No AMD PCIe till Q1 2005

I doubt it'll be all it is cracked up to be until we have hardware/software demands that can actually use all that bandwidth.
 
Well, it's comforting to know that I made the right decision not to wait for it.

And I hope they make 939 pin dual-cores...it would be awesome to just swap out the cpu.
 
meowCat said:
How much is PCI Express faster than PCI? huh
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I would probably compare it more to AGP...but in any case, do some research before posting plz. There's tons of information we don't need to post over and over about this.
 
ehZn said:
...but in any case, do some research before posting plz. There's tons of information we don't need to post over and over about this.
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no...
 
Just built a 939 3500+ and a BFG6800GT. I had a feeling PCI-E wouldn't be around anytime soon (or any benefits from it).

Re: that comment on researching before posting. Lame. If you don't want to respond don't. There's a million geeks here that would love to chime in on the speed of PCI-E. Maybe this guys research starts here. Those types of comments are condescending.
 
The AGP bus still supplies more bandwidth than current cards can use, although the latest are getting awfully close :)
 
I often tell people to do their research, but I also usually answer their questions first. ;)

PCIe 1x = 250MB/s. PCI 16x = 16×250MB/s = 4000MB/s. Simple. :)
 
Stiletto One said:
I often tell people to do their research, but I also usually answer their questions first. ;)

PCIe 1x = 250MB/s. PCI 16x = 16×250MB/s = 4000MB/s. Simple. :)
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And this explanation even ignores one of the best parts of PCIe: its serial, point-to-point (p2p ;) ), switched nature, resulting in dedicated bandwidth per device. Whereas putting two PCI Gigabit NICs on a single PCI bus would pretty much saturate it, with PCIe each NIC would have its own channel ('bus') and would never have to fight for a chunk of bandwidth.

As for the original topic of this thread, I'm kind of disappointed that it's taking so long to come out with PCIe-capable chipsets for the AMD platform. The PCI bus works well for what it's designed for, but things have changed too much since the 1990s and it just can't keep up anymore (133 MB/s shared bandwidth? Hah!).
 
I honestly can't see the transition to pci-e on AMD platforms taking that long. One really has to think that nVidia is pushing hard to get their SLI "nForce4" chipset out on to the market at least to tout about another of their superior technologies and to establish themselves even more as not dealing in just video cards (coulda worded that a lil better).

I can't wait for the move to pci-e myself. I'm excited about the SLi capabilities that nvidia is going to bring to the market, but im equally excited about the major bandwidth improvements with gige networking, hard drive transfer rates, etc. Only time will tell.
 
Although I'm a little disappointed (for the same reasons Elledan mentions) I'll also relieved. It gives PCIe time to mature alittle (as well as PCIe products to start showing up in good numbers) and me time to save some $$ for a whole new upgrade. :)
 
oOo Foo said:
I honestly can't see the transition to pci-e on AMD platforms taking that long. One really has to think that nVidia is pushing hard to get their SLI "nForce4" chipset out on to the market.....
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I don't remember where but it has been said that SLI will show up first on server MBs and then move into the consumer market which would make sense for a '05 Q1 release.
 
I dont think Nvidia is in any rush for PCIe cards to become more mainstream - it can barely supply the demand of current AGP cards at the moment.
 
CrimandEvil said:
Although I'm a little disappointed (for the same reasons Elledan mentions) I'll also relieved. It gives PCIe time to mature alittle (as well as PCIe products to start showing up in good numbers) and me time to save some $$ for a whole new upgrade. :)
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It'll also mean that the Intel guys will be using PCIe first.

Anyway, I don't see the problem with waiting for PCIe devices, as PCIe and PCI can co-exist on the same mainboard. You'll only have to buy a new videocard, unless they manage to integrate an AGP bus and an X16 PCIe link in the same NB chip.
 
I dont think either that PCIe will be fully capable till later when we reach the AGP max. Even right now (unless I am mistaken) that we dont even use up all the bandwith that AGP offers with the video cards. Plus my bet is that the companies will ever so slowly fade out AGP like they did with ISA. They kept making ISA motherboards/cards way after PCI came into play. The full benefit wont be avalible I would say even after Q1 of 05. Plus, if they are just getting the mobos out then for it on AMD, the next few gen. of cards will offer AGP because otherwise nVidia and ATi lose customers and money.
 
Sc0rched said:
I dont think either that PCIe will be fully capable till later when we reach the AGP max. Even right now (unless I am mistaken) that we dont even use up all the bandwith that AGP offers with the video cards.
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This is a common argument, but it's also completely false. We are reaching the limits of the AGP bus, only not in the way that many would expect. The point is that the AGP bus is asymmetrical, i.e., the amount of bandwidth to the videocard is far larger than the amount to the NB (and CPU). This means that a) it's easy to send data to the GPU, but far harder to retrieve anything, and b) videocards need far more RAM onboard to cache texture- and other data.

With PCIe, a GPU can be used as a vector co-processor, much like an FPU. This is great for mathematical applications, CAD and who knows what else. Also, because it takes far less time to retrieve data from the system's RAM (on the mainboard), videocards can do the same things with less onboard RAM, reducing their cost.
Plus my bet is that the companies will ever so slowly fade out AGP like they did with ISA. They kept making ISA motherboards/cards way after PCI came into play. The full benefit wont be avalible I would say even after Q1 of 05. Plus, if they are just getting the mobos out then for it on AMD, the next few gen. of cards will offer AGP because otherwise nVidia and ATi lose customers and money.
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You can't compare ISA and AGP in this manner. ISA was a general purpose bus, supporting any device compatible with the ISA-bus protocol. AGP only supports videocards.

I got a KT133A-based mainboard with an ISA slot. This is many years after PCI was introduced (during the early 1990s). I don't expect AGP to be found on mainboards produced five years from now.
 
Well I was going to build a 939 rig, but I was going to wait for pci-e. Looks like i'll have to snag up an agp card and go from there.
 
to be honest I'm starting to wonder the need for PCI express other than video cards. atleast in a desktop environment. with everything being intregrated into the chipset, most of the time having their own dedicated bandwidth, there really isn't much on the PCI bus to move off.. Maybe audio for those of us with a pci based soundcard, but those don't take up that much bandwidth...

seriously in a gaming system, what are you going to need a PCIe slot for other than video? Unless you need a 8 drive SATA RAID 5 array in that box.. ;)

but, I'm ok with it comming out alittle later for AMD.. Intel already had some growing pains with their implementations (no pcie lock sucks IMO), so hopefully everything will go smoothly for us amd'ers.. there's not a real push for it yet, other than to have a board with a better upgrade path.. but it's not like having a new 939 system won't last you a long time anyways.... drop as much ram in it as you can, run the fastest dual core a64 it will be able to support, and they'll still have agp for some time, and it'll still be a great rig..
 
I broke down and bought a GT after this news. Figure I can always sell it come a possible SLI time in a year or so. I thought I'd be building a christmas time PCIe setup even if I had to get yet another board for SLI. Sooner would have been nice.
 
This is a common argument, but it's also completely false. We are reaching the limits of the AGP bus, only not in the way that many would expect. The point is that the AGP bus is asymmetrical, i.e., the amount of bandwidth to the videocard is far larger than the amount to the NB (and CPU). This means that a) it's easy to send data to the GPU, but far harder to retrieve anything, and b) videocards need far more RAM onboard to cache texture- and other data.
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Like I said unless I am mistaken... I wasnt sure for a fact, but I remebered reading somthing about it.

You can't compare ISA and AGP in this manner. ISA was a general purpose bus, supporting any device compatible with the ISA-bus protocol. AGP only supports videocards.
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It might not last quite 5 years, but it will last a while longer. Corperations dont expect the everyone to go out and buy PCIe motherboards at one time, or not have a new video card. They will slowly fade it in over time. What I was trying to say is that PCI replaced ISA much like PCIe x16 is replacing AGP.
 
Sc0rched said:
Like I said unless I am mistaken... I wasnt sure for a fact, but I remebered reading somthing about it.
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Fair enough :)

It might not last quite 5 years, but it will last a while longer. Corperations dont expect the everyone to go out and buy PCIe motherboards at one time, or not have a new video card. They will slowly fade it in over time. What I was trying to say is that PCI replaced ISA much like PCIe x16 is replacing AGP.
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And my point was that it'll take far shorter for AGP to fade away. Not many people keep their old videocard when they upgrade their system, because by that time it doesn't even play the latest games at decent framerates, or they want to keep the old system in one piece (to sell it, or use it as a backup system, or make it the new system for the children, etc.).

An ISA NIC, (hardware) modem, SCSI-card, sound card (SB 16) and many others are still very much usable, and sometimes even better than modern (PCI) devices (ISA hardware modem vs PCI software modem).

A new system, a new videocard. That's basically what it always comes down to, whether it's an OEM or self-built system.
 
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