NVIDIA Rushes Into PCI Express With nForce4

SLI To Come!

Click to enlargeThis is how MSI's nForce4 SLI board will look.

NVIDIA decided to split the launch of the nForce4 Ultra and the nForce4 SLI versions, because the company feared that if launched concurrently, insufficient attention would be given to general nForce4 features. As soon as SLI hardware is available, we will post an additional review in our Graphics Guide.

A Paper Launch Again?

As our nForce4 Ultra sample did not exactly work as smoothly as expected, we asked the three big motherboard guys - Asus, Gigabyte and MSI - for their opinions on nForce4 availability.

Asus

Availability of nForce4 Ultra motherboards A8N-E (Premium/SLI):

second week of November

Asus is considering bundling two GeForce 6600GT graphics cards with the A8N-E SLI.

Gigabyte

nForce4 Ultra motherboards will be ready at the beginning of November. nForce4 SLI and VIA K8T890 will not be available before the beginning of December.
Product Name: Gigabyte 8 Sigma Series, e.g. GA-K8NXP-9 (NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra)

MSI

The K8N Diamond (featuring nForce4 SLI) is already slated to hit the shelves in late November. The product name might be changed to K8N Neo2 Extreme Edition in the US.
The K8N Neo4 Platinum will be the Ultra version, available two weeks earlier than the Diamond edition. It is supposed to be on the shelves by the middle of November.