NVIDIA nForce4 SLI XE and nForce4 Ultra for Intel Previews

NVIDIA’s release of two new chipsets for the Intel market that aim at mid-range and budget level of consumers is a necessary move if they want to make any headway into the Intel platform market share that Intel’s own chipsets dominate. ATI already has a clean grasp on the Intel leftovers thanks to their growing relationship and Intel’s usage of ATI chips on their motherboard designs.

End-users looking for a budget box upgrade may find the SLI XE and Ultra core logic sets intriguing, if not overly exciting. The enthusiast market is going to be waiting for Intel’s next new processor line-up before thinking of moving from the green guys to the blue, and neither of these chipsets are aimed at that market.

PC Perspective - NVIDIA nForce4 SLI XE and Ultra for Intel Preview

From the perspective of the end-user, this looks like good news on the surface. It has been quite a while since Intel has had a real competitor in the chipset market. With NVIDIA charting new Intel CPU motherboards from $89 and up, there could be price competition in the Intel segment again. All of this assumes that the NVIDIA chipsets are worthy competitors to the Intel chipset line.

Based on the performance that we have seen with the current NVIDIA chipsets for Intel, we would expect the new NVIDIA Intel chipsets to be very competitive. Motherboards are expected in the next few weeks and we look forward to comparing NVIDIA’s new Intel line to motherboards based on Intel’s chipsets.

AnandTech - NVIDIA: New nForce4 Chipsets