NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition to be launched April 6

NVIDIA’s nForce4 ‘Intel Edition’ for the Intel Pentium 4 platform will be launched on April 6th, according to DigiTimes. The new MCP (Media and Communications Processor) which supports NVIDIA’s SLI (Scalable Link Interface) graphics architecture will feature on products from at least eight motherboard manufacturers.

ABIT, ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI say they have nForce4 Intel Edition SLI-based boards already prepared for their high-end product lines, especially for the gaming segment. Along with EPoX, DFI, Biostar and Foxconn, these manufacturers will be amongst the first to offer nForce-based motherboards supporting Pentium 4 CPUs.

The boards are expected to be priced at about US$200, which was confirmed by sources at Abit for its new Fatal1ty board. According to a report from the Inquirer, Abit’s new board will be called the Fatal1ty NI8 SLI and will feature the company’s Dual Otes cooling technology. The sources at Abit indicated that its new board will begin shipping at the end of the month, and the company expects to ship about 20,000 units per month.

However, some makers argue that shipments of motherboards featuring Nvidia’s new MCP will not begin picking up until the third quarter, following Intel’s CPU price cuts. The chip giant’s introduction of its dual-core Smithfield platform later this year may also help push sales in the second half of this year, the makers added.

DigiTimes