Like the original nForce, the nForce II took a little longer to arrive than anticipated. In fact, chips with the graphics core onboard are yet to surface. In total, there will be a combination of four different chipsets based on the nForce2 platform. nVidia will release two North bridges (the IGP and the SPP) and two South bridges (the MCP) and its upto the motherboard manufacturer to select their preference. What separates the two North bridges is that one has the graphics core (IGP) while the other (SPP) doesn’t, while the Southbridge is differentiated by the lack of Firewire, a second NIC and nVidia 5.1 Audio.
Today, we have the near-release version of Leadtek’s K7NCR18D PRO which is based on the Northbridge without the graphics (the SPP) and the Southbridge with all the additional goodies like Firewire and nVidia 5.1 audio (MCP-T). Now some of you may be surprised over Leadtek being amongst the first to get an nForce2 board ready when you have such gorillas like ASUS and MSI (the ASUS nForce2 board presented with the XP2700/2800 CPUs was not the final version.) However, according to Leadtek, they are the second biggest nVidia customer- right after MSI which gives them an edge. On that note, lets get started with the K7NCR18D PRO.
CPU:
Supports 200/266/333MHz System Data Bus Athlon Socket-A Processors
Chipset:
nVidia nForce2 SPP + nForce2 MCP-T
Memory:
Three 184-pin DIMM sockets support 128-bit DDR SDRAM modules. Max 3.0 GB
Audio:
Built-in hardware Dolby Digital (AC3) Encoder for providing 6-channel surround sound via a SPDIF interface
IDE/SCSI:
Supports up to PIO mode 4, Multi-word DMA mode2 and Ultra ATA 66/100/133 MB/Sec
I/O Connectors:
2 x PS/2, 2 x Serial, 1 x Parallel, 1 x Media, 6 x USB, 1 x SPDIF, 1 x RJ-45
Expansion Slots:
1 x AGP, 4 x PCI, 1 x ACR
Additional Features:
WinFast K7N1394 IEEE1394 Add-on card X-BIOS II Overclocking Built-in CPU Over Temperature Shutdown (OTS)
