There is all this talk about PCI Express and no real solid numbers stating "there will be an X increase in performance." I understand it is 16x and the fastest thing we have now is AGP 8x, but I know for sure that doesn't mean that an X800XT on PCI Express will be twice as fast. Will the perfomance increase be enough to warrant buying a more expensive PCI Express mobo that supports DDRII that isn't even out yet?
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PCI Express Card Benchmarks
- Thread starter Spastik
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Brent_Justice
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who knows, neither mobo nor cards are out yet to test
PCI-E is more than just more bandwidth to system RAM though, it is an evolutionary BUS upgrade that has the potential to herald new technologies in graphics
for example look at this: http://gpgpu.org/ there is a lot of talk about using the GPU as a general processor, things like that can only be done with PCI-E because of its high bandwidth, fast bi-directional nature
also real time HDTV editting is possible with PCI-E
and not just for the graphics port but PCI-E is also going to replace the regular PCI slots, it is a system wide BUS upgrade that will allow true Gigabit Ethernet, take the limit of that 133MHz PCI limit out, so that future SATA drives clocking in at 300MB/sec will be a reality, not to mention SCSI
PCI-E is more than just more bandwidth to system RAM though, it is an evolutionary BUS upgrade that has the potential to herald new technologies in graphics
for example look at this: http://gpgpu.org/ there is a lot of talk about using the GPU as a general processor, things like that can only be done with PCI-E because of its high bandwidth, fast bi-directional nature
also real time HDTV editting is possible with PCI-E
and not just for the graphics port but PCI-E is also going to replace the regular PCI slots, it is a system wide BUS upgrade that will allow true Gigabit Ethernet, take the limit of that 133MHz PCI limit out, so that future SATA drives clocking in at 300MB/sec will be a reality, not to mention SCSI
Brent_Justice
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For example look at these mobos here: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=2064&p=5
The long black slot is a PCI-E 16X slot, the three short black slots are PCI-E 1x slots, which replace the PCI slots, the two white slots are regular PCI slots, so right there you can see how PCI-E 1x slots are so much smaller, which will make small form factor boxes even more compact
The long black slot is a PCI-E 16X slot, the three short black slots are PCI-E 1x slots, which replace the PCI slots, the two white slots are regular PCI slots, so right there you can see how PCI-E 1x slots are so much smaller, which will make small form factor boxes even more compact
Brent_Justice
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Caliche said:
yes, PCI-E gives more power to the slot, but current enthusiast level cards, read 6800U and X800XT-PE exceed that power requirenment, so they need a little more via an external power connector
Brent_Justice
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B1zz said:Brent i hate to say it but the standard PCI bus runs @ 33MHz with a bandwidth of 133MB/s
also i cant wait for PCI Express to get here and have us a step closer to a legacy free computer, all serial baby
yeah yeah, you know what i mean, 33MHz, 133MB/sec
Brent_Justice said:
This is the only problem I have. If the unreleased PCI-E slot can't give enough power to our current generation video cards, what happens in a year or two when the next-gen cards come rolling out? Why not just spend some more time working on it and improving the power output instead of relying on an external connector?
PCI-E can handle about 75W, three times more than regular AGP8X. As for performance increases, I don't expect much...at least not in the first "guinea pig" generation. 1-3% would be my guess. Programmers/developers have to take advantage of the new bus first, and card-developers have to perfect the translation. Basically the first PCI-E solutions will be using primitive methods to make the leap which should keep the performance close to AGP.
As for power issues, that will always be a problem with modern computers. In fact it's becoming an epidemic, which is why you see BTX being formed and low-k techniques being devised. The future will be more about getting more powerful hardware at today's power standards than pure performance evolution at a power cost. Case in point, ATi's strategy with the X800 versus nVidia's strategy with the 6800. I can understand this quite well, as having two massive PCs and an AC on in one room of my house is enough to draw too much ampage; efficiency will become more important, and you can already see that in recent moves Intel has made on their future processors.
As for power issues, that will always be a problem with modern computers. In fact it's becoming an epidemic, which is why you see BTX being formed and low-k techniques being devised. The future will be more about getting more powerful hardware at today's power standards than pure performance evolution at a power cost. Case in point, ATi's strategy with the X800 versus nVidia's strategy with the 6800. I can understand this quite well, as having two massive PCs and an AC on in one room of my house is enough to draw too much ampage; efficiency will become more important, and you can already see that in recent moves Intel has made on their future processors.