when do you guys foresee those PCI-X gfx card?

[truth]

as above?

[The Baron]

I assume you mean PCI-Express, since PCI-X != PCI-Express, and PCI-Express is the AGP replacement?

early next year--NV40/R420ish, so March or thereabouts

[Fotis]

ATI's R420 will first come on AGP8X late Q1 2004 and the PCI-Express version called R423 will be out Q2 2004.

[Uttar]

NV36-X was originally expected to be released at Comdex.
But I don't know whether it was delayed with the NV40 or not... I assume considering the NV36 release itself got delayed, it is indeed the case.


Uttar

[Nemesis]

Will there be a PCI-Express Graphics card > AGP 8x adapters sold with any of these boards? Makes sense to get one if possible as I expect my next Mobo / CPU / RAM upgrade will feature PCI-Express, but I'd like an NV40 / R420 card next year, well before my next projected upgrade...

[Riptide]

I'm definitely waiting for the PCI Express version of the R420 before I bother with it... Plenty of time to save $$$ for a new motherboard in between now and then. :)

[schuey74]

PCI Express will be the new standard, but it will hardly be useful in the first generations of video cards that support it and probably even the second. Not a single video card out there pushes AGP8X and it is unlikely that the R420 or NV40 will either. I hated the way Nvidia pushed their GF4 AGP8x cards as some great new release when there was NO performance advantage whatsoever over the previous AGP4x cards. I'm sure ATI & Nvidia will both be hailing PCI Express as the greatest thing since sliced bread when they launch their refreshes for the R420 & Nv40 late next year.

[sbp]

Originally posted by schuey74
I hated the way Nvidia pushed their GF4 AGP8x cards as some great new release when there was NO performance advantage whatsoever over the previous AGP4x cards.Mostly true. But just to nitpick, the AGP8X versions of the 128 meg GF4Ti4200 (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/200210041/nv18_nv28-01.html) and MX440 came with a higher speed.

------------
Its always fun answering questions from peeps on the performance difference between AGP4X and AGP8X. Or seeing statements like "I have to get a AGP8X mobo to get everything out of my new AGP8X videocard."

[Steppy]

Originally posted by schuey74
PCI Express will be the new standard, but it will hardly be useful in the first generations of video cards that support it and probably even the second. Not a single video card out there pushes AGP8X and it is unlikely that the R420 or NV40 will either. I hated the way Nvidia pushed their GF4 AGP8x cards as some great new release when there was NO performance advantage whatsoever over the previous AGP4x cards. I'm sure ATI & Nvidia will both be hailing PCI Express as the greatest thing since sliced bread when they launch their refreshes for the R420 & Nv40 late next year. Cards WOULD push AGP8x if it wasn't too slow to even be useful and as such is avoided by slapping ever more memory on cards. PCI-Ex will initially start at 4 or 8 times the bandwidth of AGP 8x(can't remember off hand). AGP 8x is like slapping PC133 on the VC, PCI ex is like PC3200 DDR.

[Riptide]

Loading textures into main memory across the AGP bus is never going to be worth it until that memory equals the speed of the DDR they put on video cards. AFAIK main memory bandwidth right now is what, 6-7GB/sec. at best? Your video card's memory absolutely blows that out of the water, or should if it's a newer card.

Replacing PCI32 is going to help other peripherals far more than our video cards, methinks. :)

[The Baron]

What Riptide said.

And don't use PCI-X and PCI-Express interchangeably. They are two different things. PCI-X is a straight-up PCI replacement; it is backwards compatible with PCI as well, but it adds a crapload of bandwidth. PCI-Express looks nothing like PCI and will be first used as an AGP replacement, and we might see more than one PCI-Express port on future motherboards for multiple peripherals; depends on the adoption of PCI-X more than the strengths of PCI-Express, I would guess, because everyone likes their backwards compatibility.

[Spiritwalker]

The RV380 by ATi is complete and up and running in PCI Express demo systems. It should be released at the same time as the motherboards. The R423 and RV version of said card should be out sometime in the spring.

[Spiritwalker]

ahh digitlife posted just what I was looking for today
http://www.ixbt.com/short/2k3-09/ct015a.jpg

cut and paste instead of clicking

[Riptide]

When I try and click the link to the jpeg I get a message about "forbidden" and it won't allow it. :(

Wonder if it's the firewall here @ work. Anyone else having problems seeing his jpeg?

[Paul]

Originally posted by Riptide
When I try and click the link to the jpeg I get a message about "forbidden" and it won't allow it. :(

Wonder if it's the firewall here @ work. Anyone else having problems seeing his jpeg?

Originally posted by Spiritwalker
cut and paste instead of clicking

And ATi aren't the only ones with cards fully up and running on PCI-Express, btw.

[ricercar]

Is there any expectation for GPUs integrating current generation core(NV3x/R3xx) with a 3GIO bridge? I'd think that would be a quick way to enter the PCI Express market with a proven GPU design.

[The Baron]

probably, given NV36-X. but then again, we need PCI-Express before we see PCI-Express graphics cards. and we need PCI-Express slots before we see PCI-Express graphics cards. :)

[Steppy]

Originally posted by Riptide
Loading textures into main memory across the AGP bus is never going to be worth it until that memory equals the speed of the DDR they put on video cards. AFAIK main memory bandwidth right now is what, 6-7GB/sec. at best? Your video card's memory absolutely blows that out of the water, or should if it's a newer card.

Replacing PCI32 is going to help other peripherals far more than our video cards, methinks. :) Actually, 8x AGP I believe has 2.1 Gb/s of bandwidth...a 16x PCI-Ex slot has 8.4 I believe. While it will never be used to replace on board memory, it could be an effective bridge for the few situations where on board memory isn't enough. For instance, it may allow 128 meg cards to stay usable without having to get a 256 meg one long before 256 benefits day to day situations. But you're correct, it will benefit a lot of other things faster because a bus hog no longer chokes the entire bus.

[Steppy]

Originally posted by The Baron
What Riptide said.

And don't use PCI-X and PCI-Express interchangeably. They are two different things. PCI-X is a straight-up PCI replacement; it is backwards compatible with PCI as well, but it adds a crapload of bandwidth. PCI-Express looks nothing like PCI and will be first used as an AGP replacement, and we might see more than one PCI-Express port on future motherboards for multiple peripherals; depends on the adoption of PCI-X more than the strengths of PCI-Express, I would guess, because everyone likes their backwards compatibility. PCI-X isn't even slated for coming to desktops...PCI-Ex is an AGP/PCI replacement, PCI X is a PCI 66 replacement(and expect 1AGP/1 16x pci-ex slots, a couple 1x pci-ex slots, and 3 or so pci slots on the early mobo's with more pci-ex slots replacing the AGP and PCI ones over time). Because PCI and PCI-ex slots can coexist, backwards compatability is a moot point(except for the 2% of the population with more than 3 PCI cards).

[Riptide]

It is rather unfortunate PCI-X isn't coming to the desktop. My RAID controller supports it. :(

[nobie]

Right now we have 256mb cards....will their be 512mb cards soon? How much does that add to the cost of the card? Maybe the graphics chip and the graphics card should be sold seperately, in the same way that motherboards and CPUs are sold seperately.

[schuey74]

I'm sorry to report that you guys don't really understand the purpose of the AGP bus. First of all, AGP 8X is not a bottleneck on any video card out there and won't be for a long long time. The AGP bus is basically a dedicated pipeline from the video card to the system memory. The main purpose of the AGP bus is to transfer the processed video data to the system memory and for this it is plenty fast. Just think about the fact that AGP 8X has 2.1 gigs of bandwidth. Crudely speaking, you would need a game that required about 2 gigs of system memory and a super video card before it becomes a bottleneck. As everyone knows, there are hardly any games that require anything more than 512 megs and this is why even AGP 4X is not a limitation with any current video card. The secondary purpose of the AGP bus is to basically allow the video card to use system memory as video memory. The bandwidth issue shows up here big time because the GPU is no longer getting that wonderful 10, 20, or 30 gigs of bandwidth that the onboard video memory provides. Instead, the GPU is left starving because of the meager 2.1 gigs of bandwidth the AGP 8X bus provides. As system memory is providing up 5 or 6 gigs of bandwidth today, it could do a better job with the appropiate bus. Enter PCI Express and it's wonderful 8.4 gigs of bandwidth. Now you have just tripled or quadrupuled the speed of your "extra video memory".
Now a high end video card in the next year or so will probably have around 50 gigs of memory bandwidth and the norm will probably be around 20 gigs or so. This basically means that for, at least the immediate future, we will require more and more onboard video ram if you want to play your games "hiccup" free. PCI-Express is just sort of putting the bus on even ground with current system memory bandwidth so it doesn't go to waste, but there won't be a video card for years that needs the 8.4 gigs of bandwidth that PCI-Express will provide for it's primary function - transferring processed video data to the main system memory.

[Steppy]

Originally posted by schuey74
I'm sorry to report that you guys don't really understand the purpose of the AGP bus. First of all, AGP 8X is not a bottleneck on any video card out there and won't be for a long long time. The AGP bus is basically a dedicated pipeline from the video card to the system memory. The main purpose of the AGP bus is to transfer the processed video data to the system memory and for this it is plenty fast. Just think about the fact that AGP 8X has 2.1 gigs of bandwidth. Crudely speaking, you would need a game that required about 2 gigs of system memory and a super video card before it becomes a bottleneck. As everyone knows, there are hardly any games that require anything more than 512 megs and this is why even AGP 4X is not a limitation with any current video card. The secondary purpose of the AGP bus is to basically allow the video card to use system memory as video memory. The bandwidth issue shows up here big time because the GPU is no longer getting that wonderful 10, 20, or 30 gigs of bandwidth that the onboard video memory provides. Instead, the GPU is left starving because of the meager 2.1 gigs of bandwidth the AGP 8X bus provides. As system memory is providing up 5 or 6 gigs of bandwidth today, it could do a better job with the appropiate bus. Enter PCI Express and it's wonderful 8.4 gigs of bandwidth. Now you have just tripled or quadrupuled the speed of your "extra video memory".
Now a high end video card in the next year or so will probably have around 50 gigs of memory bandwidth and the norm will probably be around 20 gigs or so. This basically means that for, at least the immediate future, we will require more and more onboard video ram if you want to play your games "hiccup" free. PCI-Express is just sort of putting the bus on even ground with current system memory bandwidth so it doesn't go to waste, but there won't be a video card for years that needs the 8.4 gigs of bandwidth that PCI-Express will provide for it's primary function - transferring processed video data to the main system memory. Actually, go back at the debut of AGP, and what WAS supposed to be the biggest thing with AGP was the texture swapping to main memory.

[schuey74]

Funny how some people want to argue with math. Even if it was supposed to be the biggest thing....................it just isn't, sorry. And that's a moot point because it never was the primary function of the AGP bus. In fact, the math (not me!) has proven that that's the way it was and the way it will remain for at least the next few years. Any excitement over the AGP bus making video memory less important was out of complete ignorance because any computer engineer, now or then, could spend just two minutes looking at the design and say that if the "big thing" with the AGP bus was to replace video memory with system memory then it's a complete and monumental failure. Again, those are the mathematical facts speaking, not me.

It's funny how I try to clear up a big misconception among enthusiasts and someone wants to argue against the facts. Read it, understand it, and help to stop spreading terribly misleading information because a lot of people will spend a lot of money upgrading unnecessarily. Make PC parts manufacturers work and innovate for your money and let's not buy into all their PR b.s. without giving it a second thought. Most of the people in these forums are the most PC knowledgable in their household or amongst their friends so it's kind of important that we have our facts straight.