 | |
| CPU supported | Athlon |
|---|---|
| Socket supported | Socket A |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Release date(s) | July 2002 |
| Predecessor | nForce |
| Successor | nForce3 |
TheNvidia nForce2chipset was released byNvidia in July 2002 as a refresh to the originalnForce product offering. The nForce2 chipset was a platform formotherboards supportingAMD'sSocket A CPUs along withDDR SDRAM.[1] There were multiple variations of the chipset including one with an integratedGeForce4 MX graphics processor (IGP), and one without.
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In 2003, Nvidia released a refreshed nForce2, called "nForce2 Ultra 400".[2] The nForce2 Ultra 400[3] and nForce2 400 presented official support for a 200 MHz FSB and PC-3200 DDR SDRAM, whereas the older nForce2 only supported a maximum of 166 MHz FSB. Ultra 400 offered dual-channel support, while the plain 400 was single-channel PC-3200-capable. Both performed very similarly because neither had the IGP. Athlon XP did not benefit significantly from the added bandwidth because the Athlon XP's bus was only capable of bandwidth matching a single channel of PC-3200.[4]
The new chipset was partnered with several different southbridges, including one with (MCP-T) and one without (MCP) SoundStorm and dual Ethernet NICs. In 2004 three new southbridges were introduced: MCP-S integratedSerial ATA, MCP-RAID had additionalRAID-functions and MCP-Gb featured Gigabit Ethernet. These newer southbridges did not integrate the SoundStorm unit nor the dual-Ethernet capabilities of the MCP-T.