stop Nvidia making chipsets or did they pull out voluntarily? :S

Once AMD bought ATI, Nvidia wouldn't do any tech for AMD, and once Intel and AMD started putting graphics into their chipsets, there wasn't really any money to be made in motherboard chipsets for a third party company.

Nvidia pretty much pulled out of the market because Intel and AMD decided to take that market for themselves.

spoffle · 20 May 2015 at 15:51

They weren't very good in general. However the DFI Lanparty Socket A nForce 2 based boards were great, and amongst my favourite ever.

Rroff · 20 May 2015 at 16:01

^^ DFI took the time to make good boards though (until towards the end) - 1-2 of the later nForce boards where the manufacturer took the time to make something good were pretty solid like the GB n650 - those that just slapped together off the shelf components were pretty dire.

spoffle · 20 May 2015 at 16:18

Those were the days where a motherboard around £100 was considered high end or top of the range!

ubersonic · 20 May 2015 at 16:34

spoffle said:
Those were the days where a motherboard around £100 was considered high end or top of the range!

To be fair though, the quality of a high end/top of the range board has gone up along with the price. My gaming rig has a Rampage IV Gene and my work rig a P8P67 WS Revolution and the was nothing on the market five plus years ago that had the same build quality, stability, etc. and these arent even current gen boards.

Hell if you compare them to an Abit Fatal1ty then they make it look like a £20 Biostar board lol.

spoffle · 20 May 2015 at 16:37

I certainly agree, I've got a Rampage IV Black Edition in my PC, and a Sabretooth X79 to replace my X79 Gigabyte motherboard in my media PC.

(rigs

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What happened to Nforce?

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