is pci express overhyped ???

[flexy]

question, and excuse me i didnt find the time to read into the details of pci-express [yet]
But....right, PCI express is a new interface replacing AGP and is supposed to be at least two times faster than AGP. [from what i know now] ?

The point is only...that right now people say AGP8x etc. is overhyped. People have 128MB video mem...some even 256MB vmem. In real life apps the AGP speed doesn't really do aything - so people say it doesn't really matter whether you have AGP4x or 8x...especially if you have plenty of video memory on your card.

So...why should PCI-express then be so much better/faster ??? If PCI express only afects the graphics card (????) and assuming the memory transfer "system---->card" is neglectible/not important....doesn't that mean pci-express is overhyped ???


thanks !

 

[Sideswipe001]

PCI Express replaces PCI. It gives more bandwith to the entire PCI bus. It is not designed for Graphics cards, it just makes AGP not needed any longer, since the PCI bus can support it again. They made AGP in the first place because the PCI bus was too slow for the graphics cards. Now that problem is gone.

 

[WobbleWobble]

They wouldn't need it for graphics cards yet... but maybe 5 years down the road they might. Standards like ISA, PCI, AGP do stick around for a while.

It's not so much the need to provide graphics cards with bandwidth, but the need to provide other devices with bandwidth. The PCI bus' capacity is 133MB/s. If you throw in gigabit network cards and RAID controllers, it's pretty easy to saturate that 133MB/s.

Also, PCI Express gives each device their own individual bandwidth so you don't have problems sharing the bus (i.e. Via 686b).

 

[Trader05]

why not isa express? lol j/k, i guess we wont' know until it comes out

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: Trader05
why not isa express? lol j/k, i guess we wont' know until it comes out

At least with PCI, we don't have to worry about IRQs

 

[BG4533]

Originally posted by: Sideswipe001
PCI Express replaces PCI. It gives more bandwith to the entire PCI bus. It is not designed for Graphics cards, it just makes AGP not needed any longer, since the PCI bus can support it again. They made AGP in the first place because the PCI bus was too slow for the graphics cards. Now that problem is gone.

I don't know about not needed. It seems that having things on a dedicated bus helps performance to a certain extent regardless of saturation. Since AGP is currently already there and very wide spread I doubt dropping it would save much money. Basically the more bandwidth the better.

 

[WobbleWobble]

PCI Express x16 which will be used for video cards also are able to give out more power and also have added functionality. I'm not sure on what they plan to do with the functionality though.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: BG4533


I don't know about not needed. It seems that having things on a dedicated bus helps performance to a certain extent regardless of saturation. Since AGP is currently already there and very wide spread I doubt dropping it would save much money. Basically the more bandwidth the better.

I think you can use your argument of having manufacturers sell more devices this way as consumers will be forced to buy new video cards if they want the new stuff

 

[BD231]

133mbs of bandwidth is not enough anymore when you consider the amount of data that has to pass through the PCI bus. Multiple devices draw bandwidth off the PCI bus and once you bring multiple hard drives and RAID setups into the picture, it's mos def going to be nice to have the extra breathing room.

 

[sandorski]

It probably is both overhyped and a necessary evolution for the future. IMO, AGP has been way overhyped through the years, but it was somewhat necessary as Video Cards certainly needed a dedicated bus.

 

[Chu]

PCI Express is in no way overhyped. I don't care about video cards, I care about overall IO bandwith. As BD said, 133MB/s just isn't enough anymore. Even on a home PC, sometimes you can crash into this limit if you got too many perheprials going at once, and on my fileserver I crash into it all the time.

-Chu

 

[Auric]

VLB is where it's at, yo. Peace, out.

 

[0roo0roo]

multiple graphics controllers for dual/tri display