[SOLVED] Intel with PCIe 4.0 - To Wait or Not to Wait?

[Crag_Hack]

I am going to buy a new Intel (probably Intel - like that 9700k) system soon. Just wandering if it would be prudent to postpone until Intel supports PCIe 4.0. Comet Lake desktop reportedly isn't correct? What is the ETA for Comet Lake? If it doesn't support PCIe 4.0 I assume I'd be waiting even longer for 4.0 support. Do graphics cards even use all the bandwidth of the PCIe bus such that it would matter? For PCIe M.2 SSDs could I install them in an addon card that operates on a PCIe 3.0 x8 slot to attain their maximum bandwidth? Maybe I should just go with AMD... Anything else to know?

 

[Endre]

I think, for us, users, Intel Optane drives will bring the most “real world performance” benefits.
But it’s so expensive right now...

 

[Crag_Hack]

I'm curious... could you run a PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD on one of these on a PCIe 3.0 mobo and realize the full potential of the drive? Also this is a very interesting benchmark.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm curious... could you run a PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD on one of these on a PCIe 3.0 mobo and realize the full potential of the drive? Also this is a very interesting benchmark.

No.
That transfers only at 3.0 performance.

That video shows only a 1 or 2 second (sometimes 0) difference between a SATA III drive and an NVMe drive.
PCIe 3.0 to 4.0 would be an even smaller difference.

HDD to SSD is a huge difference.
SATA III SSD to PCIe 3 SSD, much smaller difference.
3.0 to 40...even smaller difference.

Raw drive speed is not the only consideration.

 

[Crag_Hack]

But doesn't the addon card use up to PCIe 3.0 x16? So wouldn't it be able to accomodate PCIe 4.0 x4?

 

[cryoburner]

It supports up to four NVMe drives, so it likely divides that up to give each drive its own PCIe 3.0 x4 connection. I imagine a 3.0 to 4.0 add-in card might be possible though, effectively converting a 4.0 x4 drive to a 3.0 x8 connection. Again though, much like RAIDing multiple NVMe drives, the performance benefits of the additional bandwidth are likely to be limited for most real-world tasks.

 

[Crag_Hack]

Follow up in light of recent events with PS5 and XBox... see here... will there still be no benefit of PCIe 4 over 3 for SSD performance while gaming and other tasks?

 

[redfoot12]

Follow up in light of recent events with PS5 and XBox... see here... will there still be no benefit of PCIe 4 over 3 for SSD performance while gaming and other tasks?

It's all just "future-proofing" at this point. We're probably not going to see any gaming performance benefits for a few years.
Here's a pretty interesting Digital Foundry video that touches on some of this and covers NVME.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkZBuL_a13E

 

[Crag_Hack]

Thanks dude, finally got around to watching.