nVidia 6100 chipset, dual chip vs. single power consumption?

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:17 am

Between the nVidia 6100 chipset with dual chip (C51+MCP430 separate North & South Bridge) vs. the nVidia 6100 single chip (MCP61), obviously the single chip consumes less power.

However, how much less? I'm curious if it's a significant amount or a negligible amount.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:35 am

I don't know if the power difference is significant. I do know that the single chip has an updated graphics chip. They added Z buffering and it now is about 1.5X faster than the 6150.

Palindroman · Post by **Palindroman** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 11:50 am

GnatGoSplat wrote:Between the nVidia 6100 chipset with dual chip (C51+MCP430 separate North & South Bridge) vs. the nVidia 6100 single chip (MCP61), obviously the single chip consumes less power.

However, how much less? I'm curious if it's a significant amount or a negligible amount.

I coincidentally have compared the Asrock Alive NF6G-DVI (single chip) and the Gigabyte-M51GM-S2G (dual chip). If I remember correctly the difference was 7-8 watts.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:14 pm

Thanks. That's not a huge difference, but considering the price difference is small, it seems worthwhile to get the single chip version.

I had no idea it's 1.5X faster than the 6150! Does Z-buffering affect HDTV decoding? My 6150-based board even with an X2 3800+ CPU just doesn't have enough GPU power for smooth 1080i video playback in MCE 2005. It's close, but just not quite smooth enough for my taste. Does that mean a single-chip 6100 just might be fast enough for smooth 1080i in MCE?

Saribro · Post by **Saribro** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:44 pm

http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q1/am ... ex.x?pg=16

SE is the single chip version.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:10 pm

Saribro wrote:http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q1/am ... ex.x?pg=16

SE is the single chip version.

Very interesting, I had no idea a 6100 could be faster than a 6150! Very confusing too... so are ALL single chip 6100's the same as 6150SE? The Asus M2N-MX that they used which they call a 6150SE is listed as a regular 6100 everywhere else.

ppl4golf · Post by **ppl4golf** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 9:17 pm

I think ASRock is calling the chip inside AM2NF6G-DVI 6150SE as well.

Interesting, the article a couple of post above stated this 6150SE doesn't do PureVideo. I don't use it myself but I think many do.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:14 am

Some other sites are calling the AM2NF6G-DVI an "NF6100-405". From what I've been able to find, there are just 3 variants of the MCP61: MCP61P which supports PCIe x16, MCP61V which supports PCIe x8, and MCP61S which supports PCIe x1. MCP61P is what you want if you ever want to use an add-on PCIe video card. I saw Biostar has some MCP61V and MCP61S boards with a PCIe x16 slot, but I guess they must run the x16 slot at x8 or x1. That would be a good case for "buyer beware", IMO! The MCP61 is also a GF 7-series IGP now, while the old C51 was a GF 6-series. The fact that they didn't give it a new name makes it more confusing.

The article did mention it doesn't do PureVideo, but it also says HDTV was unlocked with driver v93.71, so maybe that makes it PureVideo compatible?

The yet to be released MCP68 looks interesting too, it's the single chip replacement for the 6150. It has built-in DVI and HDTV output. It'll be GF7 based and will have a new name, the Geforce 7050.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:18 pm

It is all a bit confusing. There are three variants of MCP61: P (performance), S (standard), and V (value). It is actually the V that only supports two PCI-E lanes, S supports 10 lanes (8x for graphics, 2x for 1x cards), and P supports 18 total lanes. There are also some other differences, S and V only have two SATAII ports, P has four. P also supports digital video out, whereas S and V don't.

Typically the single chips are represented by 6100-4xx, whereas the dual chip is 6100 (or 6150) + 4xx. 6100-400 is MCP61V, 6100-405 is MCP61S, and 6100-430 is MCP61P. The 6100 + 410 is the old 6100, and 6150 + 430 is the old 6150 (I guess the 6100-430 could be considered the new 6150). There are also some odd combinations of chipsets, for example 6100+ 430 and 6150 + 410 (these are the LE and SE chipsets I think).

Also, MCP61S should work reasonably well with an external graphics card. I remember some site tested performance of a high-end video card (think it was 7900GTX) with MCP61S and it wasn't too much lower than on a chipset with full 16x bandwidth. I think at most it was 5% lower FPS, and on the average the difference was only a few percent.

J. Sparrow · Post by **J. Sparrow** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:09 pm

The Asrock 939NF6G-VSTA has 4 SATA ports, and a D-SUB video connector, thus it should using an MCP61 S, right ?

PS: and would that mean it has Z buffering ?

pelago · Post by **pelago** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:00 am

I'm looking to buy a single chip 6100 or 6150-based motherboard, but I'm having trouble determining if a given motherboard uses single chip or two chips. For example, looking at the Gigabyte site, I can show motherboards which have:
- nVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 400
- nVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 430
- nVIDIA GeForce 6150 / nForce 430
but I can't work out which are single chip. Is there a way of telling?

Is there a website that lists all (recent) motherboards from all manufacturers and allows comparison on various features?

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:52 am

I can't work out which are single chip. Is there a way of telling?

um, just look at the pictures?

J. Sparrow · Post by **J. Sparrow** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:59 am

Look at the photo!

Clicked the first link you provided, this is the photo, looks like a single chip design.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Vie ... uctID=2439

pelago · Post by **pelago** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:49 pm

It may be easy for you motherboard gurus to just look at the pics, but it's not so easy if I don't know what I'm looking for, which is kinda what I was asking! I mean, there's plenty of chips on the board, and I don't know which is a north or south bridge.

Still, I'll have a guess, let me know if you think I'm right with the following:

GA-M61VME-S2 (rev. 2.0) - single chip
GA-M61VME-S2 (rev. 1.0) - single chip
GA-M61PM-S2(rev. 2.0) - single chip
GA-M61P-S3 - single chip
GA-M61PM-S2(rev. 1.0) - single chip
GA-M55plus-S3G(rev 3.0) - dual chip

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:03 pm

Yep, all correct. The last one is a classic north/southbridge arrangement.

pelago · Post by **pelago** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:24 pm

Thanks. Actually, now I see the motherboard names listed like that all in a column, all except the last start M61 which I guess refers to MCP61, which is the single-chip design. That's not to say it will be so obvious with other manufacturers!

nVidia 6100 chipset, dual chip vs. single power consumption?

nVidia 6100 chipset, dual chip vs. single power consumption?

Re: nVidia 6100 chipset, dual chip vs. single power consumpt