AMD 1090FX, 1070 Chipset Info Leaked; Missing PCIe 3.0
In 2012, AMD will introduce its AMD 1090FX and 1070 Chipsets, as replacements to its current 990X and 970. The most interesting part is the new chipsets still will not support PCI-Express 3.0.
The 1090FX will be the top tier 10-series chipset, replacing the 990FX. The 1090FX northbridge will support two PCI-Express X16 links and up to four graphics cards. The 1070 provides one PCI-Express link for two graphics cards. The "Chipset Competitive Landscape" slide shows the new 10-series set to go against Intel's new Ivy Bridge chipset. AMD breaks down what it sees as advantages (more SATA connectivity and 2X16 XF) and disadvantages (PCIE 3.0 and SRT) against the Ivy Bridge. The 10-series chipset will be compatible with current processors, which adds to AM3+'s longevity.
The 10-series chipset most surprisingly will not support PCI-Express 3.0. This is a disappointment to this writer, with Intel already gearing up PCI-Express 3.0 support for the Ivy Bridge release. What is still to be seen is how will this affect AMD's Radeon HD 7000 series graphics cards supporting PCI-Express 3.0. This question should be answered by in the end of the year, as the Radeon HD 7000 expected to release around the holidays.
The new SB1060 southbridge does provide an improvement over current gen motherboards. The SB1060 will support an eight SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller, all ports running at 6 Gb/s. This outpaces Intel's 7-series in terms of SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The SB1060 will offer for the first time a native USB 3.0 SuperSpeed controller. Currently, 990FX & 970 don't natively support USB 3.0 but is offered through a third-party controller.

correct me please. Thanks
its not a marketing ploy. Do you want to end up like one of those people with a pcie 1.x slot that doesnt work with a pcie 2.1 card? I dont, so i would get the pcie-3, if not for added bandwidth, then for future compatability. Not to mention boards running an 8x/8x pcie setup with pcie3 gives them the effective bandwidth of a 2.0 16x/16x slot, so not such a need for the 16x slots on expensive motherboards. I agree with gladosiri, fix bulldozer, then think about motherboards.
Exactly... I wasn't as clear perhaps, but this is what I was trying to get acrossed... And yes, though I didn't mention it. BD was a big letdown... And their other current business decisions in the market also frighten me in terms of end-consumer future prospect if Intel runs away with a huge lead... (Not to mention what Intel would do with their prices... It amazes me some people think that nothing would change if Intel was the only game in town...)
. Even those chipset from Intel that are even more pci lanes limted, have good enough or equal perfomance that those from amd.
Except you'll most likely be replacing your board anyway in two years. PCIe 3.0 cards are backwards compatible with 2.0, there is no current plans of making cards that are incompatible. The only significant difference is bandwidth per lane, 3.0 has 2x the bandwidth per lane that 2.0 has. A 16x 2.0 slot will perform identically to a 8x 3.0 slot, we're just now seeing 8x being fully utilized. The CPU to GPU bandwidth requirement would have to quadruple in the next two to three years before you'd see any benefit from a 3.0 interface. Somehow I highly doubt this will happen. Now three+ years out we might be needing it, my crystal ball doesn't go much past 3~5 years in general though.
Basically anyone buying a product for PCIe 3.0 ~now~ is buying a marketing slogan only. They'll just replace their boards in a few years anyway to get whatever cool new "feature" is present at that time. So buy a PCIe 3.0 board now, or a PCIe 3.0 board in two~three years, the results will be the same.
me thinks it would cost more/less mature now so the result is not quite the same.
me thinks it would cost more/less mature now so the result is not quite the same.
Ahh but in a few years the board would be replaced with another one that had a mature PCIe 3.0 implementation.
The point is that you won't be using the brand new shiny PCIe 3.0 slots for those two years, they would exist in name only. Then right when you'd actually be seeing a difference you'll just be buying another board to get new features / CPU support or whatever.
Isn't the 7000 series and 600 GPUs coming out next year going to use the 3.0? Not trying to mock you, this is a serious question that I'm curious about.
Um..PCI-E 2.1 grpahics cards are compatible with PCI-E 1.x slots.