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PCI 3.0 Coming; Intel gets the Green Light.

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the faster-faster-and-faster dept.

pjbass writes "This story on ZDnet discusses the next I/O subsystem planned for PC's. It will be PCI 3.0 once making it to the consumers, but it is now known as Arapahoe, or 3GIO. Intel Corp. is responsible for making the technology, and boast its performance will be about 6 times that of PCI2.x, getting up to speeds of 6.6 gigabytes per second of bandwidth initially, with promises to scale more once the technology is mainstream."

8 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting to note that AMD voted for it as well. by Shivetya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't confuse Hypertransport functionality with PCI 3.0, as an eetimes article explains AMD's logic for voting to support the new intel standard, http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010803S0080

    Reading it closely makes me feel as if AMD is trying to curry favor with Intel for some odd reason while at the same time promoting their own technology.... They do overlap in a few areas, but I am curious if their support for the new PCI 3.0 standard will make it harder for them to sell HT as they will have to work to differentiate it.

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  2. Please give it a better name than PCI 3.0! by Dr_Cheeks · · Score: 5, Funny
    I already have to explain to family and friends why a Pentium 75 is worse than a Pentium 4 far more regularly than I'd like to. I can just picture the pathetic puppy-dog looks on their faces when I tell them that their 5-year-old box won't take their new PCI 3 piece of kit ("See this number 3 here..."). And then they try to guilt trip me into taking it back and asking for a refund too....

    Call it "New PCI" or "Super-Duper PCI" or "Extra Whizzy PCI (not compatible with any computers made before 2001)". Please!

    And don't even get me started on the trouble I've had explaining why people's "innovative" cheap storage solutions are flawed (Zip disks don't work in regular floppy drives, you can't overwrite normal music CDs now matter how good your burner is etc.).

    --

    1. Re:Please give it a better name than PCI 3.0! by oingoboingo · · Score: 4, Funny
      Do you mean something like Clippy for PCI? It looks like you're installing a new PCI card! Would you like me to:

      • Crawl around under the desk with a screwdriver and a flashlight, with your butt sticking out and your ass-crack showing while the cute company secretary walks by?
      • Spend 30 minutes swapping around all your other PCI cards to get it to work with your wierdo Abit BP-6 board?
      • Fuck off and just keep jamming the damn thing in until the motherboard cracks?

        • [ OK ] [Cancel]

  3. Re:Lawyers?! by geomcbay · · Score: 5, Insightful
    WTF? Since when are lawyers qualified to decide on technology issues? I'd understand if they were to review the legalities of the standard (patents and all that crap), but the standard itself?

    Obviously it IS the legality of the standard they are interested in. They will all want to go over the spec with a fine tooth comb to make sure they don't wind up with another RAMBUS fiasco.

    Yes, I realize RAMBUS's patents werent actually published at time of the memory standards meeting, they were still pending, but that whole incident has definately raised the amount of due diligence companies are putting into the legal end of standards committees. It makes no sense for AMD to endorse the standard going forward if, for example, it wound up that they would have to pay Intel a bunch of royalties on every chip they sold because they needed to use some patented method for the CPU to talk to add-in cards over this bus.

  4. Lowered MB Costs by nate1138 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One Good Thing that the article failed to mention is that fewer wires also means it is easier to design a motherboard, and expansion cards, thus lowering the overall prices of both items (once the required chipsets get into mass-production, of course). You should also be able to get more spacing between the circuit paths, which should lead to a lower possiblity of cross-talk, and better reliability.

    --
    Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
  5. Re:Okay, Good. by mabinogi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a little suggestion...

    Read the article.....

    It at least answers your first question....

    And I really doubt that Intell will prevent VIA from using it.....it would sort of defeat the purpose, it's intended to REPLACE PCI....and the only way it'll do that, is if it can be used in every PC....
    Currently PCI is used not just in Intel machines, but Macs, Sparc workstations and others....

    --
    Advanced users are users too!
  6. No they are not the same thing. by hattig · · Score: 5, Interesting
    EV6 is a 64-bit wide point-to-point processor bus used to connect Athlons and Durons to compatible Northbridges. It was developed by Alpha, and it can scale up to 200MHz DDR (400MHz effective). It can currently transfer either 1600MB/s or 2100MB/s.

    Hypertransport is a variable width, bi-directional bus. It can transfer up to 12GB/s. It can be used for many things - CPU - Northbridge (as it will be used for the upcoming Hammer CPUs), Northbridge - SOuthbridge, Northbridge - RAM, GPU - RAM, Southbridge - RAID controller, etc.

    Hypertransport is packeted. EV6 isn't. AMD license EV6 from Alpha, AMD designed Hypertransport.

    Is this enough to convince you that EV6 and Hypertransport are different?

  7. Should be noted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    One thing the ZDnet story doesn't mention is that unlike PCI 2.x, 3GIO will use point to point connections instead of a shared bus.