PCI Express

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Does anyone know when we can expect to see 'PCI Express' compliant graphics
cards and M/B on the shelves?

Thanks
--
Morgan.
----
* Oh she's fine; just like I promised. She's getting set to marry Commodore
Norrington; just like she promised. And you're going to die for her; just
like you promised. So we're all men of our word really... except for
Elizabeth, who is in fact, a woman.

Mail: Morgan.Sales@ntlworld.com
Webpage: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/msales
 
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With in a month or two.

"Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:2g1peeF3j1r4U1@uni-berlin.de...
> Does anyone know when we can expect to see 'PCI Express' compliant
graphics
> cards and M/B on the shelves?
>
> Thanks
> --
> Morgan.
> ----
> * Oh she's fine; just like I promised. She's getting set to marry
Commodore
> Norrington; just like she promised. And you're going to die for her; just
> like you promised. So we're all men of our word really... except for
> Elizabeth, who is in fact, a woman.
>
> Mail: Morgan.Sales@ntlworld.com
> Webpage: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/msales
>
>
>
 
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> Does anyone know when we can expect to see 'PCI Express' compliant
graphics
> cards and M/B on the shelves?

very quickly, by the sound of it
 
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Tod wrote:
> With in a month or two.

Thanks, to all three of you, plus anyone else who might post after this.

--
Morgan.
----
* An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his
fools. :- Ernest Hemingway

Mail: Morgan.Sales@ntlworld.com
Webpage: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/msales
 

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"Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:2g3eh8F400l3U1@uni-berlin.de...
> Tod wrote:
> > With in a month or two.
>
> Thanks, to all three of you, plus anyone else who might post after this.

PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a new
motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd probably buy
PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.

But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster than
AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless the
manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express cards
higher.)

Chip
 
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> But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster than
> AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless the
> manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express cards
> higher.)

Exactly. Have no clue why PCI Express is even needed. Games are still
going to rely on the vid card memory (new ones having 256mb min now)
more so than purely relying on bus transfer of textures.
 
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Destroy wrote:

>> But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster
>> than
>> AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless
>> the manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express
>> cards higher.)
>
> Exactly. Have no clue why PCI Express is even needed. Games are still
> going to rely on the vid card memory (new ones having 256mb min now)
> more so than purely relying on bus transfer of textures.

Planned obsolescence. Can't get a video board with AGP then you have to
have get a new motherboard to fit your new video board. Can't get a
motherboard with AGP then you have to get a new video board to fit your new
motherboard.

Makes one want to take up Christianity just so one can comfort oneself with
the belief that there is a special place in Hell for those who come up with
such ideas.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
 
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Chip wrote:
> "Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:2g3eh8F400l3U1@uni-berlin.de...
>> Tod wrote:
>>> With in a month or two.
>>
>> Thanks, to all three of you, plus anyone else who might post after
>> this.
>
> PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a
> new motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd
> probably buy PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
>
> But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly
> faster than AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference
> whatsoever (unless the manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g.
> clocking the PCI-Express cards higher.)

I'm assuming that this is because the I/O port speed is not currently
throttling the speed of the cards. However, seeing as PCI E cards arn't out
yet we can't jump to your conclution. Saying that, you almost certainly
*ARE* right. But we can live in hope. :)

On a side note, anyone know when a 64 bit version of Windows is coming
out?(longhorn or whatever they're calling it an the moment.)
--
Morgan.
----
* I don't mind a parasite, I object to a cut rate one. :- Humphrey Bogart,
Casablanca.

Mail: Morgan.Sales@ntlworld.com
Webpage: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/msales
 
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Morgan Sales wrote:

> Chip wrote:
>> "Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>> news:2g3eh8F400l3U1@uni-berlin.de...
>>> Tod wrote:
>>>> With in a month or two.
>>>
>>> Thanks, to all three of you, plus anyone else who might post after
>>> this.
>>
>> PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a
>> new motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd
>> probably buy PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
>>
>> But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly
>> faster than AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference
>> whatsoever (unless the manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g.
>> clocking the PCI-Express cards higher.)
>
> I'm assuming that this is because the I/O port speed is not currently
> throttling the speed of the cards. However, seeing as PCI E cards arn't
> out
> yet we can't jump to your conclution. Saying that, you almost certainly
> *ARE* right. But we can live in hope. :)
>
> On a side note, anyone know when a 64 bit version of Windows is coming
> out?(longhorn or whatever they're calling it an the moment.)

If you want to be technical a 64-bit version of Windows was out so long ago
it's been discontinued. The version of NT 4.0 for the DEC Alpha, which is
a 64-bit processor, came on the NT4 CD. After Compaq took over DEC and
sold the Alpha production line to Intel and stopped put much effort into
developing the processor, support was dropped due to lack of interest.

Longhorn is the next release of Windows--it will be out in 32-bit and 64-bit
versions, but 64-bit XP is likely to ship before Longhorn. You can
download a 360-day time-bombed beta of XP for AMD-64 off the Microsoft site
<http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/downloads/upgrade.asp>. You can
download a 180-day time-bombed beta of 2K3 Server for Itanium from
<http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/trial/evalkit.mspx#XSLTsection124121120120>.
You may want to do that--it's possible that Microsoft will have a pay beta
later that will get you a copy of the release version at a big discount--if
you're on the mailing list you'll be sure to get notified.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
 

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Chip wrote:

> PCI-Express is certainly the future standard.

Not if you are using AMD. AMD has no plans to switch to PCI-Express, or
BTX. That's what I read at The Inquirer anyway. I'm planing to make my
next PC an AMD64 w/X800 too.
 

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"Slug" <no@email.here> wrote in message
news:109qa3sijthede2@corp.supernews.com...
> Chip wrote:
>
> > PCI-Express is certainly the future standard.
>
> Not if you are using AMD. AMD has no plans to switch to PCI-Express, or
> BTX. That's what I read at The Inquirer anyway. I'm planing to make my
> next PC an AMD64 w/X800 too.

"AMD has no plans to switch to PCI-Express"???!?!??!

I have heard such utter nonsense. The Inquirer really has surpassed itself
this time.

Chip
 
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Chip wrote:

>
> "Slug" <no@email.here> wrote in message
> news:109qa3sijthede2@corp.supernews.com...
>> Chip wrote:
>>
>> > PCI-Express is certainly the future standard.
>>
>> Not if you are using AMD. AMD has no plans to switch to PCI-Express, or
>> BTX. That's what I read at The Inquirer anyway. I'm planing to make my
>> next PC an AMD64 w/X800 too.
>
> "AMD has no plans to switch to PCI-Express"???!?!??!
>
> I have heard such utter nonsense. The Inquirer really has surpassed itself
> this time.

Well, it's one of those statements that may be entirely true to also mostly
meaningless. Since BTX is more of a form-factor issue than an electronic
issue and AMD doesn't make motherboards or power supplies or cases, it's
reasonable that AMD would not be "switching to BTX". Since PCI Express is
a southbridge issue and AMD, while they make such devices, does so only for
marketing reasons, it is reasonable that they would not be planning to
"switch to PCI Express", leaving that to the third party chipset
manufacturers who produce the majority of South Bridge chips used with AMD
processors..

> Chip

--
--John
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(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
 

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"Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:2g51p8F4j2edU1@uni-berlin.de...
> Chip wrote:
> > "Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> > news:2g3eh8F400l3U1@uni-berlin.de...
> >> Tod wrote:
> >>> With in a month or two.
> >>
> >> Thanks, to all three of you, plus anyone else who might post after
> >> this.
> >
> > PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a
> > new motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd
> > probably buy PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
> >
> > But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly
> > faster than AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference
> > whatsoever (unless the manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g.
> > clocking the PCI-Express cards higher.)
>
> I'm assuming that this is because the I/O port speed is not currently
> throttling the speed of the cards. However, seeing as PCI E cards arn't
out
> yet we can't jump to your conclution. Saying that, you almost certainly
> *ARE* right. But we can live in hope. :)

If you want to see what sort of speed improvement you might get, try setting
your AGP speed to 4X in the bios, run 3dmark2001 (or whatever) and then set
the bios back to 8X and try again. I think you'll find it makes hardly any
difference at all.

Now one argument is that games authors will start to make games that need
huge amounts of textures that just won't fit in the graphics card memory and
which need to be paged in from system memory. This would be a very bad
thing if they did. But if they did this, then the faster PCI-Express bus
speed would help. But we'd be loading textures from slow system memory
(which means god forbid it might even have to get paged in from your
swapfile!!!). I just can't see this being at all viable.

So given that not much traffic is going to be travelling across the bus,
then I can't see how speeding it up will make games run faster.

Chip.
 
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"Chip" <anneonymouse@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:2g6b25F4rqpfU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:2g51p8F4j2edU1@uni-berlin.de...
> > Chip wrote:
> > > "Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> > > news:2g3eh8F400l3U1@uni-berlin.de...
> > >> Tod wrote:
> > >>> With in a month or two.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks, to all three of you, plus anyone else who might post after
> > >> this.
> > >
> > > PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a
> > > new motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd
> > > probably buy PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
> > >
> > > But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly
> > > faster than AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference
> > > whatsoever (unless the manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g.
> > > clocking the PCI-Express cards higher.)
> >
> > I'm assuming that this is because the I/O port speed is not currently
> > throttling the speed of the cards. However, seeing as PCI E cards arn't
> out
> > yet we can't jump to your conclution. Saying that, you almost certainly
> > *ARE* right. But we can live in hope. :)
>
> If you want to see what sort of speed improvement you might get, try
setting
> your AGP speed to 4X in the bios, run 3dmark2001 (or whatever) and then
set
> the bios back to 8X and try again. I think you'll find it makes hardly
any
> difference at all.
>
> Now one argument is that games authors will start to make games that need
> huge amounts of textures that just won't fit in the graphics card memory
and
> which need to be paged in from system memory. This would be a very bad
> thing if they did. But if they did this, then the faster PCI-Express bus
> speed would help. But we'd be loading textures from slow system memory
> (which means god forbid it might even have to get paged in from your
> swapfile!!!). I just can't see this being at all viable.
>
> So given that not much traffic is going to be travelling across the bus,
> then I can't see how speeding it up will make games run faster.
>
> Chip.
>

This almost sounds like a description of "Far Cry", to me.

Luck;
Ken
 
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>PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a new
>motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd probably buy
>PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
>
>But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster than
>AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless the
>manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express cards
>higher.)
>
>Chip
>
i read something about faster communication with the cpu on both the
upload AND download. from what i read it should boost things up a bit.
but who knows by how much... we'll wait and see
 
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OverKlocker wrote:

>
>>PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a new
>>motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd probably
>>buy PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
>>
>>But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster
>>than
>>AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless the
>>manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express cards
>>higher.)
>>
>>Chip
>>
> i read something about faster communication with the cpu on both the
> upload AND download. from what i read it should boost things up a bit.
> but who knows by how much... we'll wait and see

AGP 8x gives faster communication with the CPU than does AGP 4x, on both the
upload AND download, but there is no discernible real-world performance
difference between them. If the interface is not the bottleneck then
running it at infinite speed will make no difference in performance.


--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
 

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"OverKlocker" <nunya@biznez.net> wrote in message
news:i01u901p17ev8a0h2228m6rvj6de4kkqh8@4ax.com...
>
> >PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a new
> >motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd probably
buy
> >PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
> >
> >But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster
than
> >AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless
the
> >manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express cards
> >higher.)
> >
> >Chip
> >
> i read something about faster communication with the cpu on both the
> upload AND download. from what i read it should boost things up a bit.
> but who knows by how much... we'll wait and see.

I think you are right. i.e. PCI-Express is bi-directional, whereas AGP
transfers only go in one direction. Having said that, I can't imagine why
on earth you'd want to send data (in large quantity) from the graphics card
to main memory.

Chip
 
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I don't think that PCI-Express is all about the video cards, there are other
uses for fast PCI slots.

--Dan

"Chip" <anneonymouse@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:2g8q9vF5j4nlU1@uni-berlin.de...

> I think you are right. i.e. PCI-Express is bi-directional, whereas AGP
> transfers only go in one direction. Having said that, I can't imagine why
> on earth you'd want to send data (in large quantity) from the graphics
card
> to main memory.
>
> Chip
>
>
 
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On Sat, 08 May 2004 13:17:51 GMT, Destroy <no@thanks.com> waffled on
about something:

>> But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster than
>> AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless the
>> manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express cards
>> higher.)
>
>Exactly. Have no clue why PCI Express is even needed. Games are still
>going to rely on the vid card memory (new ones having 256mb min now)
>more so than purely relying on bus transfer of textures.

It's just removing a future bottle neck before we hit it.

You wouldn't like it if your house was only wired to support 10 x
60watt lighbulbs and you needed a complete rewire and new fuse board
when you wanted to a brighten up a few rooms with 100watt bulbs!

D0d6y.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES
 
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> It's just removing a future bottle neck before we hit it.
>
> You wouldn't like it if your house was only wired to support 10 x
> 60watt lighbulbs and you needed a complete rewire and new fuse board
> when you wanted to a brighten up a few rooms with 100watt bulbs!
>
> D0d6y.

Yeah, and assuming you only used about half the house at the moment, with the other rooms empty....
and house prices always went down instead of up.

Q why move because of a vague theoretical need to do so?
A to keep estate agents in a job

:)

S
 
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Dodgy wrote:

> On Sat, 08 May 2004 13:17:51 GMT, Destroy <no@thanks.com> waffled on
> about something:
>
>>> But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly faster
>>> than
>>> AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference whatsoever (unless
>>> the manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g. clocking the PCI-Express
>>> cards higher.)
>>
>>Exactly. Have no clue why PCI Express is even needed. Games are still
>>going to rely on the vid card memory (new ones having 256mb min now)
>>more so than purely relying on bus transfer of textures.
>
> It's just removing a future bottle neck before we hit it.
>
> You wouldn't like it if your house was only wired to support 10 x
> 60watt lighbulbs and you needed a complete rewire and new fuse board
> when you wanted to a brighten up a few rooms with 100watt bulbs!

However the current situation is the opposite, right now we're not running
on the ragged edge of what AGP can do, as test after test has shown, we're
using at most half its capacity.

The real push behind it is that Intel wants to sell chipsets and force Via,
SiS, etc to play catch-up. Don't kid yourself that anybody is going to see
a real performance improvement from it any time soon. Maybe 5 years down
the road, but by that time Intel will be trying to kill it off in favor of
some new marketing standard.

Remember all the wonderful things that Slot 1 was supposed to do that
couldn't possibly be done with a socket? The only wonderful thing it did
was allow Intel to prevent their interface from being cloned long enough to
lock AMD into a different interface. When Intel is pushing some new
standard put one hand on your wallet and the other on your pistol because
you're about to be robbed.

Now, there are some real reasons to want a faster PCI--the current version
can't keep up with gigabit Ethernet for example. But the simple fact is
that the rest of the machine can't keep up with it either unless you've got
it specified to the standards of at least a midrange server, so the PCI bus
is not the bottleneck there in any but a few specialized applications. The
claim is that a PCI-Express machine will give the same performance as a
PCI-X machine for less money. However the PCI Express slots being put in
the first generation of machines do not match the performance of PCI-X and
I would be very surprised if the first generation of PCI Express boards
sold for less money than the current generation of PCI-X boards.

> D0d6y.

--
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(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
 
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Chip wrote:
> "Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:2g51p8F4j2edU1@uni-berlin.de...
>> Chip wrote:
>>> "Morgan Sales" <msalesDIESPAMMER@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>>> news:2g3eh8F400l3U1@uni-berlin.de...
>>>> Tod wrote:
>>>>> With in a month or two.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, to all three of you, plus anyone else who might post after
>>>> this.
>>>
>>> PCI-Express is certainly the future standard. And if I was buying a
>>> new motherboard *and* a new graphics card in a few months time I'd
>>> probably buy PCI-Express purely because its the latest and greatest.
>>>
>>> But I don't expect PCI-Express graphics cards to be even slighly
>>> faster than AGP versions. I can't see it making any difference
>>> whatsoever (unless the manufacturers "cheat" in some way, e.g.
>>> clocking the PCI-Express cards higher.)
>>
>> I'm assuming that this is because the I/O port speed is not currently
>> throttling the speed of the cards. However, seeing as PCI E cards
>> arn't out yet we can't jump to your conclution. Saying that, you
>> almost certainly *ARE* right. But we can live in hope. :)
>
> If you want to see what sort of speed improvement you might get, try
> setting your AGP speed to 4X in the bios, run 3dmark2001 (or
> whatever) and then set the bios back to 8X and try again. I think
> you'll find it makes hardly any difference at all.
>
> Now one argument is that games authors will start to make games that
> need huge amounts of textures that just won't fit in the graphics
> card memory and which need to be paged in from system memory. This
> would be a very bad thing if they did. But if they did this, then
> the faster PCI-Express bus speed would help. But we'd be loading
> textures from slow system memory (which means god forbid it might
> even have to get paged in from your swapfile!!!). I just can't see
> this being at all viable.
>
> So given that not much traffic is going to be travelling across the
> bus, then I can't see how speeding it up will make games run faster.
>
> Chip.

Hi Chip.

I think it's because a certain CPU maker who also makes chipsets and
mobos is stomping up and down on the issue like a spoilt kid not getting
their way and find the only other Big Kid is smoothly sliding right on
past them performance wise....

and Intel can't figure out what to do about it....so....PCIExpress :)
McG.