With products company we have long been familiar Shuttle. In particular, in our laboratories visited Boards Shuttle AK35GT2 (VIA KT333) and AK37GTR (KT400), who left behind a very good impression. Companies are increasingly focusing on the market berbon-systems (in that area, she leader), and not so actively promotes motherboards (Products on nForce II and KT600 difficult to find even in the shops). However, the full market characteristics Shuttle is not leaving - for example Athlon 64 processor was introduced by the new fee AN50R based on the chipset nForce 3150.

Chipset NVIDIA nForce 3 150
By failing to obtain a license for a tyre processor Quad Pumped Bus from Intel, nVidia company has focused on producing chipsets for AMD processors. As a result, the light appeared very opportune nForce II which was released a large number of motherboards. And when it is least 64 broken chipsets for processors, and it is nVidia has been among the first: the public was submitted nForce 3150.

Interestingly, the design engineers for its nVidia had to be severely curtailed chipset nForce 2. First, it was removed a recessed videoyadro: first payment on nForce 3 intended for workstations, where GeForce4 MX looks extremely inappropriate. Secondly, was deleted dual memory controller (as we know the memory controller integrated into the processor). Instead of lost opportunities, chipset was integrated controller bus HyperTransport.

As a result, there is a very tempting opportunity to greatly cut the north bridge and south bridge in one chip. The company specialists and done with a bit modified feature southern bridge. In particular, the chipset has support three ATA-133 channels (Total 6 devices), as well as the ability to combine hard drives in a RAID array level 0, 1 and 0 +1. Naturally, some manufacturers supported the new feature (example - Leadtek K8N Pro or Chaintech ZNF3-150), while others limited razvodkoy two channels (as on our motherboard).

It is noteworthy lack of support SerialATA protocol, which is a serious drawback chipset. Therefore, for its implementation, the motherboard manufacturers will have to install an additional chip or transform one IDE channel two SerialATA using chip-bridges.

Otherwise, the chipset nForce 3150 could not boast of the wealth of functions, rather the opposite: support disabled consistent tyre Firewire, removed a powerful support APU c 3d-audio and Dolby Digital 5.1 (instead it is supported by AC'97). A support network remained intact controller and 6 USB 2.0 ports.
In the end chipset nVidia nForce3 150 received the following characteristics:

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Support bus HyperTransport;
Support tires AGP 8X;
IDE Modes: ATA-3366100133 (3 channels);
Supporting RAID arrays (levels 0, 1 and 0 +1);
PCI Masters Number: 5
USB 2.0 Ports: 6
AC'97 2.1 Support
10/100MB Fast Ethernet.
According to recent reports, the company still managed to overcome the problem with the implementation SerialATA, and in the near future, this feature will be implemented in the new chipset. In particular SocketA motherboard market for a new south bridge will Giga-MCP (or MCP-S) and Athlon64 processors will be available for chipset nForce 3250. In addition to supporting SerialATA, the new products will be larger number of USB ports (up to 8), and will support Gigabit Ethernet. Also, according to stray rumours, the company will introduce videoyadro and sound nucleus in the form of separate chips.