Nvidia's upcoming Pentium 4-oriented chipset has won the approval of the minds behind the PCI Express standard.

According to the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), Nvidia's C19 (aka 'Crush 19') product - essentially nForce for Intel - has been added to the group's list of PCI Express-compliant products.

The compliance list "includes all products that have successfully completed the rigorous testing procedures of the Compliance Workshop", according to the PCI-SIG website.

Nvidia has already said C19 will ship this quarter, and the PCI-SIG listing confirms that the chip maker is on course to meet that target. Nvidia won a P4 bus licence from Intel in November 2004.

Indeed, Intel's confirmation that its 6xx series Pentium 4 processors will ship "later this month" suggests the C19 launch window may be closer than previously thought - earlier indications suggested a late Q1/early Q2 debut. Certainly, Nvidia's timing appears to have followed Intel's schedule for the release of its 64-bit mainstream desktop processors.

C19 is expected to support both 800MHz and 1066MHz frontside bus speeds, along with Intel's 64-bit technology, EM64T. Expect HyperThreading and Extended SpeedStep support in there too, and possible dual-core provision as well. Nvidia's own dual-card SLI technology is likely to be incorporated, along with the chip maker's Gigabit Ethernet, RAID, Firewall and network security sub-systems, not to mention all the usual drive and peripheral interfaces. It goes without saying that PCI Express is in there too. ®

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