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April 2004
Things are picking up nicely on this front. At a recent trade event I got to talk to a few people in the know* and see a few products.
*And a whole lot more who obviously didn't have a clue and should, perhaps, consider a job in another industry. Road sweeping comes to mind...
While still isn't a guaranteed rollout, here's a few things I saw and learned:
Jetway have a 915P motherboard ready and in their glossies catalogues.
Supermicro have one, but details are subject to an NDA until early May.
Intel have samples ready and will roll out en mass in June.
AMD will roll out from August.
Nvidia, ATI, S3 and smaller videocard manufacturers have product ready.
Here's a good PCI Express article by Tom's Hardware:
"Graphics chipmaker NVIDIA announced the first PCI Express capable graphics cards at IDF. Instead of developing a completely new line of chips, NVIDIA will simply use their existing family of AGP graphics chips on their first wave of PCI Express cards. These cards, called GeForce PCX, will interface with the PCI Express bus through a bridge chip, called the HSI (High Speed Interconnect). At first glimpse, it would seem that as a result, these chips wouldn't be able to take advantage of the new PCI Express features, since the AGP connection between the bridge and chip would continue to be the 'bottleneck'."
"ATi has chosen the other path, speaking out in favor of native PCI Express support from the beginning. A native implementation makes a lot of sense in the long term view. Now, however, NVIDIA's HSI chips seem like a clever strategy, even though ATi is doing its best to undermine it with the argument of upstream bandwidth HDTV video editing."
It does go on about latencies and signal strength but for me it is perhaps telling that ATi's X800 XT is available on PCIe, while the Nvidia 6800 isn't, but there y' go. In this recent, like the infamous noise problem, I think Nvidia have dropped the ball again. That's not to knock Nvidia mind, by christmas all the decorations will change again anyway, eh!
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Dec 2003
Chipset Makers Rally Around Athlon 64, PCI Express
Most of it is nods of commitment, but here's something: "ATI plans to integrate a 'DirectX 9' core inside the ATI RS480." It seems some of the PCI Express graphics cards will have DirectX hardwired into the gfx processors!
Sept 2003
Well Intel's IDF is over and the cat is well and truly out of the bag!
I like this PC Pro article ~ IDF 2003: Intel pushes PCI Express
Here's a few extracts...
- Throughout Intel pushes for the widespread adoption of PCI Express - the successor to PCI and PCI-X
(for high-speed IO between system components.)
- Intel unveiled its PCI Express server and workstation chipsets, codenamed "Lindenhurst" and "Tumwater".
- One of the goals of PCI Express is to replace the ageing AGP8X graphics interface.
(Double the performance possible with AGP8X from 2 GBps to 4 GBps.)
- First wave of Intel products incorporating PCI Express - Ethernet controllers, I/O processors, bridges and motherboards are also slated for a 2004 roll out.
These include Intel's next I/O storage processor, code-named "Dobson", that integrates PCI Express with XScale to integrate RAID, SCSI, SATA and Fibre Channel on motherboards based on the Lindenhurst chipset.
IDF 2003 Fall: Nvidia takes the Express
Again from PC Pro, Nvidia says it is developing a new generation of graphics processors which aims to take advantage of the new PCI Express standard. Cards from laptops through workstations are to be launched alongside Intel's own release of product. Similar sentiments are announced on Intel's website and on Nvidia's new PCI Express section.. Several good links here too.
The article continues "it has been clear for some time that when PCI Express is launched next year, it will overtake the AGP standard" Well D'oh!
Similarly, S3 (which is part owned by VIA technologies) has announced it will launch a new generation of GPUs based on the upcoming PCI Express in the second half of 2004.
According to the PC Pro article they are promising a totally new architecture and range which will feature such exotic technologies as next generation Chromotion Programmable Video engine, native HDTV support, 2DXP acceleration, hardware rotation and ultra low power.
Going in TV's too, then. Well, I'd never have thought of that.
*Cough*
August 2003
Out of interest, I downloaded a movie from Intel today where the talkover to the animation talked about "the legacy PCI bus" and firmly put the PCI Express technology as being for 2004. As I've said a few times, I've be extremely surprised if I don't see retail product show cased in spring for release around June 2004...
June 2003
PCI Express* Promises Superior Performance for Enterprise Servers
Here's the important bits:
"PCI Express is expected to provide enterprise connectivity to technologies including Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Serial ATA (SATA), Ethernet, InfiniBand Architecture, Fibre Channel, and iSCSI. Moreover, through its foundation in a serial I/O model, PCI Express technology also offers significant cost and functionality advantages over legacy PCI-X implementations."
...
"Through this model the analysts discovered significant performance advantages of PCI Express over parallel PCI. For example, PCI Express x8 more than doubles the payload throughput of PCI-X 133, and PCI Express x4 provides up to 70 percent more payload throughput over PCI-X 133 for the modeled I/O transfer sizes."
In summary:
"For this reason, Intel expects PCI Express to provide a roadmap for performance enhancements in 2004 and well beyond."
May 2003
In an IT Week interview with veteran I/O expert at IBM, Tom Bradicich they discuss PCI Express, it's imminence, or not, in relation to the better known PCI-X 2.0 upgrade.
Well said that guru, who reckons we won't see it until 2005. And I'm betting he's wrong!
Why?
Lets examine one reply:
PCI Express is delivered in a core chipset. It's not the microprocessor; it's the economic complement. ServerWorks is number one [in server chipsets today] and is not using PCI Express in the near term. We have our own chipset, HP has its own chipset.
We (IBM) have ours...
Intel however is taking the Sauran stance. One ring to rule them all and it the darkness bind them. Or even one chipset in the licence free standards...
The other reason he's wrong is this:
in server chipsets today
Stay in focus Tom. I take it as read you know PCI-X and Express better than I will ever ever care too, but I'm going with gut instinct here, that and a serious amount of ferreting. PCI Express is NOT a server product, but it will evolve into one and replace PCI-X.
Nope. PCI Express is a mass market product that will be driven by gamers first and foremost and multi-media and Internet as an added bonus. R&D aside, migration costs for manufacturers is minimal and given mass market, actually cheaper than existing boards to produce.
Hmm. Bigger, better, faster, cheaper AND more profitable? It's a no brainer.
Another thing to take into account. Servers...
Servers are simply systems, running a (Network) O/S, managed by people.
Paranoid CIO and network managers type people who are absolutely positive that if it ain't broke they aren't going to fix it just in case...
Outside of a test lab no sane IT manager will employ a new NOS or upgrade, and that includes any untested revisions to PCI-X, backwards compatible or no. And while this is happening PCI Express will weasel it's way into homes around the world and no doubt get a further boast with Microsoft's Longhorn and Blackcomb in 2005.
We that see, eh...
Here's a few extra articles of interest I found at The Inquirer:
ATI, Intel sort out PCI Express graphics futures
PCI Express means death of AGP standard (Feb 2003)
An equally interesting one relates to PCI Express and AMD chipsets, which to be honest, you don't here a great deal about, even if it is a given. Anyhow, as this article on Via Roadmaps relates, Via is preparing the Althon 64 based K8T890 which will sample samples towards the end of this year and supports PCI Express.
April 2003
Found this page on my cyber travels. According to their news page:
ASUS to Deliver Time to Market PCI Express-based Servers. A similar statement can be found on Gigabytes site.
On the video card front I read a titbit at Neoseeker about the upcoming ATI R400 (Radeon 9900 series?): (links redirects here to VR-Zone)
"The R400 meanwhile will finally see ATI putting their foundry partners' advanced 0.13 micron production processes to work towards producing their GPUs. While not much else can be gleamed regarding its possible performance, the R400 will feature support for the new PCI Express device connection standard, with its built-in X16 graphics link for motherboards"
Interestingly, VR-Zone report the release date as "Availability in End of 2003-Q1'04"
Basically it's further evidence of the nearness of PCI Express
On another note I was talking to a few Intel guys at the CTO trade show and whilst they did their best of squirrel out of a straight reply I got a new tentative answers. Vague, I know, but it appears the first reference boards will be PCI Express and rather latter and wholly dictated by market forces, DDR-II will be added.
March 2003: *Wipes egg of face and mutters rebelliously*
First tiers partners may get to play, but the general public have to wait till the Grantsdale chipset due late 2004. No matter, gives me time to save up after the Canterwood i875 I'm working on drains the coffers!
Most annoyingly I did have a load of information and links prepared colleagues in the retail trade but I'll be darned if I can find the file! Please be patiant while I rebuild it.
PCI Express formed because the PCI bus and the AGP were running out of steam. PCI Express uses a series of point-to-point channels to communicate information, in either x1, x2, x4, x8, x12, x16, or x32 dual channels, with 2.0 Gbits/sec of available bandwidth per channel
Visit the PCI SIG for further information.
See also PCI SIG .org
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