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ATI PCI-Express Devices Revealed
JohnQ writes "According to Xbitlabs and AnandTech, the specifications for ATI's newest graphics cards have been revealed. Interesting to note is that all of these next generation video cards will run exclusively on the PEG (PCI-Express x16) interface. This does not bode well for those of us who just paid top dollar for the last generation of AGP cards. Read more about the roadmaps on Anandtech and Xbitlabs"
Just exactly HOW fast do we need graphics to get? I for one cannot find ANY display that can do 300 FPS, even if the card can.
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One of the biggest problems at the moment is the expense of (and difficulty finding) PCI video cards backed against the fact that motherboards rarely have more than 1 pci port.
So perhaps in the future we easily add 4-5 PCI Express video cards to our machines.
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To quote the Anandtech article:
The R420/423 chips will offer twice the pixel fill rate and vertex throughput of the R350 core, as well as increases in memory bandwidth.
Okay, twice the pixel fill rate? Supposing it's an 8x pipeline just like the r350, and is 500mhz where does 2x fill rate come in? The R350 is NOT 250mhz.
I'm thinking this will do roughly 25% faster than the fastest card out there, maybe 50% in some applications. Anything more will really surprise me.
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PCI-E is not about more performance. In fact, a well designed PCI-E card will not show any real deficit in performance vs. an AGP one, provided all other variables are identical.
PCI-E is about making the video processor useful for more than just dumping graphics data. Modern graphics chips are essentially giant geometry calculators, and could be used for far more than they currently are. Due to the fact that PCI-E allows data to be communicated back to the system after it has been processed on the card, this opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. Many 'glitches' in current rendering techniques should dissapear now that the card can relay what the output looks like back to the game driver, allowing it to make on the fly corrections to the image.
PCI-E is all about features, not performance. It should perform like any other interface really, maybe a couple percent faster due to the increased bandwidth, but nothing major. I doubt games will truly begin to take advantage of it for a couple years. Upgrading right now to get PCI-E is ridiculous, however buying a top of the line AGP card at this juncture is equally ridiculous...
For most games/3d-app AGP/PCI-X is not the most important thing. Number of pipelines, vertex processors and GPU clock is defining factor. AGP/PCI-X matter only for applications/games which are streaming (not loading by big blocks) a lot of data from the disk (for example detailed, not patterned, seamless terrain engine), and that is not common in modern games.
As a non-gamer I am truly curious about the impact of these latest graphics cards for regular everyday use (spreadsheets, word processing, photoshop, etc.). Do these cards do anything to improve 2-D performance (scrolling, image manipulations, large screen displays?). I would assume that the inproved memory bandwidth helps a few percent, but that all the vertex shaders & pipelines mean little to 2-D office and graphics applications.
I'm just curious.
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This is the next evolution in peripherals. Every slot in your PC will be able to take every sort of device you can think of, including the latest and fastest video card(s). Like the old PCI-only days, but with better-than-AGP speed, across the board.
So where are the demonstrations and technology notes showing that PCI-EXPRESS will enable us to do something with our video that was not possible with with say AGP 32X with a seperate power channel?
How do we know this is not just another marketing plot like Intel's statements that sockets were no longer able to advance and we are required to use slot packaging for CPUs?
I propose that this is a way to get you on your next MB upgrade. It comes with a PCI-Express slot instead of AGP, so you have to purchase a new video card to replace your Radeon 9800 that is plenty fast enough.
I have yet to see any real advantages to the consumers for changing to PCI-Express. A small change that is equal to a GPU and Memory speed boost is not enough. The update must be substantial and generation jumping.
AGP is conceptually broken. You can only have a single slot, which means if you want dual display, you have to either use a multi-head video card, which is extremely cost prohibitive in most cases, or use some obscure piece of addon hardware. Not to mention, if you want AGP on any sort of high end motherboard, be prepared to pay 3x what it is worth. (EX, the cheapest AGP equipped, dual opteron motherboard, with PCI-X slots hits $500 minimum, while a non AGP equipped motherboard of similar specs goes for $200: See pricewatch)
And what benefit do we get from this? Direct Access to system memory? This is slow... a lot slower then we were led to believe when this was first coming to market. So slow in fact that most serious users turn this feature off. And you would be sacrificing good system memory.
Anyway, my rant is done.
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"Have to"???
Unless you've got money burning in your pocket, I don't see the need for even a hardcore gamer to constantly jump at the absolute latest & greatest cards as soon as they come out. Although if they do, they should understand that they're paying top dollar each and every time.
Besides, the last I recall, it's not like the AGP 8X is getting overwhelmed, is it? That's not exactly the bottleneck in most systems...
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It's not so much about performance with PCI-E, it's about getting more features and use out of the video processors. PCI-E allows data to be communicated back to the system after it has been processed on the card so rendering glitches could possibly be fixed on the fly. This way PCI-E could lead to getting more usage from video processors.
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AGP was a hack onto PCI. PCI-Express will give us the symmetric bandwidth we need. Yeah!
Absolutely. Video cards are like sand in the wind. I'm not a gamer myself, so I get to be amused as my friends pay $500 for a card, then sell it on eBay 12 months later for $200 and buy another $500 card.
I recently pulled a graphics card out of the trash box at work and we putting it into a test box. A friend laughed and said that he had paid several hundred bucks for that "top end" video card about 4 or 5 years ago, and now it wasn't even worth keeping out of the dumpster; any $30 cheapo would whip it these days.
I also don't see how this hurts buyers of the latest AGP cards. It's not like you won't buy a new card when you build a new machine, anyway; by the time you build a new machine that $500 card will be a lamer POS anyway.
I actually fail to see why it hurts those of us that did buy the last generation of cards. I needed a video card, this was the best out there (well best bang for the buck) so I bought one. How does this news affect something I did in the past and why would it affect my future? Anyone care to explain?
...but in case your multi-GHz processor will serve your needs just fine for several years, while your AGP card won't last you nearly as long, you'd wish you had an upgrade path, yes?
That being said, not being an FPS freak I've found that by the time I'd like to replace the GFX card, there's also lots of other new things on the mobo, new CPU socket, new memory interface/speeds, RAID / SATA / GB LAN / dual LAN / Firewire / USB2 / Bluetooth / WiFi / PCI-X / whatever to justify upgrading the whole machine.
Or, more to the trend, perhaps what you'd really like is to change form factor from ATX to a mirco-ATX or similar, get one of those mini-PCs.
But, if what you do is gaming, judging by the hours some people I know spend, getting the latest GFX card every six months be "reasonable". Just compare it to how much money other people dump into hobbies like cars or skiing or whatever. If you do it all the time, you want some seriously good equipment even though you'll never "recover" the investment.
And for those, it kinda sucks since they'll need a new computer to go with their spanking new GFX card. On the other hand, the AGP slot has been around for a long long time now, going from 1x->2x->4x->8x. Compared to pretty much every other interface, it's hardly surprising that it's time for some design changes.
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This does not bode well for those of us who just paid top dollar for the last generation of AGP cards
Maybe you oughta reconsider those hasty purchases. I'm perfectly happy buying 6 month old hardware. Drivers are usually working pretty good by then and I don't lose nearly the amount of money you do on the "brand new" aspect of it all.
You've got to render twice as many frames for stereo viewing.
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Now that you mention it...given the same chipset and specs for a specific card:
1) What are the advantages of PCI(normal 32bit)x66mhz vs AGP?
2) AGP vs PCI-Express?
Because I have seen that the advantage from PCI->AGP is not really THAT great!
PCI Express is one peice of the superfast home computer puzzle but where's the solid state drives that made all the headlines from last year? I may have a ATI 9700 Pro but I'm reluctant to upgrade to a AMD 64 system due to uncertain decisions in the market lately.
We have
ATX Redesign ATB? and were seeing new cases
New motherboards will follow that with PCI-X
AMD Possibly giving Intel the smackdown with a long awaited frequency increase (If you dont realize AMD proc's can beat a Intel proc on task basis but not freq based benchmarks.. Match frequencies and you'll blow them out of the water)
Solid State Drives are supposed to pop up here somewhere. Imagine the possibilities!
Of course gaming may force my hand this fall with the new releases of MMORPG's such as WOW since I dont tolerate any lag from my machines in these games unless it's network related. Just hope those Shuttle AMD 64 XPC's come down in price.
I never bought an AGP card , as I thought it was a very temporary solution that no one assumed would replace PCI.
I never bought a VESA local bus card either, actually.
I think the exciting thing about this is that we will finally have the possibility to multipipe our graphics systems. A gamer can have a very good system with one card installed, but a graphics workstation might have 4 installed. Not going to 4 monitors as others have mentioned, but all splitting the load for one display for 4 times the performance.
As it is I have to have 4 full machines and a wicked fast network to do the same.
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Amiga. Amigas are going for a bundle (especially 3000Ts and 4000s) in the used market. Generally, though, you are correct, especially in the x86 market.
Well, call me old school for bringing this up, but the more I read about how the graphics chips/cards as well as (I'm betting) sound and anything else you can plug into the PCI interface becomes more "integrated" with the motherboard to allow faster communication, better memory allotment, etc. it all reminds me of the design of the Amiga. Yes, the Amiga. The Amiga could do the most amazing things with graphics and sound and memory that PCs did not catch up with for many years all due to the design of the Amiga and NOW I see PCs converging towards the Amiga ideal (tighter integration of motherboard/processor/RAM/video/sound) with the added bonus of plug-and-play or hot-swap capability. Am I missing something in what I have read? Or is the PC world evolving into what the Amiga could have been if Commodore hadn't fscked it up?
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