NVIDIA nForce4 vs Intel 955X - Dual Core Intel Platform Shootout

Both Intel’s 955X and NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipsets are expected to be available in motherboards by the end of this month. With that being said, which platform do you go for? Both contenders are quite strong. NVIDIA has the benefits of out-of-the-box SLI support, support for more PATA devices and better NCQ performance than Intel’s 955X. On the other hand, Intel has HD Audio support, official support for TM2 on dual core processors and performance that’s just as good as NVIDIA in most cases, at a lower price.

We’d give the edge to NVIDIA because of their strong NCQ performance and support for SLI, but those two items aren’t necessarily on everyone’s shopping list. For a lot of people, SLI is too big of an investment and a lower priced motherboard is far more desirable, not to mention support for TM2 on dual core CPUs for a cooler, quieter system.

The fact that this decision is so very hard is a testament to NVIDIA’s strength as a chipset manufacturer. In fact, we’ve never seen anyone threaten Intel with nearly identical specifications, nearly as much as NVIDIA has with their nForce4 SLI Intel Edition.

Anandtech