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PCI-E 2.0 announced
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 16th January 2007
"More Power!" - We're now already doubling up 75W connectors...time for a change!
When it was designed, PCIe was supposed to be a real futureproofing - 75W of power and 2.5Gbps of bandwidth (a 16x card could pull nearly 8Gbps) right through the slot. This eliminated the need for external power and greatly exceeding AGP's not even half-used bandwidth constraint. Of course, the latest cards (such as the NVIDIA 8800 GTX) are already on their second independent power connector, drawing a whopping 185W of power.
In order to compensate, PCIe 2.0 has modified the power standard. The previous 6-pin 75W connector has now been retired, moved instead to an 8-pin 150W connector (see the Inquirer for a picture). Bus speeds have also increased to 5Gbps, meaning that a 16x card can now potentially pull up to 16Gbps. Of course, current cards are a long way from even maxing out the PCIe 1.1 interface, so this is much more of a theoretical improvement.
Intel will be expected to release the first compatible chipsets in the start of 2Q 2007 with the Bearlake codename. Along with the new PCIe 2.0, these boards will feature the ICH9 southbridge, DDR3 support, and a 1333MHz FSB. The PCIe 2.0 interface will be backward compatible with current-generation cards, so you don't need to worry about buying new graphics cards if you buy one of these boards.
Whether the move is necessary for anything but the convenience of the new power connector is not something we can easily determine. However, it does provide that much more theoretical headroom to play with - hopefully, we'll start seeing cards make use of it.
Have you got a thought on the improvements? Tell us about it in our fourms.
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Comments (31)
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hmmm...DDR3 sounds nice.... the same thing for me.... wait for reviews and stable hardware.
Along with that, does it worry anyone else that the shot of the dual connectors present on the 8800 there show off the fact that it can take the new 8-pinner?
seems pointless but hopefully it means it will be longer before the next step up
Instead of making bigger connectors, shouldn't they be working their behinds
off in order to make the videocards give more performance per Watt? I mean,
2x 8800GTX's including the rest of your highend system will occupy half the power
of a Powerplant, lol!
It's about time they start to realize that imho ;)
A standards group actually define the PCIe standard, not Nvidia or AMD.
I also notice that with the 8800 maybe the next revision will use one 8 pin. Also agree with the the need to change the connector so it is different from the 12v ESP
I've seen benchies of high end SLI systems and in dual 8x slots the cards perform less well than in dual 16x slots. The difference is around 5-20 percent depending on the games. Do you really want to be losing 20% after spending £500 on graphics cards?
Yes, this can be remedied by having a southbridge with extra lanes, but that's a hackish solution, and basicly requires the board to be have extra chips(a southbridge in AMD boards' case) just to be able to provide sufficient bandwidth. I hate tech advances that make my kit obsolete as much as any of you, I upgrade rarely and dislike fat tech just for fat tech's sake. However, I don't think this is a case of that. I think this really is neccesary given the cards we're seeing today.
i mean, atm, if you have SLI cards then you get x8 on each card, which does impact performance on each card like 5% (at least)
On top of that, Higher speed = possibility to use less lanes = less wires = cheaper boards
So is the extra bandwidth wasted ? i don't really think so
Ontop of that, if you introduce the specification now, then it will be in place when people actually need it, instead of trying to introduce it when people need it
however i've no idea what any 8800gtx sli has been done on so god knows.. anyone got numbers on that in different lanes?
The stuff I saw and talked about in my post was done with 8800's.
and why do all this, inefficient cards, and such? It's GREAT for the industry. Ever notice how there's now a niche for 1KW+ PSUs, for cases with 8 120mm fans stock to -barely- keep things cool, and production WC cards from mainstream houses? It's gone an turned an $600-1000 extreme upgrade into a $2500 one. Sure, you can still squeeze by on a 500-600W SLI unit, cram the card into your old case, and hope it doesn't overheat, but c'mon now, do you like the feeling of 90+ degrees on the core?
wow i completely agree...
however...
its gonna be like agp was when pci-e first came out. the extra bandwidth, right now, it worthless, but in say... 1 - 2 years from now, it could be needed to get the full power of your video card.
when pci-e first came out, it was pretty much worthless, but after a year or so it was becoming a necessity. and now? you can barely even find decent agp cards, let alone decent agp mobos.
also, sli x8 and sli x16 mobos performance differences are extremely small, infact, the performance difference in most cases can be blamed on the better chipset on the x16 mobo. this is probably gonna be the same for pci-e 2.0 >.<
In another year, I'll probably build a new box with one step down from the top of the line. Which is exactly what I've done on every box I've built. Best value for the money you can get. Now, once I win the lottery....
The bandwith increase is always a good thing, but I don't see a need for it for a year or so.
I guess there's no point trying to make the lifespan of components longer as they come obsolete in just year! "No el-caps, digital PSU" yeah whatever. I bought a mobo with two REAL 16x PCI-e connectors and no way in hell I'm buying a new one anytime soon! >:(
I, for the life of me, can't understand why CPU's can be made on 65nm processes (and soon to be smaller) and GPU's are still on 90nm or even worse .11µm. If they would work on refining their manufacturing process instead of trying to put a new card out, with minor tweaks, every other month, they may actually fall within "acceptable" power usage range.
Do PCI 2.0 cards work in PCI 16x slots? I'm assuming no, but at the same time I've seen posts with people claiming that it works with mobos from a year ago that only have 16x slot(s). I would LOVE it if this were true, but the reality is probably that I read something wrong.
Sidenote: If I do upgrade for xmas, this mobo is godly; ASUS Maximus Extreme Hybrid cooling woot!, this is the first of it's kind, and I can see watercooling being a standard in the future! (Also does anyone know what size barbs it has?)
Why does it replace f, t, and w with "cheesecake"