This technology is going to be huge this year on the PC side. I know Apple likes to keep things quiet but has anyone yet heard any rumors as to Apple adopting this technology this year.
hmm.. this is a tough call. The way I see it. I don't think apple will adopt it soon. With the overhaul of the Current PowerMac, they would need to redesign the mother board. I'd say when G5's hit 3Ghz+ they'll adopt this technology. The 166Mhz 64Bit PCI-X that the PowerMac has right now still needs to be more widely accpeted, with manufacturers producing cards that can effectively use that bandwith.
PCI Express can wait a bit. Graphics cards aren't maxing out an 8x bus right now and don't look to in the near future until memory throughput catches up. PC's will go to PCI-Express and users will crow about how Apple is behind but Apple will be wise enough to wait and let the kinks be ironed out first before jumping in.
There was a discussion of PCI Express a while ago, which left me with the following impression:
PCI Express is a serial bus and is totally incompatible with existing PCI cards. There isn't going to be a big change over to Express because old card will not work and new cards will be 'very' slow in coming. Makers of present PCI cards are not going to suddenly start producing PCI Express cards. Only the very newest PCs will be able to use them. It may be like the introduction of USB. Most Wintel computers had PS/2 connectors, serial ports and Centronix printer connectors. USB ports did not replace these connectors, but just added another option for the future, and USB was ignored for several years. I haven't looked at a new Wintel box lately, so I don't now how much they have completely switched over to USB even today.
I am aware that according to Intel the big pusher of this tech, that all existing pci and pci-x cards will be compatible because of the way they are doing the chip-set. As for AGP 8X both Nvidia and ATI are planning on moving over to express. From what I have read on the PC side PCI express will help reduce total system heat output, and allow for smaller power supplies.
I am aware that according to Intel the big pusher of this tech, that all existing pci and pci-x cards will be compatible because of the way they are doing the chip-set. As for AGP 8X both Nvidia and ATI are planning on moving over to express. From what I have read on the PC side PCI express will help reduce total system heat output, and allow for smaller power supplies.
PCI Express is compatible with PCI-X?!? Good, then there's no real reason for Apple not to adopt it.
PCI-Express appears to be software compatible with the existing PCI specification, not hardware compatible. It looks like future motherboards will have something like 4 of the current PCI connectors and 2 PCI-Express 1X connectors. There will be one PCI-Express 16X connector for the video card. With this arrangement, the number of Express card slots would likely increase as time goes by, and the number of old PCI card slots would decrease.
This looks like a good scheme and Apple will likely adopt it. The sooner the better, as they will eventually have no choice. All new high-end video cards will be PCI-Express 16X. It looks like AGP is on the way out.
Here's an after thought. Putting PCI-Express slots on a motherboard is cheaper than the current PCI slots. The Power Macs will continue to offer current PCI slots for obvious reasons, but maybe PCI-Express will open up expansion slots for some low cost Mac in the future. Just as the original iMac went to USB only, maybe some, low-end Mac will have PCI-Express slots only. The chip set for PCI express appears to be useful for other on board I/O, such as Ethernet and USB, so the Express slots may add very little cost to the motherboard.
Apple's PCI-X seems fine right now. I don't think it's anywhere near becoming a bottleneck so I don't see why it's needed at all. How much faster is PCI Express than PCI-X? Does it move that much more data that we need to start worrying about this now?
I agree with you onlooker. PCI-X Still has a couple years of use. In terms of speed. It's alittle faster, probably about 10% faster maybe? As far as being able to see that difference, I don't think you will at all.
I don't think PCI-X is going to go anywhere for a while. PCI-X is now becoming more widely deployed, and PCI-Express is aimed for a timeline about 2-3 years from now. So assuming PCI-Express becomes semi-mainstream by 2006, it will still have a long battle against PCI-X which should be at the speeds I mentioned above. I don't think that PCI-Express will really become predominant until 2008, if ever. Heck, maybe Firewire will be the defacto component connector in computers down the road. Once ya try and predict 2 or more years ahead, it gets all blurry with so many "well-ifs."
PCI express will be an useful technology in 2 or 3 years.
As people said AGP 8 X do not make a real difference now with AGP 4 X. Excepting some specials tasks ,256 MB of VRAM do not make a real difference with 128 MB VRAM. PCI X card just start shipping, and do not benefit the full potential of this new norn.
There is no reasons, for Apple to switch immediatly to PCI X, a technology who will not make sense until 2 or 3 years. (remember that a computer is obsolete in a technical point of vue after 3 years).
PCI express will be an useful technology in 2 or 3 years.
As people said AGP 8 X do not make a real difference now with AGP 4 X. Excepting some specials tasks ,256 MB of VRAM do not make a real difference with 128 MB VRAM. PCI X card just start shipping, and do not benefit the full potential of this new norn.
There is no reasons, for Apple to switch immediatly to PCI X, a technology who will not make sense until 2 or 3 years. (remember that a computer is obsolete in a technical point of vue after 3 years).
The video is where PCI express will appear first, the cards will be out in a few months. Apple will be able to make better use of it than most as well. Currently the AGP slots have huge bandwidth to the GPU, and very little in the other direction, PCI express will be symmetrical, and this will be very good for Quartz extreme and further off-CPU compositing which requires bidirectional communication between CPU and GPU.
PCI express also has much better spec. for power delivery to cards, lower latency, and a number of other improvements, including the fact that it is point to point and not a bus, so you don't share bandwidth between cards, and you don't slow down the whole bus by plugging in one slow card.
As for the connectors, I believe they will be inline with the PCI connectors, so each expansion slot will accomodate either a PCI express card or a PCI(X) card. This will obviously increase the cost of the board until the PCI connectors can be dropped, but not, I think, significantly.
The video is where PCI express will appear first, the cards will be out in a few months. Apple will be able to make better use of it than most as well. Currently the AGP slots have huge bandwidth to the GPU, and very little in the other direction, PCI express will be symmetrical, and this will be very good for Quartz extreme and further off-CPU compositing which requires bidirectional communication between CPU and GPU.
PCI express also has much better spec. for power delivery to cards, lower latency, and a number of other improvements, including the fact that it is point to point and not a bus, so you don't share bandwidth between cards, and you don't slow down the whole bus by plugging in one slow card.
As for the connectors, I believe they will be inline with the PCI connectors, so each expansion slot will accomodate either a PCI express card or a PCI(X) card. This will obviously increase the cost of the board until the PCI connectors can be dropped, but not, I think, significantly.
michael
Good post. Thanks to point out the symetrical aspect of PCI express versus AGP.
There is no reasons, for Apple to switch immediatly to PCI X, a technology who will not make sense until 2 or 3 years. (remember that a computer is obsolete in a technical point of vue after 3 years).
PowerDoc is that a typo? Apple already has PCI X in all the PowerMac's.
It should be noted that PCI Express is not only a componet connector but also the way the computer will move information around. Right now it is all parallel traces and that is a bottle neck because of timing. With pci express it is serial and you can have multiple serial traces without having to worry about timing. IE: Firewire, USB, Gigabit ethernet, Serial ATA. Video will be 16x meaning, 16 independant serial traces. This is going to happen this year. The best place for information I have found is Intel's website. I know that can sometimes seem like a dirty word with some, but... and since it will be compatable with current pci and pci-x specs it will be adopted much sooner than 2008 IMO. All the ramblings I here via news alerts has 2004 being the year for this. The number of manufacturers already on board is huge. ATI and Nvidia will have video cards in Q2 or Q3 this year.
It should be noted that PCI Express is not only a componet connector but also the way the computer will move information around. Right now it is all parallel traces and that is a bottle neck because of timing. With pci express it is serial and you can have multiple serial traces without having to worry about timing. IE: Firewire, USB, Gigabit ethernet, Serial ATA. Video will be 16x meaning, 16 independant serial traces. This is going to happen this year. The best place for information I have found is Intel's website. I know that can sometimes seem like a dirty word with some, but... and since it will be compatable with current pci and pci-x specs it will be adopted much sooner than 2008 IMO. All the ramblings I here via news alerts has 2004 being the year for this. The number of manufacturers already on board is huge. ATI and Nvidia will have video cards in Q2 or Q3 this year.
Sorry if I seem uninformed, but I was not that interested in this subject until reading some recently posted comments. Are you saying that PCI Express is going to replace AGP? Rather than move to say 16x AGP - PCI Express would perform equally well? (if not better)
It does seem economical if that is the case. Being that you could just have one type of slot rather than AGP, and PCI. It does seem a single unit on the board would be less cumbersome, less expensive to manufacture, and more easily designed. But is it actually needed? If it is as stated earlier "a serial device" is it driven similar to Serial ATA with a hyper-transport protocol I/O subsystem connected to the system controller. Sorry if sounds stupid but it's been a while since I've thought about this stuff.
AGP was merely a successful "dirty-fix" for overcoming the bottleneck PCI started to be for graphics cards. It stands for "Advanced or Accellerated Graphics Port". In essence it's merely a speed bumped PCI slot, but only in one direction.
So, replacing it by streamlining expansion slots into a single format only makes sense. Of course that can only be done with an independent bus or point-to-point system, unless you want to run into the old PCI trap again, which we were trying to overcome by using AGP slots.
Comments
PCI Express is a serial bus and is totally incompatible with existing PCI cards. There isn't going to be a big change over to Express because old card will not work and new cards will be 'very' slow in coming. Makers of present PCI cards are not going to suddenly start producing PCI Express cards. Only the very newest PCs will be able to use them. It may be like the introduction of USB. Most Wintel computers had PS/2 connectors, serial ports and Centronix printer connectors. USB ports did not replace these connectors, but just added another option for the future, and USB was ignored for several years. I haven't looked at a new Wintel box lately, so I don't now how much they have completely switched over to USB even today.
Originally posted by oldmacfan
I am aware that according to Intel the big pusher of this tech, that all existing pci and pci-x cards will be compatible because of the way they are doing the chip-set. As for AGP 8X both Nvidia and ATI are planning on moving over to express. From what I have read on the PC side PCI express will help reduce total system heat output, and allow for smaller power supplies.
PCI Express is compatible with PCI-X?!? Good, then there's no real reason for Apple not to adopt it.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1087
PCI-Express appears to be software compatible with the existing PCI specification, not hardware compatible. It looks like future motherboards will have something like 4 of the current PCI connectors and 2 PCI-Express 1X connectors. There will be one PCI-Express 16X connector for the video card. With this arrangement, the number of Express card slots would likely increase as time goes by, and the number of old PCI card slots would decrease.
This looks like a good scheme and Apple will likely adopt it. The sooner the better, as they will eventually have no choice. All new high-end video cards will be PCI-Express 16X. It looks like AGP is on the way out.
I don't think PCI-X is going to go anywhere for a while. PCI-X is now becoming more widely deployed, and PCI-Express is aimed for a timeline about 2-3 years from now. So assuming PCI-Express becomes semi-mainstream by 2006, it will still have a long battle against PCI-X which should be at the speeds I mentioned above. I don't think that PCI-Express will really become predominant until 2008, if ever. Heck, maybe Firewire will be the defacto component connector in computers down the road. Once ya try and predict 2 or more years ahead, it gets all blurry with so many "well-ifs."
Originally posted by snoopy
Putting PCI-Express slots on a motherboard is cheaper than the current PCI slots.
I doubt it. Due to all the serdes and switches required, I'd expect PCI Express to be pretty expensive.
As people said AGP 8 X do not make a real difference now with AGP 4 X. Excepting some specials tasks ,256 MB of VRAM do not make a real difference with 128 MB VRAM. PCI X card just start shipping, and do not benefit the full potential of this new norn.
There is no reasons, for Apple to switch immediatly to PCI X, a technology who will not make sense until 2 or 3 years. (remember that a computer is obsolete in a technical point of vue after 3 years).
Originally posted by Powerdoc
PCI express will be an useful technology in 2 or 3 years.
As people said AGP 8 X do not make a real difference now with AGP 4 X. Excepting some specials tasks ,256 MB of VRAM do not make a real difference with 128 MB VRAM. PCI X card just start shipping, and do not benefit the full potential of this new norn.
There is no reasons, for Apple to switch immediatly to PCI X, a technology who will not make sense until 2 or 3 years. (remember that a computer is obsolete in a technical point of vue after 3 years).
The video is where PCI express will appear first, the cards will be out in a few months. Apple will be able to make better use of it than most as well. Currently the AGP slots have huge bandwidth to the GPU, and very little in the other direction, PCI express will be symmetrical, and this will be very good for Quartz extreme and further off-CPU compositing which requires bidirectional communication between CPU and GPU.
PCI express also has much better spec. for power delivery to cards, lower latency, and a number of other improvements, including the fact that it is point to point and not a bus, so you don't share bandwidth between cards, and you don't slow down the whole bus by plugging in one slow card.
As for the connectors, I believe they will be inline with the PCI connectors, so each expansion slot will accomodate either a PCI express card or a PCI(X) card. This will obviously increase the cost of the board until the PCI connectors can be dropped, but not, I think, significantly.
michael
Originally posted by mmicist
The video is where PCI express will appear first, the cards will be out in a few months. Apple will be able to make better use of it than most as well. Currently the AGP slots have huge bandwidth to the GPU, and very little in the other direction, PCI express will be symmetrical, and this will be very good for Quartz extreme and further off-CPU compositing which requires bidirectional communication between CPU and GPU.
PCI express also has much better spec. for power delivery to cards, lower latency, and a number of other improvements, including the fact that it is point to point and not a bus, so you don't share bandwidth between cards, and you don't slow down the whole bus by plugging in one slow card.
As for the connectors, I believe they will be inline with the PCI connectors, so each expansion slot will accomodate either a PCI express card or a PCI(X) card. This will obviously increase the cost of the board until the PCI connectors can be dropped, but not, I think, significantly.
michael
Good post. Thanks to point out the symetrical aspect of PCI express versus AGP.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
There is no reasons, for Apple to switch immediatly to PCI X, a technology who will not make sense until 2 or 3 years. (remember that a computer is obsolete in a technical point of vue after 3 years).
PowerDoc is that a typo? Apple already has PCI X in all the PowerMac's.
Originally posted by onlooker
PowerDoc is that a typo? Apple already has PCI X in all the PowerMac's.
You are right it was a typo.
Originally posted by oldmacfan
It should be noted that PCI Express is not only a componet connector but also the way the computer will move information around. Right now it is all parallel traces and that is a bottle neck because of timing. With pci express it is serial and you can have multiple serial traces without having to worry about timing. IE: Firewire, USB, Gigabit ethernet, Serial ATA. Video will be 16x meaning, 16 independant serial traces. This is going to happen this year. The best place for information I have found is Intel's website. I know that can sometimes seem like a dirty word with some, but... and since it will be compatable with current pci and pci-x specs it will be adopted much sooner than 2008 IMO. All the ramblings I here via news alerts has 2004 being the year for this. The number of manufacturers already on board is huge. ATI and Nvidia will have video cards in Q2 or Q3 this year.
Sorry if I seem uninformed, but I was not that interested in this subject until reading some recently posted comments. Are you saying that PCI Express is going to replace AGP? Rather than move to say 16x AGP - PCI Express would perform equally well? (if not better)
It does seem economical if that is the case. Being that you could just have one type of slot rather than AGP, and PCI. It does seem a single unit on the board would be less cumbersome, less expensive to manufacture, and more easily designed. But is it actually needed? If it is as stated earlier "a serial device" is it driven similar to Serial ATA with a hyper-transport protocol I/O subsystem connected to the system controller. Sorry if sounds stupid but it's been a while since I've thought about this stuff.
So, replacing it by streamlining expansion slots into a single format only makes sense. Of course that can only be done with an independent bus or point-to-point system, unless you want to run into the old PCI trap again, which we were trying to overcome by using AGP slots.
Sometimes less is more