PCI Express 3.0 Delayed Till 2011

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PCI Express 3.0 Delayed Till 2011

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 20, 2009 @05:49AM from the dreamliner-of-connections dept.

Professor_Quail writes "PC Magazine reports that the PCI SIG has officially delayed the release of the PCI Express 3.0 specification until the second quarter of 2010. Originally, the PCI Express 3.0 specification called for the spec itself to be released this year, with products due about a year after the spec's release, or in 2010."

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Delayed the release? by jhfry · 2009-08-20 05:51 · Score: 4, Funny

So the spec is complete, but were not gonna tell you what it says!
Doesn't make sense!

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1. Re:Delayed the release? by jhfry · 2009-08-20 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  Oh wait... they didn't delay the spec... they spec is not ready yet. BIG DIFFERENCE!
  
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  Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
2. Re:Delayed the release? by impaledsunset · 2009-08-20 05:57 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  They are just giving time to Amazon's EC2/S3 to get compliant.
3. Re:Delayed the release? by eldavojohn · 2009-08-20 05:59 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  So the spec is complete, but were not gonna tell you what it says!
  Doesn't make sense!
  The article says they're working on getting it to be backward compliant with the current PCIe specs. You probably don't want to start building to the spec until that's in place anyway. You can find a lot of information on PCIe 3.0 on the FAQ on their site. If you're a member of PCI SIG, you might even be able to get the preliminary spec, who knows?
  
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4. Re:Delayed the release? by hairyfeet · 2009-08-20 10:30 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Personally I am quite glad they are delaying it until it is fully backwards compatible. Most folks here are probably too young to remember the "fun" of having hardware not be backwards compatible. Hell during the "fun" days of proprietary everything we even had things such as "Compaq RAM" that would only work in a Compaq board and even then only with certain boards that matched the particular quirks Compaq had built in! What fun! What joy!
  At least today RAM is RAM, PCI is PCI, and USB is USB. It is so much easier now that everything is built to spec and is backwards compatible. Just the other day I had to plug my USB 2.0 thumbdrive into a USB 1.0 port on an old office machine to snatch off some files before fixing it. in the old nothing is compatible days that would have been a royal PITA to get to work, if you could get it to work at all, but thanks to the specs being backward compatible I was easily able to snatch the relevant files, even if it was slow as Xmas. And don't think it couldn't happen in the modern time, because you've never had the "fun" of AGP 2, 4, and 8 where....damn I can't remember the formula anymore. I think it was a 2 could work in a 4, and a 4 could work sometimes in an 8, but an 8 couldn't work in a 2. Something like that. I for one would rather wait and not have to remember stupid formulas like that again, thanks ever so much.
  
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5. Re:Delayed the release? by petermgreen · 2009-08-20 11:03 · Score: 1
  
  AGP 1x and 2x were 3.3V, 4x was 1.5V and 8x was 0.8V.
  Afaict virtually all stuff that supported 0.8V supported 1.5V as well. So that left 1.5V/0.8V vs 3.3V as the main compatibility issue. There was a notching system that was supposed to indicate whether a card/motherboard supported just 3.3V, just 1.5V/0.8V or both and prevent incompatible combinations from mating. Unfortunately some manufacturers miskeyed thier products.
  BTW PCI also had two voltages though the lower voltage was generally only seen on pretty high end boards (all the higher speed variants of PCI needed the lower voltage).
  And there are lots of different ram types arround too though maybe not as many as there were back in the day, unregistered/registered/fully bufferd, different DDR versions etc. Then there are some machines that are very fussy about ram (this is apparently a big issue with the EEE 900)
  
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6. Re:Delayed the release? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 12:15 · Score: 0
  
  Your computer isn't running with a Payment Card Industry bus.
  They're only up to version 1.2 and its not up to gaming.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_DSS
7. Re:Delayed the release? by hairyfeet · 2009-08-20 12:54 · Score: 1
  
  So it was a AGP 1 will work in a 2, a 4 will work in an 8, but an 8 or a 4 won't work in a 1 or a 2. See that is why i'm glad that we don't really need formulas like that anymore. oh and working with cheaper boards you had to be VERY careful about matching card to board spec, because a lot of the cheaper boards couldn't really be trusted by notching alone. IIRC it was really bad with the cheaper Foxconn and Abit boards. That is why I like ECS on the cheaper builds, because I had better luck with those.
  Now as far as RAM goes, while I agree that there are a LOT of different speeds, at least today a stick of PC6400 is a stick of PC6400 and will work 99% of the time. If you remember the days of "Compaq RAM" it really was a crapshoot, as you could buy the correct size/speed and STILL have it not work, or worse yet, it would work but slowly corrupt the system and cause weird hard to track down errors due to incompatible voltages. So while I have never messed with a EEE-900, and frankly have never cared for ASUS as I have found their mobo drivers to be seriously flaky even compared to a bottom of the line Foxconn but of course costing more $$$, I'd say for the most part the days of "buy while crossing your fingers" is thankfully behind us. I for one am glad I don't have to do like my former boss and keep a box with RAM sticks divided by manufacturer anymore.
  Compaq and HP had to be the worst, as I have found several where NOTHING stock is compatible, from the PSU on up. I am staring right now at a SFF 733Mhz Compaq where the PSU is shaped like a fricking triangle! Good luck replacing that if the PSU ever dies. For awhile there they even had a model (Deskpro I think) where you couldn't even get a standard drive to fit without bashing the drive case to fit. A few of the old HP Pavilion "knucklebuster" cases were the same. Talk about a royal PITA
  
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8. Re:Delayed the release? by Hal_Porter · 2009-08-20 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe it's like USB 3.0 XHCI spec. Our spec is like beautiful man. But you can't just download the PDF from a webpage. You need to get your boss to sign something and fax it and then post the originals. Bureaucratic Fucks.
  http://www.intel.com/technology/usb/xhcispec.htm
  
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9. Re:Delayed the release? by davester666 · 2009-08-20 15:10 · Score: 1
  
  Or they worked out a deal with computer manufacturers to get an extra upgrade cycle. There'll be one this year, for people who just have to have Windows Vista SP2/3, and then another one next year for businesses that want PCI3...
  
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10. Re:Delayed the release? by Hal_Porter · 2009-08-20 15:22 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Personally I am quite glad they are delaying it until it is fully backwards compatible.
  Umm dude this is slashdot. The correct response is "This new standard sucks. It would be 10x faster if they didn't worry about back compatibility cruft" from a bunch of people who didn't understand the old standard but have been told it was really complex.
  A good example would be x64 replacing x86. Every single nerd on the internet knows that x86 is bloated and that x64 should have started from scratch, despite the fact that a look at a picture of the die of a modern processor shows that the actually CPU core is completely dwarfed by cache. Oh and lots of people including Intel have built RISC and VLIW chips without the x86 legacy stuff and they didn't turn out to have a long term performance advantage over the 'crufty' x86. Actually the cruft on x86 is a slightly larger hardware decode unit for frequently used instructions compared to RISC. Still x86 instructions take up less room in memory and thus in the cache. It could well be that it's cheaper to build a larger decoder than it would be to increase the cache size to fit the same number of RISC instructions in it.
  
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11. Re:Delayed the release? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 20:32 · Score: 0
  
  Hahahahahahhahhaha! Loser :-) Bwahhahahahahah loooooooooooser. Take that gun out of you safe and shoot yourself. Nobody cares about you whahahahahhahaha :D
12. Re:Delayed the release? by bryan1945 · 2009-08-20 23:32 · Score: 1
  
  "I am staring right now at a SFF 733Mhz Compaq where the PSU is shaped like a fricking triangle! "
  Now that is truly awesome! What drugs was/were the engineer(s) taking when they designed that!
  As for RAM, I've stuck different speeds together (not recommended) when Franken-building machines from old parts. It will work, if a bit quirky. Talking about 5-10 years ago; don't know how current machines and RAM will behave if you try that now.
  Then there was the Amiga's floppy drive. Even though the disks were the same, there was some physical incompatibility with the drive that made them not readable by PCs (or vice versa, I can't remember). Ah, the fun old days, crafting IRQ settings and configuring Extended (Expanded?) RAM for games.
  
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13. Re:Delayed the release? by bryan1945 · 2009-08-20 23:40 · Score: 1
  
  It is one thing to switch to a new processor (say Macs from Motorola to PPC to Intel), which is a good thing in the long run, and another in letting interconnects be backwards compatible. Remember the furor of phasing out ADB, PS/2, serial, and parallel for USB? If USB 3 is not back-compatible, yikes. As for PCI, I'm not a graphics guy, so I don't know if back-compat is a big deal performance wise or not.
  
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14. Re:Delayed the release? by TheSunborn · 2009-08-21 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with the Amiga floppy was not really the drive itself but the floppy controller. You can read amiga disks on a standard pc diskdrive, but it require either a special disk controller, or 2 diskdrives and some REALLY clever software*.
  *Googling for why it require 2 diskdrives for a pc to read 1 amiga disk, will really show some great software hacking.
15. Re:Delayed the release? by hairyfeet · 2009-08-21 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  I'd love to know that myself, and if they have some left, because it has got to be one of the most fucked up designs I have ever seen, and 15 years in the biz that is saying something. Apparently they went for a "small form factor or die" mentality when they built this thing, because not only does it have a triangle shaped PSU (not kidding about the shape either. The back half is square, but the front half looks like you cut a PSU at a perfect right angle. Really weird) but the HDD is on TOP of the CPU!
  No shit, they actually mounted the drive cage in this funky "flip top" config that when the machine is together the CPU has may 3/4 of an inch between the CPU fan and the HDD. Which of course means the CPU sucks the HOT air off the HDD and blows into onto the CPU! Smart, huh? I had to put a PCI fan that has a pair of telescoping fans set to suck the hot air away from the HDD/CPU block and the FX5200 PCI I dropped in and blow it out the back. Makes a great little Win9X box for playing old games.
  As for the RAM, I've been doing that trick for years myself. In fact that 733MHz has a PC100, a PC133, and a weird ass PC125, damned if I know where I got that from, but it all works. I've found if you get pretty close to speed it will usually run alright. Of course with my customers PCs I match up the sticks, but if it is one I'm building for fun or a "Frankenbox" I'm putting together out of scraps to sell I just use whatever is in the drawer.But you couldn't do that trick with the old "Compaq RAM" as Compaq would have their boards made a little off spec voltage wise, either a little hot or a little low depending on the board, and any RAM not made to run in their funky voltages would freak and throw all kinds of errors. It was an easy and cheap way for Compaq to screw their customers, as you had to buy "Genuine Compaq Memory" which was as high as Apple RAM is today. I for one am quite happy that the "good old days" are dead and gone, thank you very much.
  
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Whatever by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 05:55 · Score: 0

PCI Express 2.0 has more bandwidth than anyone will ever need
1. Re:Whatever by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  640KB is more than enough for anyone!
2. Re:Whatever by Old97 · 2009-08-20 06:03 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yeah, and I've got 640k of ram. All I'll ever need.
  
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3. Re:Whatever by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 06:24 · Score: 0
  
  IPV4 is plenty good enough, just use NAT
4. Re:Whatever by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2009-08-20 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  You spoiled it. It should have read "PCI Express 2.0 has more bandwidth than anyone with 640 KB of RAM will ever need."
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
5. Re:Whatever by lorenlal · 2009-08-20 07:07 · Score: 1
  
  Done
6. Re:Whatever by Urkki · 2009-08-20 08:08 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  PCI Express 2.0 has more bandwidth than anyone will ever need
  It might have more bandwidth than hardly anyone will ever need before 2011... So start saving, 2011 you'll be paying blood for your new PCIe 3.0 graphics card!
7. Re:Whatever by hairyfeet · 2009-08-20 10:38 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly that one is actually true if we didn't have so many from the old days sitting on huge A blocks that they don't use. I can't remember the exact figures, but there are just gigantic amounts of the A block of addresses that sit unused because big names like IBM and Ford and Apple got huge chunks when the net was new and never did anything with them.
  So if ICANN would just have a "use it or lose it" policy and take back all those unused addresses we would have enough in IPV4 to last us quite awhile yet. I don't even want to think about the amount of ewaste that will be generated when we switch over by all of the hardware out there that can't support IPV6 and will end up getting tossed. Even my 67 year old Luddite father has a wireless router running NAT, and I haven't seen a home without some kind of network setup in a few years, and I bet a good 95% of that stuff will never be able to support IPV6. So it really is a shame IMHO that we won't cut the waste out of the system with all the unused A blocks to give time for the hardware to get worn out and replaced. We could always mandate that all hardware from now on be IPV6 aware and allow the older gear to phase out naturally.
  
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8. Re:Whatever by V!NCENT · 2009-08-20 20:43 · Score: 1
  
  That's nothing! I calculate Linux by hand!
  
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Who cares by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 05:57 · Score: 1, Insightful

Just another reason to make everyone buy new motherboards. Add one more pin to the CPU while you're at it. Seriously, PCIe 1.1 or whatever is great for me and I play crysis at 1280x1024 with an old ATI X1900- by no means top of the line and on a FX-60 socket 939 CPU. Eventually I'll buy an AM2 or AM3 or AM9 or whatever they're on next. These PCIe upgrades really don't offer much anyway. Mainly we need to get manufacturers to stop selling x8 electricals as x16's.
1. Re:Who cares by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2009-08-20 06:24 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I'm guessing that PCIe 3 isn't really aimed at people playing games on single socket systems with outdated graphics cards. It probably isn't really aimed at desktops, at present.
  
  Cluster interconnects, high speed storage attachment, and various flavors of coprocessors are always hungry for more bandwidth.
2. Re:Who cares by Amouth · 2009-08-20 07:04 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  but isnt' that the point of making it a channelized system? where each channel is full duplex? they can jsut add more channels as needed.
  16x - 20x - 24x - 32x
  you can plug a 1x or 4x card in a 16x slot and have it work - hell if you wanted to you could make a 3x card..
  adding more available channels on the slot is much less of a change to it than PICX was to PCI.. and that actualy turned out to work quite well..
  i'm all for increasing the speed of interconnects - but adding more lanes seems to work just as well - jsut costs alittle more in terms of copper..
  
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3. Re:Who cares by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2009-08-20 07:11 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Being able to add channels is certainly handy; but it isn't really a substitute for increasing speeds. If it were, we'd still be using PCI-X. Particularly in space constrained systems(laptops, blades, etc.) running more connectors and more traces is neither easy nor cheap. Even in your basic desktop ATX boards, you'd be hard pressed to get much more than a 16X slot without impinging on the RAM slots, or the CPU cooler area, or some other part.
  
  For the moment, at least, our ability to drive wires faster at low cost seems to be increasing substantially more quickly than our ability to run more wires at low cost.
4. Re:Who cares by afidel · 2009-08-20 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  8GB/s (PCIe 2.0 x16) per connector is a hell of a lot. Dual connector FCoE adapters are about the biggest bandwidth users in most servers today and that's only 2GB/s. For servers the big thing will probably be to reduce the number of PCIe busses due to getting sufficient bandwidth out of an x4 connector, but it comes at the cost of much more expensive silicon and motherboard design. Not only that but I like distributing load among multiple busses as it reduces the havoc that one misbehaving device can cause.
  
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5. Re:Who cares by TheThiefMaster · 2009-08-20 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  Make a double-slot card that goes in two 16x slots if you need 32x?
  The only problem with that is almost all boards with multiple 16x sockets have them with a 1x socket in between...
6. Re:Who cares by Professor_Quail · 2009-08-20 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  For some applications (like CUDA), it's better to be able to 'burst' at a higher speed (like that provided by PCI Express 3.0) rather than a sustained transfer at high speeds (though obviously both would be the best). I submitted the article because frankly I was a bit disappointed when I read it. I've been holding off on getting a new graphics card for CUDA development because I was hoping that PCI Express 3.0 would be out towards the end of the year. Now I have to debate whether to get one now, or wait for the GT300 at the end of the year.
7. Re:Who cares by petermgreen · 2009-08-20 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  Looks like a PCIe x32 connector is 210 mm long ( http://az-com.com/pages/pcie/pcie_pdf/ds-06-01.pdf ) compared to 158 mm for x16
  I'm finding it tricky to find the length of standard PCI connectors and things are also complicated by the fact that PCI express connector go closer to the edge of the motherboard than PCI ones but I'd guess it would reach back about as far as a 64-bit PCI slot does.
  Still I agree it would be a routing nightmare (which means more layers and therefore more cost)
  
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whats in 3.0? by convolvatron · 2009-08-20 05:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

the pci sig blurb says its mostyl cleanup and the removal of 5v support
does anyone know of anything interesting in 3.0?
1. Re:whats in 3.0? by symbolset · 2009-08-20 06:09 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Twice as fast again. x16 is 32GB/s. They're looking to support 3 graphics cards per PC, which is cool if you're into that whole supercomputer on your desk thing, but it's going to burn at least a kilowatt.
  I'm sad we haven't seen external PCIe implemented. It was in the v2 specification. The idea of an external interconnect with that much bandwidth probably made some heavy players nervous.
  
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2. Re:whats in 3.0? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 06:24 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  http://www.ni.com/pxi/mxiexpress/
3. Re:whats in 3.0? by AndrewNeo · 2009-08-20 06:30 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  As the AC above me referenced, National Instruments uses PCI-e for a lot of their backplane communications in their equipment.
4. Re:whats in 3.0? by symbolset · 2009-08-20 07:01 · Score: 1
  
  I was kind of hoping for a cable, so we could use expansion chassis like in the olden days. Also, for laptop docking.
  
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5. Re:whats in 3.0? by Wesley+Felter · 2009-08-20 07:08 · Score: 1
  
  Nvidia has an external PCIe Tesla. I've also seen external GPUs for laptops and I heard something about RED Rocket for laptops that hangs off the ExpressCard slot.
6. Re:whats in 3.0? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 07:46 · Score: 0
  
  lookup infiniband- there's even exernal PCIe boxes for infiniband.
7. Re:whats in 3.0? by seifried · 2009-08-20 07:46 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  They're looking to support 3 graphics cards per PC
  Interesting, I just read the specs on my motherboard which has 4 slots for video cards, granted with 4 slots used it's only 8x (which is ok since I live in 2d land) but with 3 or less in use they're all 16x (well, so it claims), so it would seem that's already covered.
8. Re:whats in 3.0? by bobcat7677 · 2009-08-20 07:56 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  There have been and still are a few implementations of external pci express. But they have all been prohibitively expensive and somewhat "special purpose". Besides ones already mentioned there is also several product options from http://www.magma.com/ Be prepared to drop a Grover Cleveland to get one.
9. Re:whats in 3.0? by TeknoHog · 2009-08-20 08:07 · Score: 0
  
  There have been and still are a few implementations of external pci express. But they have all been prohibitively expensive and somewhat "special purpose".
  Yeah, they're called ExpressCards.
  
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10. Re:whats in 3.0? by symbolset · 2009-08-20 08:18 · Score: 1
  
  Infiniband is nice of course, and I'm aware of it. I was looking for something with consumer grade pricing. The kind of Infiniband I would use to attach my motherboard x32 PCIe 2.0 to an external chassis with 8 x4 PCIe 2.0 cards costs more than my house - I think. I would be sure but apparently if you have to ask, you can't afford it.
  
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11. Re:whats in 3.0? by symbolset · 2009-08-20 08:37 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Holy cow, that's what I was looking for, thanks! The Magma ExpressBox7. $2800 for 7 x4 electical, x16 physical slots and a x4 host adapter with cable, rackmount. That's why I like Slashdot.
  This enables some interesting configurations of those 1TB PCIe attached SSDs.
  
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12. Re:whats in 3.0? by Wesley+Felter · 2009-08-20 08:47 · Score: 1
  
  External PCIe x1 isn't that expensive: http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpress/expressbox1/index.html
  The x8 version starts to get expensive, though: http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpress/expressbox4-1u/prices.html
13. Re:whats in 3.0? by BikeHelmet · 2009-08-20 08:51 · Score: 1
  
  Twice as fast again. x16 is 32GB/s. They're looking to support 3 graphics cards per PC, which is cool if you're into that whole supercomputer on your desk thing, but it's going to burn at least a kilowatt.
  No.
  Ever read those power consumption reviews, with beefy high end cards? Usually the computers(quad core, single high end GPU) use 200-300w load. Much of that comes from the CPU/mobo/RAM/HDD/etc. If you add a few more cards, it's unlikely you'll even hit 500 watts.
  I picked up a Kill-A-Watt off newegg, a while back, and was surprised to find out my gaming computer only consumes ~100 watts from the wall. That's partly influenced by having a high efficiency PSU, and partly by parts not consuming nearly as much as everyone thinks.
  
  I'm sad we haven't seen external PCIe implemented. It was in the v2 specification. The idea of an external interconnect with that much bandwidth probably made some heavy players nervous.
  Yes.
14. Re:whats in 3.0? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 09:54 · Score: 0
  
  Only 3 graphics cards per PC? I'd say closer to 3 graphics cards per 16x slot with that bandwidth. Last I heard, PCI-E 1.0 8x slots just started hitting their limits with 2-3 cards in crossfire/SLI, PCI-E 3.0 16x slots should be 8x as much bandwidth.
  I am not sure on the external interconnect thing, unless it goes over Fiber it's probably not going to be too nice to use. Personally, I'd like to see these interconnects like PCI-E die and be replaced with fiber, it would be so nice to have something like compartments (like 3.5"/5.25" drive slots) contain a device and you just connect power and a fiber pair to it. Much less space needed on the motherboard, much more flexibility in case design, and much more flexibility in what it is used for (external fiber ports to replace eSata/USB).
15. Re:whats in 3.0? by petermgreen · 2009-08-20 11:41 · Score: 1
  
  I picked up a Kill-A-Watt off newegg, a while back, and was surprised to find out my gaming computer only consumes ~100 watts from the wall.
  Is that an idle measurement or one under heavy load?
  
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16. Re:whats in 3.0? by BikeHelmet · 2009-08-20 14:45 · Score: 1
  
  Idle. Heavy load peaks it up to about 150, depending on whether the CPU, GPU, or both are stressed.
  If I were to multitask and burn a DVD while video encoding on one core and playing Left4Dead, I have a feeling I could push it higher - but lets be honest... that isn't really average use. ;)
  And before anyone asks, I checked out the consumption of other stuff like lightbulbs, my monitor, microwave, etc. to make sure the Kill-A-Watt wasn't on the fritz.
17. Re:whats in 3.0? by denttford · 2009-08-20 20:15 · Score: 1
  
  Another alternative is this interesting box: http://www.startech.com/item/PEX2PCIE4L-PCI-Express-to-2-PCI-Full-Length-2-PCIe-Single-lane-Expansion-Box.aspx
  
  I haven't used it, but I came across it while looking for a way to relocate my Delta 1010 PCI card away from one of my PCIe 16x slots. Also available is a PCIe to external 4xPCI slots, which is great for legacy stuff (or interesting wifi configurations?).
  
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2012 actually! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 06:04 · Score: 1, Funny

This is when the first pci express 3 spec computer is installed into the LHC control system.
strange self-reference by Black+Parrot · 2009-08-20 06:08 · Score: 4, Funny

the PCI Express 3.0 specification called for the spec itself to be released this year
Now we know how time loops are accidentally created.

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1. Re:strange self-reference by baka_toroi · 2009-08-20 06:44 · Score: 1
  
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2nd half of 2010 == 2011 !?!? by lofoforabr · 2009-08-20 06:23 · Score: 1

In which calendar??
1. Re:2nd half of 2010 == 2011 !?!? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 07:22 · Score: 0
  
  If you RTFS, it states that the products will be due out about a year after the release of the spec, so if its released in 2010 then products will not be available until sometime in 2011.
Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2009-08-20 06:24 · Score: 1

Stupid X-Fi Fatality and its terrible drivers.
1. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 06:35 · Score: 0
  
  Who still uses 3rd party sound cards? Why? You wasted your money!
2. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by MLS100 · 2009-08-20 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  Did you really just now find out Creative drivers are shit?
3. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Manip · 2009-08-20 07:12 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Creative purchased their drivers off of a third party company and then just updated them over the years. This literally happened since the soundriver products began. Once Vista came out with an entirely new sound infrastructure nobody at Creative had the expertise to write a decent driver so they cobbled one together (with Microsoft's help) from their old horrible drivers.
  Fact is - Creative soundscards aren't worth while because the drivers are so poor. Even if the sound hardware could potentially take load off of the CPU, you're more likely to spend endless hours messing with it and even if it does work it won't work as effectively as one might hope.
4. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2009-08-20 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  Not really, because the Sigmatel chip built into my Intel board... had serious problems with monitoring input. It had much worse drivers than Creative X-Fi Titanium.
  To be fair to creative, they did fix a lot of the latency issues on the driver that were due to pcie timings... but they still pop up on my system from time to time.
  Audio in a program will sometimes degrade into a crackling audio stream until i restart the program. Sometimes i ahve to restart the entire PC.
  OVERALL, the drivers have some nice features... Its that one bug that is terrible.
  I am actually a lot happier with the card over the Sigmatel chip which took them over 2 years to write a driver capable of monitoring the line in jack. And when they finally released that driver... it barely functioned right. It even had a memory leak that would balloon the audio service memory usage until you killed it.
5. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2009-08-20 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  I took a break from creative for a long time. I owned the original SB many years ago, the AWE32, SB LIVes, and Audigy 1...
  After that i was done with creative for sometime. Those cards were all good and I still had some faith in creative. For a long time they were a solid go to company for sound cards.... since the old dos days.
  Recent years... i guess thats not true. I knew that when i went in on the XFI titantium, but my sigmatel onboard chip SUCKED. It had terrible driver support and broken functionality due to poor drivers.
  I looked into other cards besides the XFI Fatality Titantium.. but they seemed even more iffy. So i gave Creative a try again.
  Over all... I like the XFI a lot. Feature wise its nice, the drivers features are nice, and it works quite well, sounds better... and everything. Its just this dumb bug they've been battling for sometime. Apparently they solved the issue on most systems but from tiem to time it pops up on mine. (ITS NOT THAT BAD trust me)... but... it should work 100% for the price.
6. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Xtravar · 2009-08-20 08:52 · Score: 1
  
  If you're doing anything serious with a line-in jack, you're probably using the wrong tools anyway.
  I'd get a professional audio soundcard or, more likely, an external USB or Firewire unit from some company like M-Audio.
  
  --
  Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
7. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by antdude · 2009-08-20 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  Hardware EAX, quality audio for musicians (not Creative's cards), etc.
  
  --
  Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
8. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2009-08-20 14:37 · Score: 1
  
  Your right, but i'm just using the line in so that 2 pc's audio come through the same speaker set.
  I work in film and know plenty of audio guys. My best friend has a recording studio. I'm a visual fx artist, and photographer. I know gear pretty well... I was simply piping one PC's audio into another which had speakers attached.
  Like I said, I work mostly in visual arts... so i didnt need a MOTU, M-Audio etc...
  Just something for basic PC sound while i work and the occasional game when i'm tired of working :)
9. Re:Good Cause Creative still cant handle PCIe now! by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2009-08-20 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  I have heard that Creative purchased their drivers from a third party. I'm not sure that its completely true or any different than what Creative has done in the past. I'm pretty sure for a long time, Creative's products were all pretty much made and engineered overseas by tech companies they hired. I dont think Creative did any real driver producing ever... short of maybe the original SB for dos.
AGP by chucklebutte · 2009-08-20 11:02 · Score: 0

im happy with my AGP ATI Raedon 700xt 256MB DDR3 o.O

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Till, until and 'til by SimonTheSoundMan · 2009-08-20 11:07 · Score: 1

Epic fail with the title? A "till" is a cash register, something you put money into. Do they mean 'til, short for until.
1. Re:Till, until and 'til by Mozk · 2009-08-20 13:07 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Epic fail with the title? A "till" is a cash register, something you put money into. Do they mean 'til, short for until.
  Til(l) was the original form of the word. The redundant prefix un(d) was added later, and nowadays people mistake till as a shortened version of until, which gives 'til. So, there's nothing wrong with the headline.
  http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=till
  http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=until
  
  --
  No existe.
2. Re:Till, until and 'til by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 16:02 · Score: 0
  
  Does anybody actually care? ( and you three over there can put your hands down )
3. Re:Till, until and 'til by Ksevio · 2009-08-21 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  No, the newest cash register known as the "Till 2011" depends on the user of PCI Express 3.0 and hence has been delayed.
Article promise big speed ups. by physburn · 2009-08-20 13:19 · Score: 1

128 Bit encoding running at up to 8 GHz, not that any current or near term CPU has a bus half as fast a that. That a lot of bandwidth. Are current graphic card bottlenecked at all by the PCI bus?
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Graphics Cards Feed @ Feed Distiller
Made sure the Kill-A-Watt wasn't on the fritz. by symbolset · 2009-08-20 16:57 · Score: 1

Cool. Because we wouldn't want your measurements to be out of range of variance for a microwave or retail 60 Watt bulb. That would be bad.
It has probably occurred to you that people using that "supercomputer on your desk thing" might have different use cases than yourself. You've probably also considered that since this is slashdot, you might be talking to someone with NIST certified test equipment rather than a Kill-A-Watt purchased from Newegg.
It's cool that you're interested enough to buy your own test equipment. I wish more people were interested in the power consumption of their electronics. If they were, the requirements would come down faster than they are. As it is, they're coming down not because we here demand it, but because the emerging markets flat don't have it.
Drive on!

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1. Re:Made sure the Kill-A-Watt wasn't on the fritz. by BikeHelmet · 2009-08-20 21:32 · Score: 1
  
  Hehe, sarcasm. ;)
  I don't really care how accurate my Kill-A-Watt is, so long as it isn't reporting a 300 watt computer as using 150 watts. After testing various devices, I'm fairly satisfied that this isn't the case.
  I tried some 20w energy efficient bulbs, and they were consuming 25 watts each. :/ My 35w monitor only consumes 28w when on.
  Out of curiosity I also tried an old CRT TV. That thing was a monster! ;)
  I wish more people were interested too. Power demands are always going up - but if we can make things more energy efficient, we can use more devices without hurting the environment as much, and avoid paying peak rates. However, it also delays much-needed infrastructure upgrades for the power grid, as they aren't a necessity yet.
Re:Shit lover by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-20 20:41 · Score: 0

Nobody cares about your insignificant little life. Go kill yourself. It's across the lane and not down the street.
I think the guy needs a dictionary. by Jane+Q.+Public · 2009-08-20 22:14 · Score: 1

"... we had to do the diligence required to move the date."

Uh, I hate to break this to you, guy, but according to the dictionary, moving back the deadline is pretty close to the opposite of "doing diligence".
Re:Shit lover by geminidomino · 2009-08-21 05:24 · Score: 1

Nobody cares about your insignificant little life. Go kill yourself. It's across the lane and not down the street.
*facepalm* If you're going to flame, do it right. You got it backwards, dummy.
Or, in the more concise and efficient spirit of the Scary Devil Monastery, simply...
"Down, not across."
I suspect there are other reasons for the delay. by rossy · 2009-08-21 06:24 · Score: 1

The capital equipment costs to buy IC testers that run up to 8Ghz is quite prohibitive. In this economy I don't think too many IC production facilities are willing to lay out the funds to buy equipment to test at this higher rate until they have cash flow coming in from the upturn. Until then the test coverage of IC's that run at 8Ghz is minimal and will require bench test methods and "guarantee" by design. This delay if not due to the capital equipment requirements of testing at 8Ghz, will allow suppliers to come up with methods to test the IC's using existing equipment, and gather statistical yield data in the meantime to support alternative testing methodologies.

I am not directly involved in any testing at these rates today, but you would have heard of large capitol purchases from any major supplier of IC's that run at these higher rates if a large capitol purchase was placed with any of the three or four major ATE (Automatic Test Equipment) suppliers. 8Ghz and the newer faster DDR3 speeds are all way outside the performance envelope of most automated test equipment for IC manufacturing today.

If you plot the clock speeds of major MPU's over the last 20 years, you will see that there is a correlation between the max speed of available automated test equipment at the time, and the input clock frequency to the device. PCI-E has created major issues for the IC testing industry due to the bandwidth of the protocol. This is causing a shift in how IC's that have these ports are tested in production.

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Ross Youngblood