NVIDIA Extends NVIDIA nForce Platform into Professional Workstation Market

NVIDIA Extends NVIDIA nForce Platform into Professional Workstation Market
NVIDIA nForce3 Professional is Company’s First Platform Solution for 64-bit AMD Opteron™ Processor

NEW YORK CITY, NY—APRIL 22, 2003—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, today introduced NVIDIA nForce™3 Professional, the Company’s first single-chip, core-logic solution for professional computing environments. Optimized for the new 64-bit AMD Opteron™ processor announced earlier today, NVIDIA nForce3 Professional platform processors provide a compatible, stable, and reliable computing platform for professional workstation users who wish to exploit the benefits of both 32-bit and 64-bit computing environments. In addition, all NVIDIA platform processors take advantage of the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture—NVIDIA’s “one driver for all platforms” design philosophy—which greatly simplifies IT deployment and enhance low-cost product life cycle management.

“Professional users demand compatibility, stability and reliability from their workstation platforms—features that NVIDIA has been providing for years with their NVIDIA Quadro® family of professional graphics solutions,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, the leading multimedia market research firm. “The launch today of the NVIDIA nForce3 Professional workstation solution is an important milestone in transitioning professional users to more efficient and faster computing platforms and should extend the company’s leadership position in the professional computing market, which we forecast to be over 2 million units in 2003.”

Designed for professional computing environments, the NVIDIA nForce3 Professional platform processors incorporate advanced technology solutions, including enterprise-class networking, fault tolerant storage designs, and optimizations for NVIDIA Quadro workstation graphics solutions—which are currently supported by an industry-leading selection of certified software applications. All NVIDIA nForce3 Professional-based systems and motherboards utilize the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA), a single stable system image for simplified deployment and upgrades in the enterprise environment. The NVIDIA commitment to product longevity further ensures IT investment protection. NVIDIA is partnering with ASUSTek Computer Inc, a world leader in motherboard engineering and design, to bring NVIDIA nForce3 Professional-based motherboards to the market.

“Workstations based on AMD Opteron processors will provide the performance and scalability required by customers with even the most demanding applications. NVIDIA’s expertise in platform design and HyperTransport(TM) technology will help ensure AMD Opteron processors are adopted rapidly in a variety of industries, including design, engineering and animation,” said Rich Heye, vice president and general manager of AMD’s Microprocessor Business Unit. “The features, performance and software support provided by NVIDIA’s new NVIDIA nForce3 Professional platform processors will help provide optimized 32-bit application performance, and spur the migration to the power of 64-bit computing.”

“With an NVIDIA nForce3 Professional and AMD Opteron processor-based workstation PC, users are assured of compatibility with all current 32-bit applications and operating systems, as well as those designed to take advantage of the extra processing power that a true 64-bit platform provides,” said Drew Henry, senior director of platform products at NVIDIA. “Combined with our award-winning NVIDIA Quadro graphics solutions and our NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture, professional users and IT managers have a truly innovative solution for their enterprise and professional computing environments.”

NVIDIA nForce3 Professional-based motherboards are currently sampling to workstation system integrators worldwide.