PCI-x and Socket 940

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

Hi all,

I holding out for the range of PCI-X graphics cards but I have yet to see
any Socket 940 mobo's that support it.....has anyone seen them?

I have seen some dual cpu boards (S940) which do but are they functional
with just one cpu (FX53)?

cheers

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 10:30:14 +0100, Gymni Choo wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I holding out for the range of PCI-X graphics cards but I have yet to see
> any Socket 940 mobo's that support it.....has anyone seen them?
>
> I have seen some dual cpu boards (S940) which do but are they functional
> with just one cpu (FX53)?
>
> cheers

Do you mean PCI-Express graphics cards?. I've never heard of a PCI-X
graphics card, there really isn't any reason for it to exist. PCI-X is the
last incarnation of the parallel PCI bus. The basic PCI bus is
32MHz/32bits. PCI-X is 100-133MHz/66bits. It's used in servers only. There
are a limited number of cards available for PCI-X, mostly things like
Fibre channel controllers. PCI-Express is the new serial interconnect.
Each link is 2.5GHz (2Gbits because of 8B/10B encoding). PCI-Express can
have from 1 to 32 links per connection so it's capable of much higher
performance than PCI-X or AGP. Next generation systems are going to
replace both the PCI bus and the AGP bus with PCI-Express, but those
boards aren't out yet. For now what you want is AGP-8X for graphics, most
of the 940 boards have AGP-8X support. If you want PCI-Express graphics
you will have to wait another 6 months or so but it's not worth it.
Chances are there won't be any performance difference between first
generation PCI-Express graphics cards and their AGP-8X contemporaries.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

> I have seen some dual cpu boards (S940) which do but are they functional
> with just one cpu (FX53)?
Any dual mobo should be able to run with only one CPU.

EJ
--
.... Tiger K8W-240

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

> Do you mean PCI-Express graphics cards?. I've never heard of a PCI-X
> graphics card, there really isn't any reason for it to exist. PCI-X is the
> last incarnation of the parallel PCI bus. The basic PCI bus is
> 32MHz/32bits. PCI-X is 100-133MHz/66bits. It's used in servers only. There
> are a limited number of cards available for PCI-X, mostly things like
> Fibre channel controllers. PCI-Express is the new serial interconnect.
> Each link is 2.5GHz (2Gbits because of 8B/10B encoding). PCI-Express can
> have from 1 to 32 links per connection so it's capable of much higher
> performance than PCI-X or AGP. Next generation systems are going to
> replace both the PCI bus and the AGP bus with PCI-Express, but those
> boards aren't out yet. For now what you want is AGP-8X for graphics, most
> of the 940 boards have AGP-8X support. If you want PCI-Express graphics
> you will have to wait another 6 months or so but it's not worth it.
> Chances are there won't be any performance difference between first
> generation PCI-Express graphics cards and their AGP-8X contemporaries.
>


Pci-X is still developing however.. (I dont understand why, unless there is
more reliability there)..
you can get SATA Pci-X cards .. the PCI-Express stuff will happen with
the Nforce 4 chipsets (or so I hear) .. I have seen some VIA roadmaps
showing the 800pro having express support (but it doesnt show it now) so I
am guessing they have push'd it back for their 900 series.. This is
something I want too, but I want to see some of the express spec (right now
it's somewhat limited as to what I can open and read on the psig site)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.amd (More info?)

> Pci-X is still developing however.. (I dont understand why, unless there is
> more reliability there)..
> you can get SATA Pci-X cards .. the PCI-Express stuff will happen with
> the Nforce 4 chipsets (or so I hear) .. I have seen some VIA roadmaps
> showing the 800pro having express support (but it doesnt show it now) so I
> am guessing they have push'd it back for their 900 series.. This is
> something I want too, but I want to see some of the express spec (right now
> it's somewhat limited as to what I can open and read on the psig site)

Old technologies take a very long time to die, remember how long ISA buses
were around. PCI-X cards will also work in 3.3V PCI 66MHz slots and there
are millions and millions of them out there. So PCI and PCI-X will be
around for a long time. There is talk of a PCI-X 2.0 but I doubt that it
will actually happen. To push PCI beyond 133MHz will require a change in
logic levels which would break it's compatibility with older PCI buses,
once you make it incompatible the you might as well go with something
completely different like PCI-Express. More importantly Intel has decreed
that the world will be PCI-Express not PCI-X 2.0. Intel wants to force the
world to be entirely PCI-Express but that won't happen for a while. Even
if Intel takes PCI support off of their chipsets, VIA, SIS and Nvidia
won't. Broadcom probably won't take it off for a while either.