AMD PCI-Express???????????

[Xavier]

2 days ago, this site announced that there would be no AMD athlon64 PCIX motherboards until 1Q 2005!

Now today, in an ATI PCIX article, they say they are going to soon start shipping boards to reviewers??

The question:

Are there going to be retail Athlon64 PCIX boards before the end of this year?

Thanks

[nichomach]

Firstly, you mean PCI-E, not PCI-X; the latter is a standard for 64-bit PCI slots that's been in use in high end machines like servers for years. Now ATI are already shipping PCI-E graphics cards, but that just means they're shipping graphics cards. They've just announced that they'll be shipping PCI-E notebook chipsets, but that's on an Intel platform (http://www.atitech.com/companyinfo/press/2004/4779.html)

Have a gander at this peek at Via's approach: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2164

This look at the nVidia alternative: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2175

[Hanners]

Personally, I would be very suprised if we don't see any AMD-based PCI Express solutions before the end of this year. I would expect at least nVidia to have come up with something by then. Only time will tell though.

[Mblaster]

The first retail Athlon64 PCI-E boards will most likly be the nForce4 boards, unless VIA get one ready first.

ATI are creating an Intel motherboard that will have support for PCI-E as well as the ability to use onboard graphics from ATI.

[Kezzer]

I'm waiting for nForce4 more than anything

[MAS]

I know it's impossible to give an exact date but are nforce boards likely to be out my Xmas? I'm waiting for one too

[HEADRAT]

The Intel Tumwater chipset already supports 2 x PCI-E.

HEADRAT

[Tom]

headret well done, the topic was AMD not intel

[HEADRAT]

ATI are creating an Intel motherboard that will have support for PCI-E as well as the ability to use onboard graphics from ATI.

Sorry I meant to quote Mblaster, maybe then it wouldn't have been so OT! I can't see how ATI are creating an Intel Mobo

[nichomach]

Sorry I meant to quote Mblaster, maybe then it wouldn't have been so OT! I can't see how ATI are creating an Intel Mobo

As in uses an ATi chipset for Intel CPUs. They already do this for some of their integrated graphics chipsets.

See:
ATI Product page for integrated chipsets

[stytagm]

Athlon 64 PCI-E chipset here by end of year 'for sure'

See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/10/amd_pci-e/

[Mblaster]

Sorry I meant to quote Mblaster, maybe then it wouldn't have been so OT! I can't see how ATI are creating an Intel Mobo

Not exactly complicated

It's the same as VIA making a motherboard for Intel (and AMD) processors, or nVidia making a motherbaord for the AMD processors.

[HEADRAT]

Not exactly complicated

OK but they aren't producing the whole motherboard, just the GFX chipset, thats what I found confusingl, as per your

ATI are creating an Intel motherboard

[nichomach]

OK but they aren't producing the whole motherboard, just the GFX chipset, thats what I found confusingl, as per your

That's incorrect; ATi are producing the entire chipset, Northbridge, Southbridge, lock, stock the lot, just like they do with their current range of integrated motherboards. It's a chipset to support an Intel CPU, disregarding the graphics. It will have the ability to have ATI graphics integrated onto a motherboard using it, but it will not necessarily have any graphics itself at all.

Think of it this way; if we were discussing the nForce2 chipset for AthlonXP boards, we could say of it "Some nForce2 boards have integrated graphics, some nForce2 boards don't have integrated graphics, but they are ALL nforce2 boards and all of their chipsets are made by nVidia". Same thing.

[Mblaster]

Yeah, nichomach has the right idea.