VR-Zone: NVIDIA MCP77 with 15xUSB/22xPCIe?

Saturday 16th February 2008, 04:30:00 PM, written by Arun

As if NVIDIA's chipset roadmaps weren't confusing enough already, VR-Zone now claims that the firm's competitor to AMD's RS780M for notebooks sports 22xPCIe lanes and 15xUSB ports. And that it's coming in March. Errr, what?

Previous rumours from HKEPC indicated the MCP78 would only have 19 PCI Express lanes, and four links (which limits it to 18 lanes in SLI chipsets). Other websites also indicated that the Intel equivalent to MCP78, MCP79 aka MCP7A, would have 20 PCI Express lanes. Both chipsets were also claimed to have 12 USB ports.

So now, we've got VR-Zone claiming that MCP77M will have two SKUs: one with 15xUSB ports & 22xPCIe lanes, and another with 10xUSB ports & 20xPCIe lanes. Only the the former will support Hybrid SLI and all of PureVideo HD. And to add to the confusion, MCP67 and MCP68 last year were literally the same chip.

And if your head isn't spinning yet, Digitimes has hinted at a MCP7C chipset for Intel platforms slated for August, and they claim it'll only have a 64-bit memory bus. A Google search for MCP7B returns nothing, so who knows what that is and if it even exists. And unlike MCP78/MCP77, we won't know what's true and what isn't on that front for quite some time.

Needless to say, the rumours about NVIDIA's chipset roadmap are highly confusing. Massive delays haven't helped things (MCP78 has been delayed a billion times already), and it certainly doesn't look like their southbridge roadmap is that exciting either way: the fact that rumours have indicated they're reusing the nearly 2 years old MCP55 in the nForce 790i certainly speaks for itself.


Discuss on the forums

Tagging

nvidia ± mcp77, mcp78, mcp79, mcp7a, mcp7c, mcp55, rs780


Latest Thread Comments (3 total)
Posted by bigtabs on Saturday, 16-Feb-08 23:03:12 UTC
Are they trying to find leaks or what?

Posted by Albuquerque on Monday, 18-Feb-08 19:53:48 UTC
I would guess that means one 16x, one 4x, and two 1x for the PCI-E? But why would you need fifteen USB ports? Especially on a mobile chipset.

I want to see low power options, howabout that? It's a MOBILE platform, howabout giving me more battery life, one 8x PCI-E, a few 1x PCI-E's for nics and cardbus devices, and four USB ports? Tada, done.

Posted by the maddman on Wednesday, 20-Feb-08 19:47:24 UTC
Quoting Albuquerque
I would guess that means one 16x, one 4x, and two 1x for the PCI-E? But why would you need fifteen USB ports? Especially on a mobile chipset.

I want to see low power options, howabout that? It's a MOBILE platform, howabout giving me more battery life, one 8x PCI-E, a few 1x PCI-E's for nics and cardbus devices, and four USB ports? Tada, done.
Well, the new laptop's we are getting where I work have 4 external USB ports. And a USB internal GPS, GSM radio, Bluetooth and touchscreen.

I think what's happening is that the ExpressCard spec calls for each of the slots to have PCI-Express 1x and a USB port wired to them, so they need more USB ports, even if they are internal and never used.


Add your comment in the forums

Related nvidia News

NVIDIA Gelato now free; merges with Mental Ray (+NaturalMotion)
NVIDIA: 15-20% Intel chipset share by year end 'seems reasonable'.
NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI breaks cover
Fudzilla: G96 in June; Susbtantial G84/G86 unsold inventories
192xGT200 + 1068xBloomfield: 295 TFlops Supercomputer
NVIDIA MCP79 for VIA CPUs; Intel P45/G45 delayed(?)
NVIDIA releases GeForce 9800 GX2 and nForce 790i
Digitimes: NVIDIA-VIA merger talks failed but may resume. [Analysis]
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Article: A first look at NVIDIA's APX 2500