[SOLVED] Ryzen vs Comet Lake for PCIe 4.0

[seymoorebutts]

After watching Sony and Epic's PS5 Unreal 5 Tech Demo, me gots some questions. (this is the demo I am referencing https://www.tomshardware.com/news/playastation-5-demo-unreal-engine-5)

My poor ol rig has been chugging along gracefully with its i7 3770K, 770 2GB, 8 GB DDR3 and 1 TB HDD, but it's time to pull the plug. I'm looking to build a future proofed monster, but it just blows my mind that Intel isn't properly intergrating PCIe 4.0 with its 10th generation processors, and AMD is already here. I think I saw somewhere that there are some MoBos for sale or soon available that will offer Intel chipsets AND PCIe 4.0, but these would be or Intel's 11th gen or later. I'm all down to splurge on this upcoming build, but I cannot in good faith buy a 10700K and then an 11700K 1 year later, not when Intel is so comfy giving us the middle finger (they have for a little bit now).

Now the big ol' elephant in the room is whether or not all this even matters. The PS5's SSD can pull 5.5GB/s through PCIe 4.0, while today's best NVMe SSD's can do around 4GB/s on PCIe (if I remember right, don't quote me). Is that extra 1.5GB/s really the gamechanger, does it have to do more with Sony's custom 12 channel controller, is it about how Unreal Engine 5 operates, or is it a combination of everthing? How long will it even take games to really even take advantage of these new technologies and architecture for it to be meaningful?

What do?

 

[geofelt]

pcie 4.0 seems useful to only two types of devices, graphics cards and ssd devices.
To date, I see no pcie4.0 graphics cards.; and tests I have seen shows minimal benefit from pcie 2 to3.

On the ssd side, the big benefit of a ssd device is the minimal latency for small random I/O.
That is what is predominately done. The sequential processing does not seem very important for most. One does not notice much the difference between a sata ssd and a pcie ssd.
I think the 4.0 spec is there for the future, A longish way into the future,
I think 4.0 availability should be a minor consideration for now.

 

[IDProG]

After watching Sony and Epic's PS5 Unreal 5 Tech Demo, me gots some questions. (this is the demo I am referencing https://www.tomshardware.com/news/playastation-5-demo-unreal-engine-5)

My poor ol rig has been chugging along gracefully with its i7 3770K, 770 2GB, 8 GB DDR3 and 1 TB HDD, but it's time to pull the plug. I'm looking to build a future proofed monster, but it just blows my mind that Intel isn't properly intergrating PCIe 4.0 with its 10th generation processors, and AMD is already here. I think I saw somewhere that there are some MoBos for sale or soon available that will offer Intel chipsets AND PCIe 4.0, but these would be or Intel's 11th gen or later. I'm all down to splurge on this upcoming build, but I cannot in good faith buy a 10700K and then an 11700K 1 year later, not when Intel is so comfy giving us the middle finger (they have for a little bit now).

Now the big ol' elephant in the room is whether or not all this even matters. The PS5's SSD can pull 5.5GB/s through PCIe 4.0, while today's best NVMe SSD's can do around 4GB/s on PCIe (if I remember right, don't quote me). Is that extra 1.5GB/s really the gamechanger, does it have to do more with Sony's custom 12 channel controller, is it about how Unreal Engine 5 operates, or is it a combination of everthing? How long will it even take games to really even take advantage of these new technologies and architecture for it to be meaningful?

What do?

Don't listen to anyone who says "you don't need PCIe 4.0".

YOU NEED PCIe 4.0. Just not now, but PRETTY CLOSE.

RTX 2080 Ti passes PCIe 3.0 x8. The next 3080 Ti, which will arrive just a few months later, is rumored to be 50% more powerful than 2080 Ti.

This means that 2 generations later, which is pretty much 1 to 2 years later, PCIe 3.0 will be a bottleneck for some graphics cards.

Another advantages of PCIe 4.0 is SSD.
"But, PCIe 4.0 SSD is not much faster at game load times than SATA SSD"
For now, yes. And that's because games are still optimized for hard drive.

What does this mean?

HDDs have very weak random read performance. This means that HDDs cannot travel back and forth throughout files just to find one file that the game needs. To optimize this, the game duplicates the file many times and separates them across the game files, so that HDDs don't need to travel very long to find the file.

For example, if there are 200 mailbox spots that are spread across the game which you can use to save the game, there will be 200 of the same mailbox files that are separated across the files.
However, this causes problems, like unnecessarily bigger file, and so much more amount of file which can slow down load times, and, since those are small files, it cannot be solved by faster SSDs.

Now that SSDs have very strong random read performance, such duplication is not needed anymore, and therefore, the 200 mailbox files will be reduced to 1 file, making file size smaller and the game can have much fewer amount of small files which will speed up load times dramatically.
However, this will be at the price of HDDs suffering at loading games. Expect some PS2-style during-game loading sequence (while you're shooting enemies, the game might freeze for some moment to load some things) if you use HDDs.

 

[geofelt]

Don't listen to anyone who says "you don't need PCIe 4.0".

I looked for a more definitive answer.

Nobody NEEDS anything, we mostly want something.
On graphics, here is a study on RTX2080ti pcie scaling:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-pci-express-scaling/6.html

FPS performance of a graphics card is determined by two components.

One is the frame generation capability of the card and the cores itself.
Today, the RTX2080ti is about 97% as capable in that regard as the Titan RTX, a $2500 card.
Nobody knows what the next gen cards will bring. Those who know are under NDA agreements.
But we can hope. Whatever, they will be expensive if there is a 50% boost in capability.

The second component is the ability to transfer data across the pcie boundary.
Pcie 2.0 has a data rate of 500MB/s. Pcie 3.0 is double that at 1gb/s. pcie 4.0 spec says 2gb/s.
Then there is the bandwidth which is the data rate x the number of lanes, Pcie x16 which is what a single card will use has 16. X8 has half or 8 lanes and x4 has half again at 4.
If you look at the aforementioned study, you see that, for example the performance of 3.0 at x8 is 97% of the performance of 3.0 at X16. a 2% difference on the 1440p tests.
That is what you would expect of pcie 2.0 at X16.
Note also that this difference is for one of the very fastest of current graphics cards. The difference in lesser cards will be even less.

Does a doubling of the transfer rate of 4.0 really make enough difference? I think not.

ON the issue of ssd, the question is a bit more relevant, but the principle is the same.
Just because the interface has a higher bandwidth does not mean that the ssd itself can take advantage of it.
A ssd maker today could produce a ssd that uses pcie X8 to double the bandwidth.
But, they have not seen the need.
One reason is that there is a limited amount of combined data transfer rate available on motherboards.

 

[seymoorebutts]

Yeah I actually just looked up that study before returning here. So far everyone has had excellent advice, but I'm less concerned about the difference that PCIe 4.0 would yield in frame rates, that is more or less negligible.

My thoughts are more about whether or not PCI 4.0 is a difference maker in terms of how technology CAN be utilized. In that PS5 tech demo, they talk about how the PS5's unique SSD interface is the reason that developers were able to create scenes that simplify the use of 8K textures and billions of triangles.

Granted, this may just be Epic really trying to push and sell UE 5, but the main idea of overhead and optimization being reduced for creators is a good thing! The easier it is for creators to design scalable scenes, the more time they will have towards developing better gameplay.

So really I'm wondering if this is more of a breakthrough in "software," which would mean much faster adoption by all developers across all platforms, or is it a breakthrough of software in conjunction with hardware? More accurately, is this type of hardware required for this type of software implementation?

Or, is this a concept that can be utilized with current PC hardware and architecture (PCIe 3.0 and NVMe SSDs)?

The reason I ask is because if the next generation of games will eventually start taking an advantage of these techniques, inevitably developers on PC would like the same tools and ease of use. IF that is the case, AND these concepts require newer technologies (i.e. PCIe 4), I would like to avoid changing out my CPU and motherboard a year later.

 

[geofelt]

Remember that game developers want the largest possible audience for their games.
If a game requires pcie 4.0 and the associated hardware to perform well, they would limit their market.
That is not to say that 4.0 might not be useful.
Graphics adapters need to load things such as textures into vram.
A faster load can compensate for limited vram which allows a cheaper device.
That is perhaps one of the engineering tradeoffs.

As a practical matter, most who change out a cpu will also change out their motherboard at the same time. When a new gen processor comes out, it may be compatible with a previous gen motherboard, but there is usually a benefit if it is installed on a later gen motherboard.
So much for the practicality of motherboard compatibility.
Same for whatever DDR5 brings, that will also need a motherboard change.

If/when I want a cpu upgrade, I am prepared to sell the old and buy the new.

 

[cryoburner]

To date, I see no pcie4.0 graphics cards.

All of AMD's RX 5000 series cards use a PCIe 4.0 connection. That said, there's currently virtually no difference in performance between the current models running on 4.0 or 3.0, aside from with the lower-end 5500 XT, which only gets an x8 connection. When running on a PCIe 3.0 motherboard, the x8 connection can hurt performance in some games, particularly with the 4GB version, as it needs to transfer data to system memory more often when VRAM is exceeded. That's not so much of a problem with the 8GB version though, as it offers more than enough VRAM for today's games.

This means that 2 generations later, which is pretty much 1 to 2 years later, PCIe 3.0 will be a bottleneck for some graphics cards.

Maybe in a couple years or so the top-end $1000+ cards will be affected slightly in some games, but it's unlikely that performance will drop off a cliff. And if someone is willing to buy an expensive "enthusiast-level" graphics card, then they are probably not going to be too concerned about replacing other hardware to get the most out of it.

As for SSDs, it's hard to say exactly how they will affect performance in the next generation of games. I suspect there will be games that need to be installed on an SSD to get optimal performance out of them, but it's unknown how much an NVMe drive might compare to something like a SATA SSD. Both offer fast access times, and in current games there's only around a 10% difference in load times between a SATA SSD and an NVMe model that's theoretically multiple times as fast. There's virtually no difference in real-world performance between the current PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 NVMe drives, at least in terms of load times in today's games and applications.

I do think PCIe 4.0 is probably nice to have, but I'm not convinced that it's going to substantially affect real-world performance for a number of years to come. And by that point, other components like the CPU may also be limiting performance.

 

[IDProG]

Yeah I actually just looked up that study before returning here. So far everyone has had excellent advice, but I'm less concerned about the difference that PCIe 4.0 would yield in frame rates, that is more or less negligible.

My thoughts are more about whether or not PCI 4.0 is a difference maker in terms of how technology CAN be utilized. In that PS5 tech demo, they talk about how the PS5's unique SSD interface is the reason that developers were able to create scenes that simplify the use of 8K textures and billions of triangles.

Granted, this may just be Epic really trying to push and sell UE 5, but the main idea of overhead and optimization being reduced for creators is a good thing! The easier it is for creators to design scalable scenes, the more time they will have towards developing better gameplay.

So really I'm wondering if this is more of a breakthrough in "software," which would mean much faster adoption by all developers across all platforms, or is it a breakthrough of software in conjunction with hardware? More accurately, is this type of hardware required for this type of software implementation?

Or, is this a concept that can be utilized with current PC hardware and architecture (PCIe 3.0 and NVMe SSDs)?

The reason I ask is because if the next generation of games will eventually start taking an advantage of these techniques, inevitably developers on PC would like the same tools and ease of use. IF that is the case, AND these concepts require newer technologies (i.e. PCIe 4), I would like to avoid changing out my CPU and motherboard a year later.

I have said it, it WILL be a breakthrough in game load times.

Though, you should have no problem loading games if you have PCIe 3.0 SSD, since Xbox Series X also uses the same interface (this is speculation from the speed of the SSD), and game developers have to make sure that the game works fine in both consoles.

 

[mdd1963]

Until we see what performance the new PCI-e 4.0 capable RTX3080Ti offers on assorted flagship 9900K, 10900K, and Ryzen 3800X/3900X on X570 boards. it might very well be premature to think that PCI-e 4.0 will not help...or, for that matter, that it will help, at least based on past changes from AGP to AGP2x, 4x, PCIe, PCI-e 2.0 and then 3.0. (Quite a few folks erred on buying chipsets capable of running GPUs in full PCI-e 3.0 with 16X/16X lanes operation, thinking SLI would surely be faster, only to see many of these rigs run 4-5% slower than mainstream CPUs/chipsets running 'only' 8x/8x lanes.

 

[InvalidError]

Good SATA3 SSDs can do ~500MB/s read and with NCQ, they can work on multiple read requests concurrently. A game with properly written asset streaming and preloading/caching should be able to do quite a lot with that already. If you need GBs/s of asset streaming for storage to keep up with the rate at which the game needs to load assets, your game needs to be monstrously large even by today's 100-200GB standard.

 

[seymoorebutts]

This discussion on PC Gamer hitting a bunch of different points on some of the questions I have.

https://www.pcgamer.com/what-the-unreal-engine-5-demo-means-for-pc/#comment-jump

Basically it really boils down to "time will tell," but in any case it will probably be at least a couple years before we see widespread implemenation and benefits of this kind of technology anyway. Either way, by the time Black Friday rolls around, I'll probably have more information to make an informed decision.

 

[Makaveli]

The PS5's SSD can pull 5.5GB/s through PCIe 4.0, while today's best NVMe SSD's can do around 4GB/s on PCIe (if I remember right, don't quote me). Is that extra 1.5GB/s really the gamechanger, does it have to do more with Sony's custom 12 channel controller, is it about how Unreal Engine 5 operates, or is it a combination of everthing? How long will it even take games to really even take advantage of these new technologies and architecture for it to be meaningful?

What do?

Todays best NVMe SSD's do 5GB/s

 

[seymoorebutts]

Todays best NVMe SSD's do 5GB/s

For sure you're right, I just found a Sabrent Rocket NVMe 1TB with PCIe 4. $200 isn't terrible either for the early technology you're getting, you can certainly pay much more through the nose for these types of things.

 

[seymoorebutts]

I suppose a new question for all of this then would be why haven't developers designed games to utilize this implemenation of SSD's until now? Even with PCIe 3, you can certainly take advantage of the read speeds over SATA HDDs. Perhaps developers and designers were waiting until HDDs truly became obsolete as to not alienate or create experiences that weren't uniform across different hardware configurations?

 

[InvalidError]

I suppose a new question for all of this then would be why haven't developers designed games to utilize this implemenation of SSD's until now?

Same reasons most games are still lightly threaded: it takes extra development effort and substantially raises the minimum specs since you now need extra RAM and CPU to handle asset streaming.

 

[dorsai]

There are some benefits to PCIe 4 for AMD graphics cards built for it...for example the guys at Hardware Unboxed found a boost at 1440p for the 5500xt in games like CoD MW 2019. I'm guessing big Navi will benefit also but it remains to be seen under what conditions...admittedly those conditions are pretty limited at this point but tomorrows a new day.

View: https://youtu.be/-EDJXISD6RY?t=455

 

[dorsai]

I suppose a new question for all of this then would be why haven't developers designed games to utilize this implemenation of SSD's until now? Even with PCIe 3, you can certainly take advantage of the read speeds over SATA HDDs. Perhaps developers and designers were waiting until HDDs truly became obsolete as to not alienate or create experiences that weren't uniform across different hardware configurations?

I'm not sure I follow you here...I use a fast nVME SSD for my game drive and I am always loaded into the game lobby waiting for everyone else to enter the game. I'm also the first one to spawn into each game once it starts and watch the others pop in as they catch up...many of my friends have internet connections that embarrass mine so I know it's the PC's holding them back.

 

[InvalidError]

admittedly those conditions are pretty limited at this point but tomorrows a new day.

If the RX6500 and RTX3050 still have 4GB base models, doubling PCIe bandwidth for the fastest asset swaps possible from system memory will become critical. With RT and fancier effects nudging VRAM usage up, 6GB cards are likely to find themselves tapping system RAM more often too.

 

[RodroX]

If you are in a hurry to update, just don't, wait atleast till the new 10th gen Intel CPU reviews surface in a few days (We are soo close now). Once you read and watched a lot of 10th gen Intel CPU reviews, then you may be able to find out if Ryzen or Intel deserves your money.
But keep in mind Intel have not said (so far ) that the next 11th gen will drop on to the same LGA 1200 socket, nor have said anything about having support for PCIe 4.0, and I don't beliebe they will going to say it soon because....
Intel probably want everyone paying attention to the new 10th gen launch, the reviews and the benchamrk; and not to some CPU thats many, many, many months away.

The only thing we can be sure for now, according to rumors and what some motherboard makers said (mostly off the record) is that the new Z490 motherboard may have some sort of PCIe 4.0 support.

But as many have wrote here already, PCIe 3.0 still plenty enough for most task. And unless you run a benchmarks all day long just for the fun of it, or you use the PC to earn money theres no much you will gain from PCIe 4.0 today or in the next months.

If you really care and want/need PCIe 4.0 support, for the time been you have 1 option, and thats Ryzen 3xxx + X570 motherboards (and soon, with some limitations, B550 ones).

Cheers

 

[InvalidError]

But keep in mind Intel have not said (so far ) that the next 11th gen will drop on to the same LGA 1200 socket

In the past ~25 years, the only single-generation Intel socket I can think of is LGA1156, so LGA1200 supporting 11th-gen is practically a given. Also, one key feature of LGA1200 is having four extra PCIe lanes yet Comet Lake CPUs still only support 16 native PCIe lanes, which means the socket's extra x4 for CPU-attached NVMe is a forward-looking feature that won't be usable until 11th-gen comes along.

 

[RodroX]

In the past ~25 years, the only single-generation Intel socket I can think of is LGA1156, so LGA1200 supporting 11th-gen is practically a given. Also, one key feature of LGA1200 is having four extra PCIe lanes yet Comet Lake CPUs still only support 16 native PCIe lanes, which means the socket's extra x4 for CPU-attached NVMe is a forward-looking feature that won't be usable until 11th-gen comes along.

Yeah I know that, and I never wrote it wont support it, it probably will, still does not change the fact that so far theres no official statment from Intel. Thats what I wrote (with other words).

 

[InvalidError]

Yeah I know that, and I never wrote it wont support it, it probably will, still does not change the fact that so far theres no official statment from Intel. Thats what I wrote (with other words).

Since PCIe4 support is a core feature of 400-series motherboards and 10th-gen does not support it due to complications on the CPU side, all motherboard partners are going to be pissed if 11th-gen fails to materialize on LGA1200 and deliver the PCIe4 that 10th-gen couldn't after board partners and their customers spent all that extra money getting ready for PCIe4.

 

[mdd1963]

I'm not sure I follow you here...I use a fast nVME SSD for my game drive and I am always loaded into the game lobby waiting for everyone else to enter the game. I'm also the first one to spawn into each game once it starts and watch the others pop in as they catch up...many of my friends have internet connections that embarrass mine so I know it's the PC's holding them back.

Problem is, the 'real world' comparisons on X570 boards with latest Ryzens using PCI-e 4.0 NVME drives have them only booting, launching apps, loading games levels, etc., in about about the same (occasionally slower) as a Samsung 970 EVO. Not what I'd call a 'must have PCI-e 4.0 storage!' example.....

 

[mdd1963]

There are some benefits to PCIe 4 for AMD graphics cards built for it...for example the guys at Hardware Unboxed found a boost at 1440p for the 5500xt in games like CoD MW 2019. I'm guessing big Navi will benefit also but it remains to be seen under what conditions...admittedly those conditions are pretty limited at this point but tomorrows a new day.

View: https://youtu.be/-EDJXISD6RY?t=455

That particular low end card (5500XT) was not only built for it, it obviously way too much depended on it... so much so that it sucked in PCI-e 3.0 mode for assorted reasons. I rather doubt other GPUs with enough VRAM will see such differences...

It will be interesting to see the 3080Ti compared in PCI-e 4.0 X570 vs. 'poor old PCI-e 3.0' Z490...

 

[Makaveli]

Problem is, the 'real world' comparisons on X570 boards with latest Ryzens using PCI-e 4.0 NVME drives have them only booting, launching apps, loading games levels, etc., in about about the same (occasionally slower) as a Samsung 970 EVO. Not what I'd call a 'must have PCI-e 4.0 storage!' example.....

And the reason for that is all of those tasks and not bandwidth limited. There are bottlenecks somewhere else in the system.

When you are doing something that can actually use the extra bandwidth of a PCIe 4.0 drive it will show its faster.

It will be interesting to see the 3080Ti compared in PCI-e 4.0 X570 vs. 'poor old PCI-e 3.0' Z490...

The difference will probably still be small as the PCIe interface hasn't really been a bottleneck for GPU's.