Slashdot Mirror
Intel To Redesign PC With "Grantsdale" Chip
MarkRH writes "Over at ExtremeTech, we tracked down some Intel roadmaps that discuss "Grantsdale", Intel's most important chipset in nearly a decade. Grantsdale brings PCI Express to the PC, so get ready to toss out your motherboard, AGP graphics card, and maybe a host of other components, too. Also check out our articles on the "Tejas" microprocessor, Intel's first CPU to forego pins (check out the waffle iron socket!), as well as the real reason Banias saves so much power."
I beg to differ. My 10MHz Intel 286 had no pins. It looked like this.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
PCI Express FAQ here.
Quick summary: Formerly known as 3GIO, Software compatibility. Point-to-point instead of bus. 1 to 32 bits wide @ 2Gbps per bit = 16 GB/sec max (vs. 1-4 GB/sec for regular PCI; this is about AGP16X)
And sometimes you need an ISA slot. It's rare, but recently I've had occassion to really, really need one (in fact several...).
Sure they're slow, ancient, legacy (appologize for the redundancy there) but sometimes you just really need an older piece of hardware or a board you can solder and design yourself without an EE degree.
The same will be true of PCI. There are more PCI cards out there than ISA, so PCI-Express should really be backwards compatible, capable of both modes. Or at least have a few slots on it that are mutual, then faze it out over a few years.
Why don't major vendors get the fact that some of us like our legacy stuff and don't want to move just because we "have" to?
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Feh. Anybody who's seen intel's roadmap (as I have) knows the Grantsdale chip is just a stepping stone.
Personally, I'm waiting for the Higgenbotham chips in early 2005. After that, the Ranmatheau chips. In earlier 2007, expect amazing performance from the Cleodranvier chipset.
2008 brings us the amazing 10-GHz Hefnestranthellhaller chipset, and 2009 unveils Intel's most impressive chip: the Quackenbush.
But the true surprise comes in 2010, when the world experiences the amazing speed of the Gentrecktagazunt.
Truly wonderous times ahead.
First of all PCI-express will come in second half of the NEXT year.
Second, PCI-Express x 16 just double AGP8X bandwidth. We can expect same "dramatic" (1-2%) performance increase as we saw with AGP8X and AGP4X. It will take many years until this kind of performance is really needed. Since high-end video cards will have 512MB of very fast (~40GB/s) local memory in H2-2004, 4GB/s bandwidth offered by PCI-Express won't make much difference compared to 2GB/s AGP solution.
PCI-Express add-on cards won't be popular anytime soon. Since:
1) PCI replacement (PCI-Express x 1) offers just 250MB/s of bandwidth, thats isn't a lot more than current 133MB/s offered by PCI.
2) >90% of users won't need any external cards in H2-2004. Currently we have following stuff integrated on the chipset/motherboard:
-two 100Mbps NICs
-Sound with better quality than original Audigy
-Firewire/USB2 etc
In 2004 we will also have:
- NICs will be updated to 1Gbps
- Wireless LAN
- DSL modem
3) In the server market PCI-Express won't be popular since it isn't compatible with PCI. Currently servers use PCI-X (1GB/s) and it will be replaced with PCI-X 2.0 (2GB/s). This is enough bandwidth for many SCSI-raids and Gigabit NICs.