Rumor: Intel 9-Series Chipsets Won't Feature SATA-Express
Sadly, it seems that SATA-Express won't be featured on the upcoming Z97 chipset.
A report from the Chinese VR-Zone states that the SATA-Express standard, which was repeatedly expected to come to the upcoming Z97 chipset, won't be featured after all. Based on the information available, it would seem that this change would make the Z97 chipset nearly the same as the existing Z87 chipset.
It seems that Intel had not given a reason for the cancellation, though seemingly Intel is encouraging manufacturers to implement the technology by themselves.
SATA-Express is a technology that allows devices to use PCIe lanes for higher bandwidth, and it is a way that SATA can co-exist with PCI-Express, similar to, but not quite the way as the mSATA co-exists with mPCIe.
So they would need to implement there own chips and such? I won't begin to speculate why they wouldn't add it on but I am assuming at first this is only going to be on the higher end boards, however I don'tt hink thats really a bad thing per say as most people who NEED the extra bandwidth of sata express is going to be using a higher end board anyhow. (Or atleast has the money to afford one.)
So far All i see is most games run perfectly fine on it. After all, most of them are still PS3 and Xbox360 ports.
Yeah yeah, but it doesn't need to be an on chip solution. And on most computers it won't matter. Where it will matter is on higher end machines where it doesn't need to be on the chip.
We need a SF3700 PCIE 4x Card, or 2.5" SSD with cable to a PCIE 4x slot.
I mean let's face it, a 2 year old i5 or i7 is going to be about as good as a new chip, and because the older chips can be OC'd higher, it really is a performance wash, and is expected to be with next years chips as well. The main motivating factor to upgrade is for chipset, peripheral, and standards support. I moved from z68 to z77 for the sake of TRIM via RAID support. Many others have upgraded for more USB3 or SATA3 ports, while others have upgraded for PCIe3, or even faster native memory support. But it is always an upgrade for these connectivity options rather than a boost in raw CPU performance. If you need extra CPU performance then you simply have to upgrade to a faster platform (LGA2011 i7 or Xenon) rather than a newer chip of the same tier. I fear this will be a theme for the future as well.
But in a world where connectivity is the motivating factor for upgrades I find it very surprising that Intel would delay the release of such a hotly anticipated connectivity standard. It makes me wonder if Intel knows something that we don't know about yet.
Intel is still using the DMI bus which provides only 20Gbps between the CPU and chipset for SATA, USB, PCIe 2.0 and all other stuff either built in the chipset or attached to it.
No point in implementing higher-speed peripheral connectivity when the middle-bus lacks the bandwidth necessary to properly support it.
-SATA Express: a good feature I must say, but it won't be included based on the rumor.
-USB 3.1: There will always be somebody who needs more speed. However, this won't be include too.
-DDR4 RAM: Obviously NOT.
-PCIE 4.0: ...are you kidding...
-VRM wil be moved back to mainboard: New feature or just a good-old feature that Intel has messed it up recently?
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Basically EVERY GOOD FEATURE you can think of will be included in Sky Lake (or later) then why should one buy Boardwell (unless he/she has a lot of money any doesn't know what to do)?
Intel, do you have anything to say or convince us?
-SATA Express: a good feature I must say, but it won't be included based on the rumor.
-USB 3.1: There will always be somebody who needs more speed. However, this won't be include too.
-DDR4 RAM: Obviously NOT.
-PCIE 4.0: ...are you kidding...
-VRM wil be moved back to mainboard: New feature or just a good-old feature that Intel has messed it up recently?
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Basically EVERY GOOD FEATURE you can think of will be included in Sky Lake (or later) then why should one buy Boardwell (unless he/she has a lot of money any doesn't know what to do)?
Intel, do you have anything to say or convince us?
SATA Express is just a temporary solution, that Intel might be skipping over?
Won't know for sure until benchmarks come out, and is also dependent on controllers.