PCI Express...

TKS

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I can't get excited about it. Sure it is going to revolutionize the graphics market...but at what cost? You know you're going to have to chop off your left arm just to get a mobo and card. Then will the performance leap leave AGP users in the dust? If so, what fun is that? Only people with money will get the fps bonus? Elitest pigs@! I just upgraded to a 9500 Pro this past year...I spent 200 bucks on it and haven't spent that much on any one item in my life...I just want to know how much they are going to charge....I don't want to sign my life savings away (which isn't much right now...so if it is 300 bucks..i'm screwed)

Another thing I want to know...if PCI Xpress is so great and everyone wants to buy it...won't AGP prices drop out the bottom of things? Will this be just what everyone wants? I mean, if it dropped out the bottom, I'd upgrade to the best damn AGP card money can buy and then I wouldn't upgrade for a very long time. I rememember MCA slots gaining alot of buzz and then just 'pewf!' they were gone. So what happens if no one will upgrade because of the cost? Will they too drop out? Just some thoughts I have. I am very aprehensive about migrating to PCI Express at all because I know that if I'm graphzilla I'm going to JACK the hell outta the prices to make some cizash for Mr. Big. Everyone should be worried about this IMHO. Am I wrong?

<font color=blue>I've got a better idea. Let's go play "swallow the stuff under the sink." </font color=blue>
<font color=green>Stewie Griffin</font color=green> from <i>The Family Guy</i>

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TKS

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I'm surprised that no one has anything to say about this...I've been reduced to replying to my own message to try and respark an opinion on the thread. I feel really alone....can I have a hug?

<font color=blue>I've got a better idea. Let's go play "swallow the stuff under the sink." </font color=blue>
<font color=green>Stewie Griffin</font color=green> from <i>The Family Guy</i>

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Ganache

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Well i've not heard many things about PCI Express. We're not even near the limit of AGP8x and they already talk about PCI Express. I dunno about you, but i got 6 pci slots in my mobo and i only use 3(NIC, TV-TUNER, SOUND ) And i don't see any problem with it. My guess is we wont really see mass PCI express for a while. They just don't seem to be a real need. Except to boost sales.
 

ufo_warviper

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Is this the same thing as the PCI-X16 that I've heard about? Also, will today's standard PCI soundcards, etc be able to plug into this new type of PIC interface?

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!
 

coolsquirtle

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PCI express will just be "a new thing" it's not gonna replace AGP nor PCI for a while. It's more like a thing for the geeks :D

Proud Owner the Block Heater
120% nVidia Fanboy
PROUD OWNER OF THE GEFORCE FX 5900ULTRA <-- I wish this was me
I'd get a nVidia GeForce FX 5900Ultra... if THEY WOULD CHANGE THAT #()#@ HSF
 

redstar

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PCI express will be great!! and will make AGP obsolete...not to mention serial ata.

its due to make a splash in the second quarter of next year.

but it won't be mainstream fro prolly another 9 months after that..or whenever the next major upgrade cycle is due.

so if you bought your 9500 pro this summer..you will prolly just be thinking about a new card when PCI express is here to stay. good timing i'd say :)))
 

Crashman

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Former Staff
I don't see what you're upset about!

1.) You probably won't be upgrading to a PCI-Express motherboard until your current video card is outdated anyway. So you'll replace both in a year or two.
2.) PCI-Express won't add to the cost of video cards in the long term. You'll see typical high prices when new cards are introduced, following with several price drops just as you do already.
3.) I don't think PCI-Express adds to the cost of manufacturing the card, other than the initial tansition in PCB manufacturing.
4.) That the interface is faster does not imply the cards will be, expect a full range of PCI-Express cards all the way from $30 crap to $600 crap.
5.) The price of NEW AGP cards will probably go UP as PCI-Express gains acceptance, just as the price of PCI cards currently exceeds that of similar/faster AGP cards.

Are you wrong? Evidence indicates paranoia, but as for being wrong, everybody has opinions.

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Crashman

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PCI-Express will have various speeds. Regardless of how Tom's latest article showed it, here's how it's been described to me in a "perfect" configuration:

PCI Express x32 on the northbridge, replacing the link between the north and south bridge;

Southbridge with PCI-Express hub, which provides 1 x16 slot for graphics, several x1 slots for various cards or x4 slots for server cards (such as U320 SCSI controllers).

Now, the onboard devices will probably use a PCI-Express bus internally, and early boards will have a PCI-Express to PCI interface.

x1 slots are so small they can fit between a PCI slot and the end of the board. So you can have a slot position that supports either type of card. I expect most boards will be equiped like this for several years as PCI gets phased out.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 

ufo_warviper

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I agree especially with point 4 & 5 of Chrshman's post. Remember when AGP was first introduced? Cards like the i740 chip looked like a joke compared to Voodoo2 PCI and were barely even up to par with the original Voodoo cards. It wasn't util 6 months to a year when decent AGP card began to show up on the market like the nVidia Riva TNT 16MB showed up in 1998. My dad bought a 3D card in 1998 or 1999. It was a Trident Blade3d 8MB & boy did it suck! Actually I thought it was great at the time, because I had never seen 3D rendering before then and I was amazed at how much it sped up Jedi Knight. That's the only game it looked better than a Voodoo2 in. In just about every other game, that Blade3d card looked like crap.

As far as Crash's point 5, PCI cards are expensive for the performance they offer. I was Personal Messaging a guy named Mloot who works for DELL & he was buying my old radeon 7000 card because he was doing a performance analysis of PCI cards for DELLs that do not have AGP ports. I basically asked him this( but with many more words though), "Isn't PCI dead?" His reply was that "PCI is FAR from dead. He said so & so make a Radeon 9100 PCI aka 8500LE" "Also Inno3d is producing a GeForce FX 5600 PCI" I told him I was interested how in observning how well these "newer" PCI boards stacked up against their AGP counterparts, but he said he won't be testing AGP boards. I think that DELL should buy all of their motherboards with the option of a Standard AGP adapter. When the new PCI kicks in, they'll be up the creek without a paddle for sure! Its like Installing an ISA video card on a Pentium 1 board, and that just plain sux!

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!
 

redstar

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well i can see PCI video still needed for those who needed duel monitor support ..before we got twin view (where 1 card wrks like 2)

but why would anyone prefer 512 MB/s or whatever PCI can give you

vs the dedicated 2.2 GB/s bandwidth AGP 8x gives you?
--------------

and take a look on this article about what PCI express is all about:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1087&page=2

then ask yourself why wouldn't you want it!?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by redStar on 09/04/03 01:02 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Missed your post at work, or else I would have tapped it.

I can't wait. I'm looking forward to it, and I will likely be one of those individuals, HEhe, although I might go the RV380 route depending on options. We shall see. My motivation is not raw speed but the ability to have many independant VPUs, and possibly GOOD surround gaming at high FPS.

And depending on the AIW version is may be the only way to do HDTV capture in the near future (for my SAT and Dig. Cable :cool: ).

I'm just waiting. They obviously won't be TOO expensive for TOO long, but yes expect the initial offerings to be expensive just like all other things. Hey my dad brought home a W.O.R.M. drive in '86 and that thing cost about as much as my whole computer now and each cartridge cost about $50-100+ All technology is made for the early adopters, and then the rest of us get the 'perfected' product. Just this time around I might be one of those 'chumps' to risk it on the new equipment.

BTW Graphzilla hasn't really leaked much, ATI seems like it will be the first past the post. I wouldn't expect the format to diea quick death, it's like AGP, it will have a future. PERSONALLY I'm just worried that it will have a special PCI-EX-G special connector, and then only one of them (which is what the current diagrams tend to indicate) and a bunch of non-graphic PCI-EX slots. That would defeat my whole desire for them.

We shall see in any case.



- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com" target="_new"><font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK :evil:
 
Yeah it SUX that all the layouts I've seen sofar indicate only 1 PGI-EX-G(16X). I was really amped about the idea of at least 2 cards running flat-out simultaneously, especially since there was mention of putting 15 of those sucker on most boards as a jack of all trades.
I sure hope it's just the early boards (until they work out the kinks) that have just the one Graphics port. At least until they have KILLER cards that have multiVPU on chip and can push 4 times the power of an R300 class on 3+ monitors. Give me one or the other and sooner rather than later! :cool:

Anywhoo, of to sleep to dream of the setup with 15 Dual DVI R420s running a wall of Morrowind on a TYAN Thunder with 4 Xeons (with 4mb cache each) and 24GB of memory. Virtual Medieval reality. :eek:


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com" target="_new"><font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK :evil:
 

Crashman

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Former Staff
Well, a PCI-Express x1 slot should be twice as fast as a standard PCI slot, so "slow PCI cards" will still see a significant increase in performance when they transition. You could have several decent cards, plus a screaming main card!

And think about what that would do for boards with even faster slots! I mean, if workstation boards include 4 x4 slots, x4 would still be around AGP8x performance I believe, imagine 4 of those hot cards, plus an x16 card!

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ufo_warviper

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Remember the PCI-Local Bus video cards in 486 systems? That was the "AGP" card of its day. They really didn't last all that long. Even the PCI specification for Graphics cards had a longer life than the Local-BUS. But AGP? Man, that has lasted more than 6 years, with many
revisions of course in between, but its basic principle and slot size & pin locations is still basically the same as it was 6 years ago.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!
 

ufo_warviper

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Remember the PCI-Local Bus video cards in 486 systems? That was the "AGP" card of its day. They really didn't last all that long. Even the PCI specification for Graphics cards had a longer life than the Local-BUS. But AGP? Man, that has lasted more than 6 years, with many
revisions of course in between, but its basic principle and slot size & pin locations is still basically the same as it was 6 years ago.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!
 
Crash yeah, really I only NEED 2 slots for what I want to accomplish, but 1 X16 + 1 X4 would likely do it. And if they keep one AGP legacy slot and it doesn't disable it, that should work to. (R420/RV380 primary and the R9600P for surround monitors). That should give me Wicked central speed on main monitor running at high res. and high effects and OK res. and little/no effects on the peripheral monitors (AA/AF wouldn't be as big an issue on these two IMO).

We'll have to see. I just don't want to spend alot of money (these still won't be cheap as an OLD card cause there are no ol PCI-EX cards and won't be 'til at least '05 when I could pobably get a kick-ass card that could do it all [the Matro Super {Chevy} NOVA]) on surround card and then have them barely running beter than PCI.

Oh well I'll have to wait and see regardless. And a Server board isn't out of the quesiton I currently have the ASUS A-7M266D as my 'Video/Photo Rig' with the dual XPs (moded to MP) with a pair of PCI-X 66/64-32 slots, and I was hoping THAT was going to be the way things were going, but so be it. Upgrade that later. The only real current use for it would be for Gigabit ethernet, and now an add-in card would likely cost as much as a new board with it integrated.
Oh well another chance to be a guinea-pig for the greater good of humanity. :wink:

STILL, I can't wait! Bring on the Next-GEN products!

PS, <b>UFO</b>, nice double post. :wink:
I like new stuff man. That's why I'm not in the camp of people gla to hear there may be a slow down in the competition betwen ATI and nV, but that's another thread.


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TKS

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Well, notice it says it will cut costs to mobo manufacturers...that's nice....but I bet they'll see dollar signs and jack the prices up just the same. Probably will be less expensive to make PCI Graphics cards as well...but I'll bet the prices will also rise for those. Eventually...all prices will drop, this I know. But that's not my problem with this. In fact, I don't have a problem with it...I just wondered if it would come and go like fog from the ocean? I mean, there have been a lot of good technological advances that just fade away after they have a ton of hype generated around them. Will this be the same?

<font color=blue>I've got a better idea. Let's go play "swallow the stuff under the sink." </font color=blue>
<font color=green>Stewie Griffin</font color=green> from <i>The Family Guy</i>

TKS