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Is it time to move on from PCI-e?
- Thread starter Garric
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Garric said:
dont count on that anytime soon. PCI-E is a general slot meaing anything can be plugged into it. AGP was graphics only. I dont doubt they will do something different but not for some time as they really pushed to have PCI-E implemented when IMO it really was not needed at all.
Lord_Exodia
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I've read about a Pci e 2.0(or 2.1) spec that is supposed to launch in mid to late 07. 2x faster and the slot can distribute even more power than the current slot thus making 2 6 pin connectors un-necessary for high end cards. 
Brent_Justice
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PCI Express 2.0 specs are in revision 0.9 right now.
http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/news/press_releases/10_9_06
The final version should be completed by the end of this year.
http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/news/press_releases/10_9_06
The final version should be completed by the end of this year.
Brent_Justice
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Lord_Exodia said:I've read about a Pci e 2.0(or 2.1) spec that is supposed to launch in mid to late 07. 2x faster and the slot can distribute even more power than the current slot thus making 2 6 pin connectors un-necessary for high end cards.
It also makes external PCI-Express a reality.
Brent_Justice
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The slot will be backwards compatible, so your current PCIe vid card will work.
Obviously if you want the new specification you'll have to get a motherboard that supports it.
Obviously if you want the new specification you'll have to get a motherboard that supports it.
Brent_Justice
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PCI-Express is really a good platform to expand on.
AGP was simply a single link that was dedicated for video cards. PCI-Express is an entire bus platform, for everything. It can totally replace PCI if someone was that bold enough.
There is a lot of flexibility with it and can be expanded to be faster and supply more power in each evolution.
AGP was simply a single link that was dedicated for video cards. PCI-Express is an entire bus platform, for everything. It can totally replace PCI if someone was that bold enough.
There is a lot of flexibility with it and can be expanded to be faster and supply more power in each evolution.
Brent_Justice
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tpfaff said:pcie 2.0 seems unnesecary to me except i really love the external idea for laptops
See, I don't see it as unnecessary. It provides faster throughputs, but most importantly for right now, greater power. The 8800 GTX requires 2 6-pin connectors. Upping the PCIe power capability could reduce this to 1 for example. It becomes more important as you think more into the future.
HaMMerHeD
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Though it is true that we are not saturating the AGP 8x standard, it is also true that we were/are saturating the old PCI bus. Hard drives go faster, NICs go faster, Sound cards require more and more data, and yet we were still stuck with 133 MB/sec to service all of those devices. AGP alleviated the PCI bus of the tremendous strain and bottlenecking graphics cards were causing, and PCI-Express is doing the same for other devices. Or, at least, it will. Or can. Or whatever.
With PCIe, devices can essentially take any bandwidth they need. Well, up to x16 anyways. Keep in mind that a PCI-Express x1 slot provides only slightly less bandwidth (~5 MB/sec I think) than ye olde PCI bus.
Now, it remains to be seen when we will see hardware MFRs move away from PCI slots to a fully adopted PCIe platform. We still need high-end PCIe sound cards and TV tuners and such. In my opinion, the ball is very much in Creative's court. Since the video card MFRs have switched to PCIe, it is now up to audio card makers, and that means Creative. It is my opinion that when Creative adopts PCIe, more makers of various types of expansion cards (not just sound cards) will follow suit.
Then, we will see PCI free motherboards, and that will be just one less bridge and a whole lot less parts and core logic to go wrong.
EDIT:
It is necessary, as all hardware devices must evolve to maintain their relevance. PCI has gone through a LOT of changes, and so did AGP, ISA, EISA, VLB, and MCA before it. PCI-Express will as well.
With PCIe, devices can essentially take any bandwidth they need. Well, up to x16 anyways. Keep in mind that a PCI-Express x1 slot provides only slightly less bandwidth (~5 MB/sec I think) than ye olde PCI bus.
Now, it remains to be seen when we will see hardware MFRs move away from PCI slots to a fully adopted PCIe platform. We still need high-end PCIe sound cards and TV tuners and such. In my opinion, the ball is very much in Creative's court. Since the video card MFRs have switched to PCIe, it is now up to audio card makers, and that means Creative. It is my opinion that when Creative adopts PCIe, more makers of various types of expansion cards (not just sound cards) will follow suit.
Then, we will see PCI free motherboards, and that will be just one less bridge and a whole lot less parts and core logic to go wrong.
EDIT:
It is necessary, as all hardware devices must evolve to maintain their relevance. PCI has gone through a LOT of changes, and so did AGP, ISA, EISA, VLB, and MCA before it. PCI-Express will as well.
VulturEMaN
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Brent_Justice said:
And the beauty of this is that we can cool em easier and have seperate PSUs....
might take a bit of time to get used to, but would be better in the long run...
Chernobyl1
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make sure it fits first
Yes if someone makes one.
Yes if someone makes one.
HaMMerHeD
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sdgserv said:
Whenever they start to get around making them for PCIe, yes.
Chernobyl1
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umm, I hope you arent going to plug a PCI card into a PCI-e slot!
Seanmounce
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Garric said:
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Hell no, we havn't used the full potential of PCI-E lets wait a bit before we have to upgrade.
Oh yeah, for all the porn we need to see these days nothings enough Terabyte drives will become outdated in 2 days at this rate. Kinda like AMD sockets.
Why the hell should we upgrade to PCI-E 2.0? The 8800GTX doesn't even make use of the 2nd plug on the side. Same with my card, it doesn't use the port andis really only a fallback.
PCI-E 1.0 FTW!!
Terabyte drives will become outdated in 2 days at this rate. Kinda like AMD sockets.Why the hell should we upgrade to PCI-E 2.0? The 8800GTX doesn't even make use of the 2nd plug on the side. Same with my card, it doesn't use the port andis really only a fallback.
PCI-E 1.0 FTW!!
We didn't transition to PCIe because the AGP bus was saturated; the biggest advantage of PCIe is its bidirectional design. In today's environment of "versatile graphics" cards, retrieving information from the core and RAM is just as important as sending it there- it will become even more so in the future.
We won't see a similar brick wall with PCIe for quite some time- I expect its limitation will be latency, not bandwidth. I say this because I remember reading about this being a big limiting factor in some peripherals, like sound cards (sorry, can't find a link. Look for Creative's Zenith-PCIe dismissal.)
However, this problem is already being tackled: look up HTX.
We won't see a similar brick wall with PCIe for quite some time- I expect its limitation will be latency, not bandwidth. I say this because I remember reading about this being a big limiting factor in some peripherals, like sound cards (sorry, can't find a link. Look for Creative's Zenith-PCIe dismissal.)
However, this problem is already being tackled: look up HTX.
Brent_Justice
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Why do people keep thinking it is only about bandwidth?
Chernobyl1
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Brent_Justice said:
Agreed, PCI-e added latency compared to the AGP bus.
It would be nice if the next PCI-e spec reduced latency in more ways than higher clock speed.
Firebat said:
With the release of the x1950pro in agp, I truly believe the agp 4x has reached saturation mark. The x1950pro in my system was marginally faster than the 7600GT (which should not happen). I've returned the 1950 already.
Regarding pci-express 2.0: Does anyone know when motherboards will be out for it? I know it's supposed to approach completion by years end.
Sgraffite
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Tzzird said:
Are you sure your cpu isn't the problem? You seemed awfully quick to blame agp.
Sgraffite said:
actually i'm pretty sure. i pull a 5900 on 3dmark05 with the x1950pro, 5600 with the 7600GT.
sunin got in the 8000s on 3dmark05 with his x1950pro and a cpu clocked 500mhz higher. He has 8x, I've got 4x. If you can give me another explanation, then I'd love to hear it.
Last time I remember hear that agp 8x was not saturated was round about the time when pci-e first came out (it's been a while since I have jumped in a thread about it). So back then I remember hearing that neither the 6800 ultra nor x800xt saturated the x8 agp mark. Ok, but now we have had the jump from the 6800 to the 7800 to the 7900 and now to the 8800. Are we still not saturating the x8 mark!? (all other issues such as latency aside).
chaikovski2002
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You gotta be kidding me, do you know how many people are still on AGP? I just upgraded to PCIe a couple of days ago, and now youre saying its time to move on from PCIe? Lets see, hmm, the answer is NO!