Is PCX Taking the P***?

[Xaneden]

I'm not sure if you guys will agree on this, but I think its plain wrong.

The specification for PCX v2 have been released already, and the bignods at the top have chosen to use the lesser of the 3 possible specifications available, namely 5gb/s bandwidth.

Now, seeing as its release date is 2007, is it just me, or are they taking the p***? Lets face it, PCI took a while to get intergrated into motherboards, and we've been using it for nearly 10 years. However, PCX is only just been adopted into chipsets, and already its got a replacement?

Now in reality, the PCX x16 bus can't currently deliver much if anything to the current G/Cs that the x8 AGP couldn't. I'm not saying that G/Cs of the future won't be able to take advantage of its large bandwidth, but by the time the cards start to gain some visable increase in speed by using PCX, it'll be replaced by PCX v2?

Now isn't that just kicking one technology out of the door before its wiped its feet on the mat? Opinions would be appreciated.

[mike_w]

When you say PCX, do you mean PCI-X, or PCI Express?

[Xaneden]

PCI Express. I am another one of those who copies the way the magazines name it....

[ikonia]

I feel quite justified now in not getting a PCI-E motherboard.

I was hanging on and hanging on waiting for the good cards to come out etc etc in the end I plumped for an AGP board as there simpley didn't seem any real benifit.

I hope this PCI-E v2 is a long way of or it will be another expensive upgrade for the PCI-E owners.

[Xaneden]

2007 is the 'confirmed release date'. Thats only 2 years away for cryin' out loud!

[Butcher]

Only? That's 2-3 upgrades that is lad!

[Xusen]

As usual they are after money and the best way to weasel cash of us is to say " its more this and that and its faster". look at creative audigy 4....with only minor improvements why?...cos they probably werent making any money on 2.

Xusen

[Xaneden]

When I said 'only', I was stressing how near the release date is, and how thats a bad thing.

Talking of the Audigy 4, I have yet to see it sold commercially in the UK, and I've read several times, that the Audigy 2 could not give proper 24-bit sound, and was actually a glorified and slightly patched up 16-bit sound card.

[mike_w]

Would there be backwards compatibility, like there was with AGP?

[Xaneden]

Thats one of the details the forgot to mention...... Typical

[Trippledence]

Im surprised theres no new harddrive interface in the pipeline to replace sata, Its all very well having gb's of hardware bandwith but if theres not information the be prosesessed, its not very usefull. Mabey there is?

[Xaneden]

As I said, the only thing thats been confirmed is the bandwidth speed, and the release date....

It still amazes me that serial technology is used in modern computers, although obviously for a different purpose. Surely there is SOMETHING available at the moment which could supercede it? Maybe more attention should be given to these things instead of enhancing things that don't need it.

[directhex]

Would there be backwards compatibility, like there was with AGP?

you mean the way you can't use 3.3v agp cards on 1.5v agp motherboards & vice versa?

[Xaneden]

I think he means how you could put a x4 AGP card into an x8 port etc...

Tbh, its not the compatiblity which annoys me. Its basically making a technology out of date before its even become mainstream, which will piss off the majority of people who have just invested in it.


Also, I should add this: There were 3 or so possible bandwidth speeds to choose from, and they chose the slowest one. They could have had an 8gb/s one, which would have taken longer to develop, and thus let PCX get a footing in the market, but instead they've chosen one that'll be out soonest.

More Money, its the only reason.

[Rave]

I'm not a techie so I'm leaving myself open to some slaps from people who are more knowledgeable than me, but as I understand it serial links will continue to be the interconnects of the future. As clock speeds rise it becomes harder and harder to keep parallel data lines synchronised- that's why ATA-66 and above require special 80 wire IDE cables, for example. Serial ATA with it's six (?) wires can carry more data than an IDE cable with 40. Intel's proposed replacement for DDR2, the Fully Buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) uses a small serial link to a main controller chip on the DIMM which then speaks to the individual RAM chips on the board. This adds latency but solves the problem of timing errors limiting clockspeeds.

Now quite how you keep 16 lanes of PCI-E synchronised correctly I'm not quite sure, that's the limits of my knowledge unfortunately. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a buffer in there to synchronise all the data though.

Anyway, without seeing the specs for PCI-E V2.0 I can't really comment on what's changed. I suspect it's just a clockspeed ramp though and it will almost certainly remain backwards compatible, just as you could plug an AGP 1x card into an AGP 2x socket etc.

Rich :¬)

[Xaneden]

But, whats the point in developing a lower speed one that will be released when it really isn't needed?