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The Internet Hardware

Chipset Integrates Gigabit Ethernet, RAID, Firewall 249

Posted by CowboyNeal from the jack-of-all-trades dept.
EconolineCrush writes "Tech Report has a review of NVIDIA's latest Athlon 64 chipset, the nForce3 250Gb. The 250Gb is especially interesting because it's the first core logic chipset to integrate a Gigabit Ethernet MAC, hardware-accelerated firewall, and RAID across four Serial ATA and four "parallel" ATA devices. NVIDIA is even working with third party developers to help their software take advantage of the chipset's hardware firewall components. Looks like we've reached a point where chipsets will differentiate on features more than performance."
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Chipset Integrates Gigabit Ethernet, RAID, Firewall More

Chipset Integrates Gigabit Ethernet, RAID, Firewall

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  • Lotta features on one chip (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The big question is, will all this stuff, half of which I will never use, slow down my computer?

  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by metalhed77 ( 250273 ) <`andrewvc' `at' `gmail.com'> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:17PM (#8811903) Homepage
    Now that motherboard chipsets for athlons don't use a memory controller (the 64 bit ones have em on the chip processor) is that why we're starting to see all this stuff integrated into the motherboard?

  • Skip the Firewall (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mphase ( 644838 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:20PM (#8811916) Homepage
    It sounds nice except for the firewall which strikes me as misplaced. I do not want firewall duty being handled by my new systems, I would much rather have it handled by a nice router or really outdated system in a closet.

    • Re:Skip the Firewall (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:23PM (#8811946)
      Most people will go to CompUSA, buy a computer and plug it into their broadband. I would much rather these yahoos have a firewall forced on them. If the ISPs wont do it, then I leave it up to the computer makers. Once enough monkies get these things spam levels will drop.

      • Wrong application I think (Score:5, Interesting)

        by metalhed77 ( 250273 ) <`andrewvc' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday April 09, 2004 @12:03AM (#8812191) Homepage
        Any home user doesn't need a hardware accelerated firewall. Windows XP comes with a simple firewall that handles this kind of stuff with ease. The only rules a home users needs are block every port, and maybe let a few through, nothing fancy. Additionally, this'll apply only to about 4 megabits of bandwidth at most, considering the speed of even the fastest broadband residential connections.

        This may just be somehting that the people at compusa can read off the tag. "Integrated firewall firewall for increased security". Either that or another feature for power users to tick off. Possibly similar to how pentium ads talk about optimization for streaming internet video when any processor made after 1997 can stream anything on the net today.
        • You're kidding about the XP firewall, right? In the version that ships with vanilla XP and SP1, calling it worthless would probably be an understatement. You're the first person I've heard that takes it anywhere near seriously.

          That said, SP2 will ship with a much improved firewall that could be called a Zone Alarm lite, but honestly, my preference is still for a hardware level firewall. The reason for this is you're stopping the traffic before it ever touches the system, helping to stop a vulnerability in

          • Ummmm (Score:3, Informative)

            by metalhed77 ( 250273 )
            The average home user just needs to make sure their ports are blocked. No it's not a 'good' firewall, but it's massive improvement over none.
      • You know, I hadn't thought about it this way before, but you're right. The more firewalls we throw to the monkeys, the more defense the world has agains spam/virii/worms/etc.

        So now they have a hardware firewall, XP's firewall, and often some additional software firewall. The only problem with monkeys having this type of stuff is that they often have problems with it and disable the functionality. I've seen this happen far too often.

    • Don't Skip the Firewall (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:28PM (#8811983)
      It's an integrated hardware firewall. I RTFA'd and it seems pretty cool. It starts up along with your system, so you don't have to worry about malware infecting your system during the short period between booting your system and the operating system and necessary drivers loading up. It also has a software interface reminiscent of Smoothwall and has several security profiles available for those unfamiliar with firewall configurations, but there is also a command line interface. Combined with those nifty antivirus features in the new athlon 64 chips, you've got yourself a pretty secure box.
      • It starts up along with your system, so you don't have to worry about malware infecting your system during the short period between booting your system and the operating system and necessary drivers loading up.

        This is a Windows thing I presume? Don't know how the rest of the world works, but when my firewalled servers start, everything is "denied" while the interfaces are brought up. Once that happens, it loads my ruleset.
    • For LAN parties or anyone that doesn't want multiple computers sucking down electricity, it's a godsend. It'll be more secure than software-only firewall solutiions. About as secure as broadband router, I'd imagine.

      I have an old computer doing firewall too. But I realize I'm in a minority on that.
    • Host firewalls are "A Good Thing(TM)". With the abundence of malware, trojans, and application attacks that are allowed to breeze through firewalls (because that's not what network firewalls were designed to block), having a host firewall is an asset, not a liability.

      It's not like an on-chip firewall is going to slow down your box, and no one said you have to configure it to allow access to the rest of your network (like a gateway firewall), it's just an extra layer of protection that you can tailor much

    • If you aren't looking to use the firewall, it looks like it's pretty easy to turn it off.

      In the Forceware screenshot [techreport.com] it shows a line labeled "Firewall Setup: Change firewall profiles including turning Firewall on/off." But, I guess if price was an issue, and you the firewall kept you from getting it, I could see that. Seems to me, this would be cheaper than a spare system in the closet. I guess you would have to test it with the firewall on/off to know if it was stealing your cycles, though.

      The ForceWar

    • Re:Skip the Firewall (Score:5, Interesting)

      by transiit ( 33489 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:55PM (#8812150) Homepage Journal
      Bad idea. Take both.

      Stop believing so strongly in perimeter-level security alone. If your nice router or outdated system gets compromised, it's always going to be better to have a secondary line of defense.

      There are good practices for managing your security risks. The rule of thumb is that you can never be too paranoid.

      -transiit

  • More... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by m1chael ( 636773 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:20PM (#8811917)
    Do more firewalls make a more secure machine? There will be a firewall built into your chipset, your OS, your router...

    I have a feeling it's got to do with pointless features more than anything else.

    • Re:More... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jjackson ( 83961 ) on Friday April 09, 2004 @12:14AM (#8812253) Homepage
      No. Think of it as a co-processor.

      A hardware firewall implementation is intended to allow firewall software to process data at a much faster rate. Higher packet matching and filtering rates and less load on the CPU itself.

      There are several such co-processing units available for encryption already. Just because you install a security co-processor doesn't mean your system is secure.

      With Gigabit networks, it is very handy to be able to offload functions like packet matching to a chip other than the main processor. Even a with a very fast main processor, you will notice a severe system load with a complex firewall ruleset and a traffic load that can theoretically hit 120MB/s.

      This is one of the reasons that ultra-high end routers and firewalls are so much more efficient at handing large traffic loads... they have processors specifically designed and dedicated to processing Ethernet/IP/whatever traffic.

      My real question is how open is the spec? I would love to see security co-processor support in the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel is still lagging behind Free/OpenBSD in that it will not make use of crypto cards.

    • Re:More... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Friday April 09, 2004 @12:38AM (#8812425)
      Do more firewalls make a more secure machine?

      Yes.

      It is clear that edge firewalls are not sufficient. A network with squishy insides is doomed the first time some "salesrep" wanders in from who-knows-where and plugs his broken, virus ridden, misconfigured, obsolete laptop into your switched network. Every cotton pick'n host connected to a network needs a basic stateful packet filter, and wouldn't it be nice if it was entirely OS independent?

      There will be a firewall built into your chipset, your OS, your router...

      Nothing wrong with that. Since when has choice been a problem? If it's responsible for passing packets it should have a means of filtering them. A simple principle, really.

      A basic stateful packet filter (a.k.a firewall) is a fairly simple, well understood mechanism. Firmware is the ideal place to implement it. It will work regardless of which operating system is installed/upgrade/misconfigured. It will work before the OS boots! Many good commercial firewalls are based on only low-power embedded CPU's and flash memory, yet provide very comprehensive firewall functions, multiple interfaces with complex routing, VPN, SNMP, etc.

  • wow! (Score:2, Funny)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) *
    ...a Gigabit Ethernet MAC...

    I've always wanted a Mac inside my PC! I can't wait to pick up my nVidia G5/ia64-based computer!

    • Re:wow! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gklinger ( 571901 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:59PM (#8812170)
      I realize you were making a joke but it reminded me of something that I think a lot of people around here will find interesting and intriguing. Check out the briQ [terrasoftsolutions.com]. It's an entire PowerPC-based computer that has been squeezed into a 5.25" chassis (the size of an optical drive). So, while you can't have a Mac (per se) in your PC, you can have a computer that can run Mac OS. How freaky is that?
      • Hmm, this seems to be the inverse of putting a micro-itx board in a 5.25 bay on a Mac and running windows or linux on that.
    • It's about time, seeing as how a PC inside of your Mac [orangemicro.com] came out ages ago...

      steve

  • What if that built-in firewall has a future hole? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:22PM (#8811932) Journal
    How will we be able to patch it?

  • More tainted module ?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by anandpur ( 303114 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:22PM (#8811935)
    Will any one from OSS support it? Because all there video drivers are Tainted module [tux.org]
  • The security is only good if the user turns it on.. or doesn't turn it off as the case may be.
  • I'm not keen on the stability aspect. Gigabit MAC + firewall is kinda cool, provided it follows the netfilter model, and isn't just a basic firewall.


    RAID, which is a totally distinct system, has no business being there.


    It would be better still if we could believe the design will be properly tested and validated to the point anyone could have confidence in it.

    • Re:Complex systems (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 0racle ( 667029 )
      I would say the RAID system has more business being near the SATA/ATA controller then the firewall does.

      You have the chipset being the bus's traffic cop and directing everything, and on top of that, its going to analyze, though probably very simply, and scrub every packet that crosses it. It just strikes me as something that the chipset shouldn't be doing, if you really feel the need for a firewall on chip, throw it on a special NIC. On top of it, how do you update it when every problem is found? Flash the

    • If you're looking for that kind of testing and validation, don't hold your breath.

      That kind of validation doesn't generally come on the inexpensive boards, and it's been my experience that even the higher-end boards (with correspondingly higher-end price tags) still aren't too much better than the low-ends.

      steve

  • RE: Yeah... Cool. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fshalor ( 133678 ) <fshalor AT comcast DOT net> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:27PM (#8811977) Homepage Journal
    But... Does it run linux?

    Cause if it's like the early nforce boards, I was much better off with Via's stuff.

    Nvidia's great suff, but I just haven't been impressed with their provided drivers yet. Comparing several build ATI+VIA systems to Nvidia core systems, I have far less problems, hassles, and overall better performace out of the ATI+VIa ones.

    Like take the Asus offerings. The A7NX's rocked, but the nforce eqivalent.. sure it had like extra nic's, and other goodies, just didn't hold pace with a clean linux kernel and 3 gig's of ram.

    I switched the $150 nforce chipset board with a $60 Via, and ended up with a MUCH better high end workstation.

    Of course, I guess not everyone needs 3 gigs of ram. :) I could actually have 8-12 in this machine and it be justified.
    • Don't know about NForce3, but my NForce2 chipset board works great under Linux (Shuttle NForce2 Ultra 400; 2GB DDR400). There are even official drivers if you want (I use a PCI Gigabit nic, and ALSA includes support for the audio - so I don't use the drivers).

      Great strides have been made since the first NForce.
    • > Like take the Asus offerings. The A7NX's rocked, but the nforce eqivalent..

      There's is no motherboard that I'm aware of called the A7NX. Asus does make the A7N8X, which is generally considered one of the better motherboards available, supports 3 gigs of ram, and is based on the NForce2 chipset.

      The N in the product number reveals that it uses an NVidia chipset. If it was a Via board, it would have a V instead of the N.

      (I personally own an A7N8X and love it. I haven't had much luck with Linux on it,

  • Good in theory, but how open? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cipher chort ( 721069 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:29PM (#8811985) Homepage
    "NVIDIA is even letting third-party software developers take advantage of the nForce3 250Gb's dedicated firewall hardware."

    It doesn't say that they've published the necessary APIs and/or documentation for taking advantage of this feature, only that they're "letting" people take advantage of it. Does this mean it will remain closed and non-free like the nForce ethernet driver on previous chipsets? While they do release a "tainted" Linux driver, they don't allow groups like the OpenBSD project access to the documentation in order to write their own driver.

    All that hardware off-loading of processing from the CPU is not going to benefit everyone unless they freely provide documentation for using it.

    Here's hoping they release the necessary documentation instead of hoarding it like Intel has done with their on-NIC IPsec off-loading.

    Other than that, I really like the integrated firewall for two reasons:
    1.) It starts before the OS would have the ability to start a firewall
    2.) It (apparently?) works regardless of OS (that's a big question mark)

  • drivers... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pchan- ( 118053 )
    i look forward to seeing the documentation for these devices, so they can be fully supported by [insert any os besides windows].

    oh wait, did you say nvidia? nevermind. buggy binary drivers, no support for advanced features, drm, and linux only (no bsd allowed).

  • linux raid support please? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asv@@@ivoss...com> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:29PM (#8811991) Homepage Journal
    Since the popularity of on-board software raid over the years, it seems that manufacturer Linux support has been nonexistent to mediocre at best. When support is provided, it's usually in the form of a binary kernel module that only works with one or two of the more popular commercial distributions.

    I hope manufactures start to notice that a lot of people who buy the high end motherboards are the same people who are likely to use linux exclusively or at least dual boot. Initially, most of the popular serial ata chipsets included with motherboards, silicon image 3112 comes to mind, had lousy linux support particularly for the raid features. 2.6 has come a long way with ide raid support mostly due to developer's working to reverse engineer, but maybe just maybe manufactures will start to realize that linux support early on is a good and profitable business practice.

    • Re:linux raid support please? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:33PM (#8812011) Homepage
      Maybe they're trying to hide the fact that most "RAID" these days is actually just software RAID implemented in the driver.
    • Don't really see the point of this - Linux has excelled RAID support in the kernel and RAID tools; its not like these motherboards to actual hardware RAID.
    • Since the popularity of on-board software raid over the years, it seems that manufacturer Linux support has been nonexistent to mediocre at best.

      Most of the cheap 'IDE/SATA RAID' chips and cards (those that don't have on-board RAM) are nothing more than a glorified software RAID driver and a on-card BIOS that enables booting from the RAID.

      Except for the boot support, you get exactly the same with Linux software RAID - and with the added bonus that you can use any SCSI and IDE/SATA disk connected to any c

  • Features v performance? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:32PM (#8812002) Homepage
    Looks like we've reached a point where chipsets will differentiate on features more than performance.

    I think we reached that point long ago. The chipset performance difference is often less than 5%, and usually less than 2%. Are you going to notice that in day-to-day activities? Not likely. Chipset loyalties, features, past experiences, these are the things that matter. After 2 years of rock solid performance on my Nforce 1, I would have to be hard pressed to switch to Via if they had a performance difference. Plus Nvidia's drivers generally work, and they try to make drivers that work no matter what board you have, just like their graphics cards.

    Not that I'm a die-hard Nvidia chipset fan. At the time I bought the board two years ago, however, only the Nforce board provided all the features I wanted at the budget I was shooting for. The integrated video isn't horribe either, unlike Intel's Extremely Nasty solution.

    Differentiating on features more than performance? I thing the legions of Small Form Factor junkies kind of make the argument that that bridge was crossed quite a while ago. They settle for less performance, and practially all reviews of those boxen focus on the features, and less on performance.

  • most importantly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chadamir ( 665725 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:34PM (#8812018) Homepage
    is it's ability to overclock. This is the first confirmed chipset with pci lock and agp lock.
  • This looks pretty good for the network performance alone, plus the RAID controller is pretty nifty. If it works nicely under Linux (and nVidia's site appears to have drivers) it'll make a good chipset for a low end server. I like what I've seen of the new AMD stuff, particularly their new system design (Hypertransport etc) . Had a presentation from Sun recently on their coming Opteron lineup and that looks pretty sweet too (looks like IBM is offering them as well).

  • Performance doesn't suffer... (previews) (Score:3, Informative)

    by DeafDumbBlind ( 264205 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:47PM (#8812097)
    It looks like the chipset can more than hold its own, even with beta drivers.

    http://www.gamers-depot.com/hardware/motherboard s/ nf3/n250/001.htm
    http://techreport.com/reviews/20 04q2/nforce3-250gb /index.x?pg=1

  • My one regret... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NerveGas ( 168686 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @11:58PM (#8812162)
    ... is that they took out the integrated video. The integrated video on the NForce2 chipsets was the only integrated video that was even semi-decent. True, it doesn't keep up with a GeForceFX card, but for an integrated solution, it's awfully darn nice.

    And the really nice part? When/if you DO stick an even better card in the AGP slot, you can still use the onboard for a second monitor.

    For quite some time now, all of the machines I've built for our office have used NForce2 IGP chipsets, for precisely those reasons. A board that costs $100 (or less), is rock-solid, has terrific driver support, stellar performance, sound, network, etc. makes my life very, very easy. In fact, $450 will put together a VERY nice system (sans monitor) based on them.

    Plus, the fact that they'll play quite a few games (Q3, WarCraft III, Counter-Strike) incredibly well makes staying late very enjoyable....

    As a matter of fact, I'm going to upgrade my machine at home in the next month or two, and chances are that I'll keep using the same boards!

    steve
    • They yanked the integrated "SoundStorm" sound, too. A shame, considering what a great solution it is.

      However, AFAIK, you could never use the integrated video with anything in the AGP slot.

      -Erwos

      • However, AFAIK, you could never use the integrated video with anything in the AGP

        Ssshhhh! Don't tell my machines! ; )

        Several of the NForce2 motherboards I have at the office are setup with a video card in the AGP slot, and two monitors. On the Asus boards, there were a few hoops to jump through, but on the Abits, it was a lot less hastle.

        steve
    • What? You may have heard of the ATI Radeon 9100 IGP. Same type of deal. I also hear a rumor that Intel's not-so-extreme graphics are getting an overhaul in the 915/925 series of chipsets...

      I've always wondered why motherboard manufactuers didn't use the mobile graphics chips and integrate them. Seems like an easy one chip solution, and you pop an ATI M11 (Radeon 9700 Mobility) and you'd have a nice little graphics chip for very little overhead. Heck, with the better cooling environment available in a des

  • If it's bad as the rest of nVidia's stuff,... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RonVNX ( 55322 ) on Friday April 09, 2004 @12:02AM (#8812184)
    If it's as bad as the rest of nVidia's Linux support, it's nothing to be excited about. nVidia's drivers taught me why open source drivers are so important.

    And they're "good" about Linux support. That just underscores why open drivers are a must.

  • Graphics cards, chipsets - CPUs next? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gtoomey ( 528943 ) on Friday April 09, 2004 @12:05AM (#8812202)
    Nvidia has some serious talent that produce great graphics cards, & chipsets with audio/ethernet/integrated graphics.
    The next logical step would be an Nvidia CPU, perhaps integrated with other technologies. Wishful thinking?

  • Why didn't they go further (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why didn't they just include a processor core like PowerPC or ARM core? Might as well make a super duper all-in-one cpu on a chip.

  • finally (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MasTRE ( 588396 )
    This is good stuff, people! Really!

    Once we get past the "dumb beast" stage, the stage at which we believe bigger-is-better (in this field, more MHz), we reach a point where quality and smart features that are useful in today's world are what differentiates products. I've wished the market supported proper chipsatz (I just like how it sounds in German say it, so shoot me) development for a long time, now this news seems like bringing that a step closer to reality. It's a known fact that Intel, when they

  • nVidia to become a partner with MS and Phoenix? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gary Destruction ( 683101 ) * on Friday April 09, 2004 @02:54AM (#8813092) Journal
    MS and Phoenix are planning to incorporate several features including TCP/IP in the BIOS. With the prospect of an onboard firewall, nVidia may very well be both ahead of its time and an (un)intentional partner with MS and Phoenix.
  • The article mentioned a couple networking things, beside the firewall, which are very cool..

    - Gig-E on the chipset. Most NIC's attach via the PCI bus. Even the integrated NIC's on the motherboard, they connect via the PCI bus. Since a standard 32bit/33MHz bus tops out at 1Gbps, you've got a bottleneck if you want to do anything else - like access the disk. They bypass that, and give it direct access to the system bus. Their performance results are impressive.

    - The article claims that it supports "TC

  • Hey, iptables running in hardware? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Trejkaz ( 615352 ) on Friday April 09, 2004 @04:14AM (#8813305) Homepage
    Is it feasible to have iptables run in hardware? I mean, if NVIDIA say they're going to help third parties set up their software to use the hardware, they had better help the only firewall software we care about.

  • Wonderful! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Paulrothrock ( 685079 ) on Friday April 09, 2004 @08:41AM (#8814074) Homepage Journal
    If one chip breaks, the whole machine is useless! That's exactly what I want in a computer.

    • Re:Wonderful! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Hoser McMoose ( 202552 )
      Yeah, much better to have two or three chips in a machine where if any one of them die than the whole systme is useless! That's what we've got now, where most chipsets come with 2 or 3 discrete chips, and you better believe that if any one of them dies then your system won't boot.

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