14 DAY TRIAL // Nvidia is the undisputed leader of the discrete graphics processing units market segments, be it the entry, middle or high end levels, the green company is there with a serious product offering from the dirt cheap and performance challenged solutions to the state of the art graphics cards that will drain your paychecks immediately.
After a long period when Nvidia offered only integrated graphics processing units and mainboard chipsets for Advanced Micro Devices compatible hardware platforms, now the company decided to enter a market segment traditionally held by Intel and announce the imminent launch of the MCP IGP solution for Intel processors. These new Nvidia product lines will come in pairs with the equivalent chipsets, so we will soon see mainboards equipped with GeForce 7150 or 7100 IGPs and Nforce 630i chipsets as well as GeForce 7050 with nForce 630i or nForce 610i.
The new Nvidia GeForce 7 series of integrated graphics processing units are Microsoft Windows Vista compatible and they also offer integrated support for DirectX 9 and Shader Model 3.0. The 7150 and 7100 models will come with a native HDMI interface, while the more affordable GeForce 7050 lacks such support in order to be available for a lower price tag. The top of the line product, the GeForce 7150 IGP, comes with a graphics core clock that exceeds 600MHz, while the other models are ranging between 500MHz (GeForce 7050) and 600MHz (GeForce 7100).
While all Nvdia integrated graphics processing units are offering support for DDR2 memory modules, the 7150 and 7100 models are able to use 800MHz running memories unlike the GeForce 7050 that is limited to DDR2-667. Thanks to the fact that the nForce 630i comes with support for 1333MHz frontside bus, the mainboard integrating that chipset is going to be able to house newer generation processors, while the nForce 610i is limited to processors using the 1066MHz FSB.
Apart from the already enumerated features, the Nvidia nForce 600i series of chipsets are coming with native support for PCI Express slots, both x16 and x1, four Serial ATA II and two Parallel ATA connectors as well as a RAID configuration setup. While there are no big architectural differences between the two mainboard chipsets, the nForce 630i supports Gigabit Ethernet, ten USB ports and RAID 0, 1, 0 + 1 and 5, while the lower end nForce 610i is limited to 10/100 Ethernet, eight USB ports and RAID 0 and 1, according to the news site dailytech. These new Nvidia mainboard chipsets and integrated graphics processing units for Intel compatible hardware platforms are expected to come on the retail market in the following weeks and they will most likely be priced at a very affordable level.