Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (
More info?)
Yousuf Khan wrote:
> TheKeith wrote:
>
>>well, I'm finally ready to build a new computer after not having built
>>one since 2001. I'm a bit behind on all the latest hardware and
>>confused about what to get. I'm pretty much settled on a p4 3+ GHz,
>>but don't know whether to go with the new 775 socket with one of the
>>intel 9xx chipsets or one of the older 875 chipsets with the 478
>>socket. I've been reading some about the differences and how the 9xx
>>chipsets don't really offer any practical performance improvements
>>for the time, but still I can't see getting an older technology when
>>I don't have to worry at all about backward-compatibility. All
>>hardware including the HD, will be purchased new.
>
>
> Well, the only real advantage of the new 9xx series chipsets is that they do
> PCI-Express. Whether to get Socket 775 vs. 478, I'd say that normally it
> would matter for upgrade purposes in the future. But frankly, I don't see
> much long-term future left for the entire Pentium 4 series anymore. Intel is
> in major trouble right now, because it can't dig anymore speed out of its
> Pentium 4 anymore. It's been plagued with many fiascos, one after another
> for the last several months.
>
> First, it had to recall the brand new 9xx-series chipsets within days of
> introducing it, because of a production flaw. Then it cancelled a
> highly-publicized future Wi-Fi feature in the 9xx chipsets, which it had
> previously announced with much fanfare. Then it announced that it was going
> to increase the speed of its FSB from 800Mhz to 1066Mhz, but now it looks
> like it's having a lot of trouble producing enough of those chips. It
> announced that it would introduce a 4.0Ghz P4 by sometime earlier this year,
> then later it said it would delay it to the end of the year, and now it's
> completely cancelled that chip altogether. It may be even possible that the
> next Intel processor will not be based on the Pentium 4, but on its mobile
> Pentium-M processor (transferred over to the desktop). The Pentium-M
> typically runs in the speed range of 1.7 to 2.2Ghz, right now. So you might
> find yourself trading in a 3.6Ghz processor for a 2.5Ghz processor in the
> future.
>
> The highest speed Socket 478 processor is a 3.2Ghz part. The highest speed
> Socket 775 may not be all that much higher, maybe at most 3.6Ghz for the
> next several years. So you're not losing much speed sticking with Socket 478
> if that's what you want. PCI-Express is still not all that popular yet.
>
>
>>Can someone explain what this pci max (I think it's called) is all
>>about? Is it supposed to compete with AGP or something? Thanks.
>
>
> You mean PCI Express? Yes, it's supposed to be a replacement for both PCI
> and AGP. With PCIe you can have different kinds of slots, which they call 1X
> slots for normal peripherals and 16X slots for video cards. The 1X slots are
> about as fast as old-school PCI, except the bandwidth is not shared with
> other slots, so the whole bandwidth belongs to each of the slots. The 16X is
> supposedly about 4 times the bandwidth of AGP.
>
> Most of the video cards that you can get for PCIe have shown precisely zero
> improvement over their own AGP versions, in fact, you might find a few
> tenths of a percentage /lower/ performance. That's because video to system
> memory performance is a red-herring -- completely useless, nobody uses
> system memory for video memory unless you have an integrated graphics
> motherboard. So it made no difference whether you had a 1X, 2X, 4X or 8X AGP
> slot, that particular feature was never used. And similarly, it'll never be
> used in the newer PCIe slots.
>
> However, one feature that might be useful in the future about PCIe is the
> ability to use multiple high-speed 16X slots to have dual-video cards which
> will double the performance of your video by sharing rendering duties.
>
> Yousuf Khan
>
>
Very informative, thanks very much. Thanks also to everyone else who
replied. It's too bad to hear about Intel's troubles (or is it?), but I
think I'm still going to go with the 915 chipset--it might not have much
of a future ahead of it, but in that case, I'll be able to take the
expensive DDR2 memory and the PCI-express video card with me to a future
system that requires those two things, correct?