What is this "PCI express" thing?

G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP slot, but for
all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that delivers
faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?

If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet cards
have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express technology?
Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X, would it be
accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not this or next
year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common and stable?

Thanks…
 

JohnS

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2004
314
0
18,780
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

> year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common and
stable?

It is already happening .. SATA, etc .. I suspect that
for a while there will be combo mobos that do both
while we evaluate the new stuff. Personally, I wish
somebody out there would greatly expand on the
on-board video. Right now, it is pretty good for general
office and professional work ... and extremely cost
effective as compared to buying every item separately.
On board sound is fine .. ethernet is fine ... good IO
if fine and getting even better .. so why not video? It is
not like video is just an afterthough either. I would like
to see a super-good multimedia mobo that is quiet,
has great gaming video, and is small. To heck with all
those slots .. maybe two. Do the entire thing for $130
and slide it into the back of a high resolution flat panel
video screen about a yard wide ... and I'm not talking
about another half-baked Apple either.

johns
 

william

Distinguished
Apr 1, 2004
474
0
18,780
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"Pccomputerdr" <pccomputerdr@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040724143738.15985.00001487@mb-m21.aol.com...
> Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP slot, but
for
> all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that delivers
> faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
>
> If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet
cards
> have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express
technology?
> Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X, would it
be
> accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not this or
next
> year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common and
stable?
>
> Thanks.

Just got a new Dell and it has an ATI PCI express video card. Its the low
end one X300 series. Dell has them also up to the X800 for $$$ more . I use
Flight Sim mostly and I can tell you the PCI card is much better and
smoother than the 9600XT I had in my old system. The card is for sale by the
way :)

From the little I know on the subject PCI express has faster bandwidth up to
16X whereas AGP is 8X. I am still reading up on it.

Bill
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"Pccomputerdr" <pccomputerdr@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040724143738.15985.00001487@mb-m21.aol.com...
> Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP slot, but
for
> all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that delivers
> faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
>
> If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet
cards
> have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express
technology?

From what I've, read old cards will still work in the new slot.

> Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X, would it
be
> accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not this or
next
> year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common and
stable?

Yes.

> Thanks.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

This is a new technology on the horizon. Since ATI is in competition with
Nvidia, I am sure ATI will be in race to rush the new technology out. As long
as the PCI-express performance is proved to be better and more promising than
that of old AGP technology, I don't think it will take years for this new
technology to catch on. As a matter of fact, in 9 months or so, it may be
possible to see video cards with PCI-express technology taking over.

Having said that, I, for one, would not pay $500 for the latest ATI AGP video
card, assuming that ATI will surely come out with better and faster version of
PCI-express video cards in very near future.
 

JohnS

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2004
314
0
18,780
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Look at the new Dells. I don't really get the impression
that PCI express is so much a biggie, as affordable. That
could change of course, but Dell is pushing imbedded
video. Right now, I have no idea what its value really
is .. especially in this day of smaller cheaper specialized
appliances. One thing for sure ... if anybody out there is
running a print *server* instead of a print server
*appliance*, they are throwing away both money and
reliability.

johns
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"Pccomputerdr" <pccomputerdr@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040724143738.15985.00001487@mb-m21.aol.com...
> Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP slot, but
for
> all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that delivers
> faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?

Yes and no. PCI-express is scalable, so motherboards will have full-length
slots for video card(s) and gigabit Ethernet cards, and quarter-length slots
for puny things like sound cards. The full-length slots offer greater data
transfer rates than AGP8x. Performance-wise, though, AGP8x provides zero
speed over AGP4x in games, so PCIe won't provide anything extra.

> If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet
cards
> have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express
technology?

Redesigned, or simply with a bridge chip added (like nVidia does) so the old
design can function on the PCIe bus. In any case, your existing AGP and PCI
cards won't physically fit in PCIe slots.

> Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X, would it
be
> accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not this or
next
> year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common and
stable?

Hard to say on this one.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"First of One" <daxinfx@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:GvzMc.1201623$Ar.402142@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> Yes and no. PCI-express is scalable, so motherboards will have full-length
> slots for video card(s) and gigabit Ethernet cards, and quarter-length
slots
> for puny things like sound cards. The full-length slots offer greater data
> transfer rates than AGP8x. Performance-wise, though, AGP8x provides zero
> speed over AGP4x in games, so PCIe won't provide anything extra.

That's an interesting fact. Where then is the current bottleneck in
gaming?

--
Will
westes AT earthbroadcast.com
 

geoff

Distinguished
Mar 19, 2001
431
0
18,780
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Pccomputerdr wrote:
> Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP slot,
> but for all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card"
> that delivers faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
>
> If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet
> cards have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI
> express technology? Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than
> that of AGP 8X, would it be accurate to assume that AGP video cards
> might be obsolete, if not this or next year, some time in future when
> this PCI express becomes more common and stable?
>
> Thanks.

once upon a time we had this thing called the isa bus, it was replaced by
the pci bus, which is replaced the the pci express bus

agp was only made because the pci was limiting, the pci bus is well and
truly dated now, caompanys have been making hacks and patchs for it for a
while now, hypertransport and such

you will see motherboards with both pci e slots, old pci slots and agp slots
too i would think
like in the old days with pci and isa
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

AGP will be gone in a year or two due to the superiority of PCI Express.

--
DaveW



"Pccomputerdr" <pccomputerdr@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20040724143738.15985.00001487@mb-m21.aol.com...
> Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP slot, but
for
> all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that delivers
> faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
>
> If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet
cards
> have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express
technology?
> Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X, would it
be
> accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not this or
next
> year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common and
stable?
>
> Thanks.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Re: "Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP
slot, but for all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet
card" ..."

Yes, that's correct. It will be for EVERYTHING. Within about 2 years,
motherboards won't have ANY "PCI" slots OR "AGP" slots, they will only
have PCI Express slots, which will be used for all internal peripherals
(except any that use USB or Firewire).

All existing cards will be obsolete, just like "ISA Cards" from the
PC-AT era.

Probably about 2 years.


Pccomputerdr wrote:

> that delivers
> faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
>
> If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet cards
> have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express technology?
> Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X, would it be
> accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not this or next
> year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common and stable?
>
> Thanks…
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

CHANGE USERNAME TO westes wrote:
> "First of One" <daxinfx@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:GvzMc.1201623$Ar.402142@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
>> Yes and no. PCI-express is scalable, so motherboards will have
>> full-length slots for video card(s) and gigabit Ethernet cards, and
>> quarter-length slots for puny things like sound cards. The full-length
>> slots offer greater data transfer rates than AGP8x. Performance-wise,
>> though, AGP8x provides zero speed over AGP4x in games, so PCIe won't
>> provide anything extra.
>
> That's an interesting fact. Where then is the current bottleneck in
> gaming?

I didn't see the first post, so I'll make general comments here.

PCI express does for PCI what SATA did for ATA (IDE), and what USB did for
serial (RS232) ports.

It's a high speed serial link based on a differential pair.

AGP is effectively an entire PCI bus with one slot on it to improve
bandwidth for the video card. The PCI bus can be easily saturated with a
PCI gigabit Ethernet controller, or a PCI RAID controller (probably 3 disks
required though, really).

PCI-Express just takes that further... whereas PCI has limits and AGP will
find limits at some point, PCI-E will hopefully get rid of the two slightly
different technologies, combining them into one and allowing much greater
headroom without keep breaking compatibility like the various AGP standards
have done.

Since it's a serial technology, not a parallel one, board layout is much
simplified and will hopefully aid the transition to the BTX form factor.

Thats my basic understanding of it, anyway.

In light of PCI-E, PCI-X will be a waste of space. It's like a DDR PCI bus.
It's a temporary stop-gap, it's only saving grace is that it's completely
backwards compatible with PCI. However, there are already too many bloody
standards and technologies. If PCI-X never gets to consumer boards it'll be
a good thing, as it means that PCI-E uptake will be quicker.

PCI-Express is somewhat compatible with PCI, the physical layer is obviously
different, so expect to see adaptors for existing PCI cards to PCI-express,
although this could easily be done on the motherboard - this is where PCI-X
could be used.

I can imagine a system where you have the parallel link from the chipset out
to the first slot (PCI-E 8x) then the second slot (maybe PCI-E 4x) then
maybe a couple of PCI-E 1x slots and then a bridge chip taking it out to a
parallel interface and whack a couple of PCI-X slots in for backwards
compatibility. That would be the best solution all round for a new gen
motherboard.

The general shift from parallel to serial technologies for peripherals is a
good thing. If you look closely at motherboards you will see that it's an
absolute nightmare trying to route all the bloody lanes! Hypertransport,
USB, SATA, PCI-Espress and other (serial, differential pair) technologies,
should, in theory make boards cheaper and easier to produce... and since
it's all so much easier to route, the BTX form factor allows a much more
sensible case layout as well.

Cool, that was the first time I'd thought about the standards in any detail,
so I guess I learnt (or made up) a lot :p

There's a lot happening at the moment. It should all be for the better.

Current bottleneck in gaming? Maybe CPU, maybe memory bandwidth, probably
GPU - depending on the game. You tend to find that the various buses and
other transmission systems get upgraded before they get saturated. PCI was
a bit late really.

Ben
--
A7N8X FAQ: www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
Questions by email will likely be ignored, please use the newsgroups.
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2mg9meFm3dq6U1@uni-berlin.de...
> CHANGE USERNAME TO westes wrote:
> > "First of One" <daxinfx@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:GvzMc.1201623$Ar.402142@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> >> Yes and no. PCI-express is scalable, so motherboards will have
> >> full-length slots for video card(s) and gigabit Ethernet cards, and
> >> quarter-length slots for puny things like sound cards. The full-length
> >> slots offer greater data transfer rates than AGP8x. Performance-wise,
> >> though, AGP8x provides zero speed over AGP4x in games, so PCIe won't
> >> provide anything extra.
> >
> > That's an interesting fact. Where then is the current bottleneck in
> > gaming?
>
> I didn't see the first post, so I'll make general comments here.
>
> PCI express does for PCI what SATA did for ATA (IDE), and what USB did for
> serial (RS232) ports.

Ben, the original post was right above my comment, and it's there again in
this post at the top.

The poster is saying that games are not bottlenecked on the video bus. As
evidence of this, he points out that going from AGP 4x to AGP 8x does not
increase gaming performance. The obvious implication is that PCI Express
for video is not necessary because there is no bottleneck on the bus that
needs fixing.

Note I wonder does this situation change radically if you have two monitors
hooked up for simultaneous use during gaming. Does the situation change if
you game at very high resolutions, like 2048x1536? Maybe the situation
will change for cards like ATI FireGL V7100 that have quad monitor support
at 1600x1200 per monitor? It would be good if someone had published some
data on this.

--
Will
westes AT earthbroadcast.com
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Ben Pope wrote:
> I can imagine a system where you have the parallel link from the chipset


I meant serial, of course!

Ben
--
A7N8X FAQ: www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
Questions by email will likely be ignored, please use the newsgroups.
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

CHANGE USERNAME TO westes wrote:
> "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:2mg9meFm3dq6U1@uni-berlin.de...
>> CHANGE USERNAME TO westes wrote:
>>> "First of One" <daxinfx@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>> news:GvzMc.1201623$Ar.402142@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
>>>> Yes and no. PCI-express is scalable, so motherboards will have
>>>> full-length slots for video card(s) and gigabit Ethernet cards, and
>>>> quarter-length slots for puny things like sound cards. The full-length
>>>> slots offer greater data transfer rates than AGP8x. Performance-wise,
>>>> though, AGP8x provides zero speed over AGP4x in games, so PCIe won't
>>>> provide anything extra.
>>>
>>> That's an interesting fact. Where then is the current bottleneck in
>>> gaming?
>>
>> I didn't see the first post, so I'll make general comments here.
>>
>> PCI express does for PCI what SATA did for ATA (IDE), and what USB did
>> for serial (RS232) ports.
>
> Ben, the original post was right above my comment, and it's there again in
> this post at the top.

I know, I was just saying that my rant was supposed to be directed at the
original post. Most of it was irrelevant to the original post anyway, but
my point was that busses tend to get upgraded before they get saturated, and
that there are other reasons to change to PCI-Express other than speed.
Current boards have multiple "PCI" busses and this increases board
complexity. PCI-Express will reduce that complexity considerably.

> The poster is saying that games are not bottlenecked on the video bus.
> As evidence of this, he points out that going from AGP 4x to AGP 8x does
> not increase gaming performance. The obvious implication is that PCI
> Express for video is not necessary because there is no bottleneck on the
> bus that needs fixing.

Which is what I said. But if you were to take everything back to one bus
(what PCI-E is going to do), then only PCI-E would cope with it all.

> Note I wonder does this situation change radically if you have two
> monitors hooked up for simultaneous use during gaming.

Not really, see below:

> Does the
> situation change if you game at very high resolutions, like 2048x1536?

Given the amount of T&L and other stuff that GPUs do now, I suspect that
they receive about the same data no matter what res they run at. Hence all
the extra processing is on the card.

> Maybe the situation will change for cards like ATI FireGL V7100 that have
> quad monitor support at 1600x1200 per monitor? It would be good if
> someone had published some data on this.


Again, pretty unlikely.

Back when the CPU was calculating all the 3D data (transform), and sending
the data to the GPU to stick textures and the like on, it would have made a
huge difference as you are increasing the number of points. Now that the
CPU doesn't do any of that, there is no data transfers whose quantity is
anything like linearly related to number of polygons, resolution etc. At
least, not DURING game play when bandwidth actually matters.

Ben
--
A7N8X FAQ: www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
Questions by email will likely be ignored, please use the newsgroups.
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

DaveW wrote:
> AGP will be gone in a year or two due to the superiority of PCI Express.


Does your current motherboard have a serial port on it? Well USB should
have replaced it by now, USB was introduced around 8 years ago?. Many
laptops have finally gotten rid of legacy ports in the last few months.

Hopefully AGP will be gone in a couple of years, just saying that "legacy"
hardware can stick around for a surprisingly long time. Only time will
tell.

Ben
--
A7N8X FAQ: www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
Questions by email will likely be ignored, please use the newsgroups.
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

William wrote:

>
> "Pccomputerdr" <pccomputerdr@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20040724143738.15985.00001487@mb-m21.aol.com...
> > Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP
> > slot, but
> for
> > all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that
> > delivers faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
> >
> > If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and
> > ethernet
> cards
> > have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express
> technology?
> > Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X,
> > would it
> be
> > accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not
> > this or
> next
> > year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common
> > and
> stable?
> >
> > Thanks.
>
> Just got a new Dell and it has an ATI PCI express video card. Its the
> low end one X300 series. Dell has them also up to the X800 for $$$
> more . I use Flight Sim mostly and I can tell you the PCI card is
> much better and smoother than the 9600XT I had in my old system. The
> card is for sale by the way :)
>
> From the little I know on the subject PCI express has faster
> bandwidth up to 16X whereas AGP is 8X. I am still reading up on it.
>


You are imagining this .. unless a game is optimised for 16X you will
have no current ebenfit from PCI - E. In other words the new adopters
are getting no benefit from current games. This is not to say that
things won't change .. but at the moment waste of space.

regards

@ndrew
 

william

Distinguished
Apr 1, 2004
474
0
18,780
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"@ndrew" <andrewratinternodedotondotnet> wrote in message
news:4102fe98@duster.adelaide.on.net...
> William wrote:
>
> >
> > "Pccomputerdr" <pccomputerdr@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:20040724143738.15985.00001487@mb-m21.aol.com...
> > > Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP
> > > slot, but
> > for
> > > all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that
> > > delivers faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
> > >
> > > If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and
> > > ethernet
> > cards
> > > have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express
> > technology?
> > > Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X,
> > > would it
> > be
> > > accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete, if not
> > > this or
> > next
> > > year, some time in future when this PCI express becomes more common
> > > and
> > stable?
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> >
> > Just got a new Dell and it has an ATI PCI express video card. Its the
> > low end one X300 series. Dell has them also up to the X800 for $$$
> > more . I use Flight Sim mostly and I can tell you the PCI card is
> > much better and smoother than the 9600XT I had in my old system. The
> > card is for sale by the way :)
> >
> > From the little I know on the subject PCI express has faster
> > bandwidth up to 16X whereas AGP is 8X. I am still reading up on it.
> >
>
>
> You are imagining this .. unless a game is optimised for 16X you will
> have no current ebenfit from PCI - E. In other words the new adopters
> are getting no benefit from current games. This is not to say that
> things won't change .. but at the moment waste of space.
>
> regards
>
> @ndrew
>
Well I hope my imagination never stops...!
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

William wrote:

>

> >
> Well I hope my imagination never stops...!

I hope so too ... just for interest sake .. benchmark it and post the
results.

regards

@ndrew
 

william

Distinguished
Apr 1, 2004
474
0
18,780
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

"@ndrew" <andrewratinternodedotondotnet> wrote in message
news:4103715d$1@duster.adelaide.on.net...
> William wrote:
>
> >
>
> > >
> > Well I hope my imagination never stops...!
>
> I hope so too ... just for interest sake .. benchmark it and post the
> results.
>
> regards
>
> @ndrew
>
Dont know how to do that. Never been into that kind of stuff as I only use
Flight Sim and only interested in how it performs for me. But like you said
I always read where this, that and the other wont have an effect since
software isnt optimized to use "X", but without a doubt this sim now flies
much better than before. Very smooth

Bill
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Pccomputerdr wrote:

> Is this a new PCI technology not specifically designed for AGP slot, but
> for
> all other components such as "sound card", "ethnernet card" that delivers
> faster buss-speed than that of AGP 8X?
>
> If that's the case, is it wrong to assume that all sound and ethernet
> cards have to be re-desinged to take advantage of this new PCI express
> technology? Since PCI express provides faster buss-speed than that of AGP
> 8X, would it be accurate to assume that AGP video cards might be obsolete,
> if not this or next year, some time in future when this PCI express
> becomes more common and stable?

PCI Express is primarily a marketing gimmick aimed at forcing users who
upgrade one component to upgrade everything, and possibly secondarily at
damaging Intel's competitors who having developed processors and chipsets
that kick Intel's butt in every aspect of performance will now be forced to
put that effort on the back burner to play catch-up with Intel's new bus
games.

In the real world, as implemented on current machines its utility is
minimal. If you want to find out what Intel _really_ thinks read the specs
on their chipsets that support PCI Express and you'll find that for their
internal functions they use PCI-X instead.

PCI Express, according to its advocates, will make motherboards and the like
simpler and cheaper. Given current motherboard prices there isn't room for
much more cheapness, so that argument fails. They claim that it will make
boards "simpler" because PCI Express uses one high-speed pair where regular
PCI uses parallel traces. They neglect the fact that PCI Express even in
the lowest speed variation uses several pairs, and the fact that it is
point-to-point and not a bus so instead of one set of traces that serve 8
slots, with PCI Express each slot needs its own set of traces. They claim
that it will improve performance--this might actually happen when disk
performance improves a good deal--right now the only thing you are likely
to stick in a PCI slot that is restricted by PCI is a gigabit Ethernet
board and that's only restricted if you have something else in the machine
that can fill a gigabit pipe, and unless you have a high-end server with a
huge drive array that it not the case.

It will not improve video performance for most users in the foreseeable
future--while PCI Express 16X is a faster interface than AGP 8X (and note
that the "16X" and "8X" there refer to two different things--they are not
directly comparable measures of performance) there is no indication that
AGP 8X gives noticeable better performance than AGP 4X, so more speed in
that interface seems wasted. While there are some schemes to parallel two
video boards, right now they are not going to accomplish much because there
are no motherboards shipping and no chipsets announced that will have
support for more than 1 16X PCI-E slot, and the few that can support a 16X
and an 8X are dual-Xeon boards.

Nonetheless it is something that Intel is going to cram down your throat
whether you like it or not, so you may as well get used to it.

>
> Thanks?

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

Glitch

Distinguished
Jul 26, 2004
176
0
18,680
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

I agree in almost everything you said but you said one thing wrong.

While there are some schemes to parallel two
> video boards, right now they are not going to accomplish much because
there
> are no motherboards shipping and no chipsets announced that will have
> support for more than 1 16X PCI-E slot, and the few that can support a 16X
> and an 8X are dual-Xeon boards.

This is wrong because Intel already anounced Tummwater that will support two
PCI-E 16x slots,Tummwater is coming in Q1 or 2 of 2005.
nVidia(personally I don't like them,I prefer ATI) also anounced its SLI
interface which would enable coupling up two PCI-E cards.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (More info?)

Glitch wrote:

> I agree in almost everything you said but you said one thing wrong.
>
> While there are some schemes to parallel two
>> video boards, right now they are not going to accomplish much because
> there
>> are no motherboards shipping and no chipsets announced that will have
>> support for more than 1 16X PCI-E slot, and the few that can support a
>> 16X and an 8X are dual-Xeon boards.
>
> This is wrong because Intel already anounced Tummwater that will support
> two PCI-E 16x slots,Tummwater is coming in Q1 or 2 of 2005.
> nVidia(personally I don't like them,I prefer ATI) also anounced its SLI
> interface which would enable coupling up two PCI-E cards.

The spec sheet for the chipset is on the Intel site. According to that spec
sheet it does _not_ support two PCI-E 16x slots. It has 24 PCI Express
lanes that can be configured as 1 16x and 1 8x or 1 16x and 2 4x.

As for nvidia's "SLI", first, it's not "SLI" in anything but name, it is two
boards with a video combiner and Alienware has something similar coming
that works on the same principle.

And if you will bother to review the discussion on the
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia you will find that this has already been
beaten to death.

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