Nvidia nForce 500 Socket AM2 chipset series
By Lars-Göran Nilsson
23rd May 2006 14:02 GMT

Earlier today, AMD launched a range of new processors based on its Socket AM2 processor interconnect. Nvidia has launched a range of new chipsets to go with AMD's Socket AM2 CPUs and it's an impressive line-up.

So far there has been no news about any new chipsets from ATI, although the RD580 chipset is already prepared for the AM2 platform. Nvidia announced four new chipsets: the nForce 590 SLI, the 570 SLI, the 570 and the 550. This is a similar line-up to the nForce4 series.

The 590 SLI is the only part that offers two full x16 slots and it's a two-chip solution, the second chip adding the extra 16 lanes for one of the two graphics cards, as with the nForce4 SLI x16. But there has been quite a few tweaks made, to bring Nvidia's latest range of chipsets right up to scratch.

Common features includes, at long last, HD audio support, a ten-port USB capability, five PCI slots, four x1 PCI Express lanes, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA RAID - the nForce 550 loses out as it doesn't support RAID 5 and can handle only four SATA drives instead of six - and finally one IDE connector for up to two drives.

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