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

[Steve]

Can NVIDIA beat Intel at their own game? Anandtech have put an Intel 955XE chipset up against a NVIDIA nForce4 I.E. chipset. Throw in a dual core processor and you have some very high performance, but which chipset performs best?

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.

So one board supports SLI and the other doesn't, but putting that difference aside, NVIDIA's memory controller is slightly superior and gives it an edge in some benchmarks. Check out the full review.