Is there an AMD64 SFF with PCI-express? If not, is there one coming before the end of the year?
It seems all the GPU's I'd really like are all in PCI-express for now (6600GT, X700)
Personal computing discussed
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Starfalcon wrote:Going with PCIe in a SFF is rather pointless, as there are no PCIe cards except for video. So you would end up with a slot you would not be able to use, as there are no PCIe 1X cards yet.
Zenith wrote:Yes, but by this time next year you won't be able to find a "latest tech" top-end graphics card in anything other than PCI-E. If you plan on keeping your mobo for more than 2 years, and you expect to buy another top of the line graphics card in that timeframe, you want to get PCI-E. You'll be able to find mid-range cards, even using the latest chips, but the top end is going PCI-E only, very quickly. It's not about performance, it's about availability.Why exactly do you want PCIe for graphic cards? Future compatability? By the time AGP 8x has reached its limit of usefulness (Which I don't recall seeing it lagging behind PCIe with identical cores), and PCIe will be necessary, you'll be looking at DDR2 different socketed athlon64 cores, I'd bet.
UberGerbil wrote:Zenith wrote:Yes, but by this time next year you won't be able to find a "latest tech" top-end graphics card in anything other than PCI-E. If you plan on keeping your mobo for more than 2 years, and you expect to buy another top of the line graphics card in that timeframe, you want to get PCI-E. You'll be able to find mid-range cards, even using the latest chips, but the top end is going PCI-E only, very quickly. It's not about performance, it's about availability.Why exactly do you want PCIe for graphic cards? Future compatability? By the time AGP 8x has reached its limit of usefulness (Which I don't recall seeing it lagging behind PCIe with identical cores), and PCIe will be necessary, you'll be looking at DDR2 different socketed athlon64 cores, I'd bet.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't expect to see an AMD SFF with PCI-E actually available for sale before the end of the year.
sroylance wrote:Is there an AMD64 SFF with PCI-express? If not, is there one coming before the end of the year?
It seems all the GPU's I'd really like are all in PCI-express for now (6600GT, X700)
random gerbil wrote:I agree that business decisions generally trump technical decisions, and AGP bandwidth is more than adequate for now and the near future. But the class of customer who pays $400+ for a top-end video card is rapidly moving to PCI-E -- because it's the latest thing, because they're buying motherboards that are PCI-E only, or because they're the kind of people who will pay top dollar for any ounce of performance and they think PCI-E is better. OEMs (see Dell, in particular) are quickly going PIC-E-only also, because the latest chipsets from Intel use it (and the latest AMD-oriented chipsets soon will). nVidia especially wants you to move away from AGP because that gives them a chance to sell you at least one new video card per computer and maybe two. Vendors and distributors hate dealing with multiple permutations of product; maintaing both AGP and PCI-E means multiplying SKUs by two. That's an expense they want to avoid, so they have a strong incentive to move to exclusively PCI-E as soon as possible. And finally, the PCI-E spec supports up to 75W per slot (there's even a revised version of the spec under review that will allow 150w) which the graphics cards need; you wouldn't think it would matter, but not having to put a separate power connector on each card saves them money.I dont think that is true. Why would nVidia or ATI eliminate a HUGE part of the high end market and sell only PCIe? AGP itself is more than capable of providing any necessary bandwidth for a long time to come. The jump from 4x agp to 8x agp even produced marginal if any performance increases, despite doubling bandwidth. I think it would be a mistake to cut out AGP at the top end in a year. What drives these companies are the bottom lines, and excluding AGP customers will impact their bottom lines.
UberGerbil wrote:And finally, the PCI-E spec supports up to 75W per slot (there's even a revised version of the spec under review that will allow 150w) which the graphics cards need; you wouldn't think it would matter, but not having to put a separate power connector on each card saves them money.