NVIDIA introduces nForce Professional MCP line

Following the successful introduction of its line of PCI-Express products in the consumer desktop PC market, NVIDIA Corporation, a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, today introduced NVIDIA nForce Professional media and communications processors (MCPs), the industry’s only PCI-Express core-logic solutions for AMD Optero™ processor-based server and workstation platforms.

Designed for cost-effective server and workstation environments—including blade servers, computing farms, computer-aided design (CAD), digital content creation (DCC), and visualization platforms—the NVIDIA nForce Professional MCPs are the first and only solutions to offer support for PCI-Express and other advanced technology solutions, including integrated client-based security features, TCP/IP offload, fault tolerant storage designs, and optimizations for NVIDIA Quadro workstation graphics solutions, including multi-display and NVIDIA scalable link interface (SLI) environments.

“The NVIDIA nForce Professional platform offers an unmatched feature set for server customers in a wide variety of business computing environments,” said Phil Hester, CEO of Newisys.

“NVIDIA has long demonstrated its success in platform design, and the new feature-rich NVIDIA nForce Professional MCPs continue that tradition,” said Marty Seyer, corporate vice president and general manager, Microprocessor Business Unit, AMD’s Computation Products Group. “The combination of our AMD Opteron processors with Direct Connect Architecture and NVIDIA nForce Professional provides the performance, scalability, and features to handle today’s most demanding professional graphic accelerators as well as server I/O cards in both 32-bit and 64-bit computing environments.”

The NVIDIA nForce Professional MCP family, which today includes the NVIDIA nForce Professional 2200 and the 2050 MCP, an I/O companion chip, offers a host of technological capabilities that make it an ideal platform for industrial-level computing, including:

Scalable, innovative, single-chip architecture that takes advantage of the AMD Opteron processor’s Direct Connect Architecture

Full support for PCI-Express, with up to 80 lanes using a single 2200 MCP and multiple 2050 MCPs, Advanced Error Reporting (AER), hot-plug, Message Signal Interrupts (MSI), and other server-specific requirements

Native Gigabit Ethernet with TCP/IP hardware offload for enhanced networking and data processing (up to 4Gb/sec. of bandwidth total)

Native support for next-generation SATA 3Gb/s hard drives (up to 16 SATA drives total)

Complete suite of RAID functionality, including RAID 5

Microsoft Windows and Linux support

NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture for simplified IT management and overall lower cost of ownership

“We are pleased that NVIDIA is launching the first PCI Express product for AMD Opteron platforms. IBM and NVIDIA have a long relationship in workstation graphics and we expect that the NVIDIA nForce Professional products will have the same high quality and reliability as the NVIDIA Quadro products,” said Bob Lenard, Worldwide Director of IBM IntelliStation Workstations and Linux clusters.

“Sun and NVIDIA have a strong relationship, and we’ve partnered to deliver leading graphics solutions on the AMD Opteron processor-based Sun Java Workstations,” said Rajesh Shakkarwar, senior director of workstation marketing at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “NVIDIA products have a solid history of performance and reliability, and we expect that the new NVIDIA nForce Professional MCPs will carry on this tradition.”

Professional products utilizing the NVIDIA nForce Professional MCPs are available now from leading providers of workstations, servers, and motherboards, including Alienware, Boxx Technologies, Colfax, IWILL, Panta Systems, Tyan, and @XI Computer, with more announcements expected to follow.

“For the transition to PCI-Express, NVIDIA is ready with the technology that computing professionals require,” said Drew Henry, general manager of platform business at NVIDIA. “This new technology greatly positions NVIDIA to become a preeminent supplier of server and workstation platforms. We are pleased to be working with a number of leading suppliers for their upcoming Opteron processor-based platforms.”