Nvidia is the first company to release a motherboard controller that makes it
possible to build a hardware firewall within a PC itself. I think that is
cool. I hope this will work out and actually become reality.

“Motherboard chip sets don’t normally excite much attention in the security
world, but Nvidia’s NForce 4 could turn out to be the exception. Better
known for its graphics chips, Nvidia has become the first to release a
motherboard controller that makes it possible to build a hardware firewall
within a PC itself. The catch is that the new PCI-based chip set will only
work with AMD Athlon 64, 64 FX, and Sempron processors. Consequently, the
company expects that NForce 4 will be aimed at higher-end applications such
as gaming in its initial roll-out. It is not clear whether the chip set will
be made to work in Intel systems at a later date. Although software
firewalls are effective on PCs, the NForce 4 “ActiveArmor” protection engine
claims to carry out its security routines without hindering the performance
of the PC, acting as an “accelerated” co-processor. This should improve
system performance by unburdening the main CPU from having to process
network traffic. [Continued...]“