PCI Express

No_Style · Dec 3, 2003, 01:08 PM

My views for this standard are very optimistic. It's especially nice to see that 3 big companies are pushing this standard (ATI, Intel and Nvidia). As we all know a lot of motherboard companies are putting onboard NICs and such which eliminate the need for PCI cards at all. I only have 2 PCI cards (SBLive! and TV Tuner).

I do have questions though:

1) Since AGP 8X isn't even being fully used by today's games etc. Is it safe to say that a PCI-Express card and an AGP 8X card will perform the same? (For today's games)

2) Sound cards. What new capabilities will sound cards have with this larger bandwidth?

Judas · Dec 3, 2003, 02:24 PM

...... for your 1)... yes, there will be a difference.... there will be less trafic hogged by PCI-X then agp.... the whole workings of it is hard to explain.. but there will be a better increase... and overall ability to get more out of it then agp8x... AS for 2).... i think we could see a fairly good increase there... being that it won't be limited to the pci 33mhz 133mb/s max.... i can see 32bit sound cards on there way... along with some better surround sound processing....

FluffyChicken · Dec 4, 2003, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Judas
...... for your 1)... yes, there will be a difference.... there will be less trafic hogged by PCI-X then agp.... the whole workings of it is hard to explain.. but there will be a better increase... and overall ability to get more out of it then agp8x... AS for 2).... i think we could see a fairly good increase there... being that it won't be limited to the pci 33mhz 133mb/s max.... i can see 32bit sound cards on there way... along with some better surround sound processing....

Hang on there a bit PCI Express and PCI-X are NOT the same thing.

PCI-X will be used mainly in servers (as is now) generally for Storage (Harddrive, Gigabit ethernet, firewire...) But as a lot of these are getting into the southbridges already they bypass the PCI bus.

PCI Express on the otherhand will find it's place in the Workstation/Desktop arena. You'll get benefits due to the controlling nature, but do not expect a lot to start of with. It'll mainly be a AGP replacement to start off with, hopefully with other addon/integrated cards jumping on the bus as well.

Now if only they made a PCI Express and PCI-X board we would have the best of both worlds.

For a simplified look at PCI Express in Graphics card terms pop to Nvidia from page ( www.nvidia.com ) and under 'resent features' you'll see a video. Watch it.

fora lot more information and any recent changes go here... http://www.pcisig.com/events/compliance_workshop

@/2ct!< · Dec 4, 2003, 08:01 PM

The architexture of PCI Ex/X allow it to be more efficient than AGP, so it should deliver at least a small gain on similar cards.

Judas · Dec 5, 2003, 01:52 AM

whoops... i didn't actually know of PCI-X.... i was just shortning up PCI-Express....sorry....

FluffyChicken · Dec 5, 2003, 04:27 AM

I think the estimated gain is upto 30% for you graphics card, not bad.

Judas, yes PCI-X is on a lot of the new Server boards (Opteron, Xeons) Its also in the Apple G5.

They had a lot of comments about how people woule get confused between the two, but they didn't think that was a problem! Everyone I've talked to has been confused at some point... (It wasn't until more detail came out that I realised they where different things

)

@/2ct!< · Dec 6, 2003, 01:35 AM

so how are we gonna abbreviate it, I dont wanna spell express.

FluffyChicken · Dec 6, 2003, 06:05 AM

PCI-Ex ?

Whatever catches on..