P4C800-E Deluxe and PCI Express

Subject: P4C800-E Deluxe and PCI Express
From: "Michael W. Ryder"
Date: 1/20/2005 4:11 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

daytripper wrote:

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:48:57 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
wrote:

I seem to recall IBM saying that MicroChannel Architecture was the best
thing to ever happen to PCs. Where is it now? Just because something
is "better" does not mean that the general public will accept it. Look
at Betamax vs VHS. Betamax was supposedly the better product but the
people bought the VHS standard and Betamax died.


A classic example of mis-applied logic. Nice work.

Since you went and waded in above your head, here's the clue you lack:

- MCA was a PROPRIETARY interconnect architecture.
- BetaMax was a PROPRIETARY technology package.
- PCI Express is NOT PROPRIETARY, it's an OPEN STANDARD.


And what does proprietary (i.e. Microsoft) versus open (Linux, BSD,
etc.) have to do with what the people will buy, or even need. Just
because there are cars out there that can do 200 mph does not mean that
everyone is going to buy them. There will always be those who buy the
"newest and greatest" just because it is or because they bought the line
fed them by the marketers.
Since you are so stuck on open standards how come SCSI-320 is not the
current goal of everyone? It is far better than IDE, it is open, it is
available from multiple vendors. So why is SATA (an inferior product)
now being offered to everyone but not SCSI?


hth ;-)

/daytripper








Because it's cheaper!

daytripper wrote:

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 21:11:07 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
wrote:


daytripper wrote:


On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:48:57 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
wrote:


I seem to recall IBM saying that MicroChannel Architecture was the best
thing to ever happen to PCs. Where is it now? Just because something
is "better" does not mean that the general public will accept it. Look
at Betamax vs VHS. Betamax was supposedly the better product but the
people bought the VHS standard and Betamax died.


A classic example of mis-applied logic. Nice work.

Since you went and waded in above your head, here's the clue you lack:

- MCA was a PROPRIETARY interconnect architecture.
- BetaMax was a PROPRIETARY technology package.
- PCI Express is NOT PROPRIETARY, it's an OPEN STANDARD.


And what does proprietary (i.e. Microsoft) versus open (Linux, BSD,
etc.) have to do with what the people will buy, or even need.


Geeze, you can lead a guy to History but he just won't think for himself.
Fine.

Since the clarion call of Open Standards = Cheaper TCO hit with a vengeance in
the '90s, proprietary solutions were doomed and "industry standard" took over.

If the effect isn't crystal clear to you, spend a few moments contemplating
the train-wreck that was the Apple Computers of the world (and the Primes, the
DECs, the Wangs, the Data Generals, etc, etc...)
What killed them? Open standards and the resulting commoditization of
computing platforms.


ROTFLMAO


Just because there are cars out there that can do 200 mph does not mean that
everyone is going to buy them.


Lousy analogy, once again.
The issue is not what you buy. The issue is what is for sale. Take a look
around at what's left of proprietary solutions in the desktop computer
business and the low-end server business. See much? No?


Take a look at Dell, HP, Compaq, .... Try upgrading any of them. They
are not truly open. I owned a PC1 and had no problems upgrading it. I
can't say the same for the Dells, E-machines, etc. that I have been
asked to fix. Proprietary is still out there. Also if you look at the
RS-6000 line of IBM it is doing very well even at the low end of the market.


There will always be those who buy the
"newest and greatest" just because it is or because they bought the line
fed them by the marketers.


And? Pray tell, WTF does that have to do with viability of proprietary
solutions in cost-sensitive applications today?


How many copies of Microsoft XP, Office, etc. get sold every day even
though there are "open" replacements available. People will buy what
they know. Just like at one time the saying was "No one got fired for
buying IBM".


Since you are so stuck on open standards how come SCSI-320 is not the
current goal of everyone?


In *your* space, U320 has nothing to offer. Do you have the first clue why?


SCSI has many advantages over IDE and SATA. I have had SCSI setups for
the desktop and preferred them but try and buy a replacement for the
P2B-S today without buying a server. The only disadvantage of SCSI is
that the cost was not brought down because the volume was never that of
IDE. Much like your precious PCI-E, it is an expensive alternative to a
commodity solution. Why should anyone spend double to replace a working
card just because it is not the "newest and greatest. I just replaced
my motherboard and made sure that I did NOT get a PCI-E board. I did not
want to have to buy another $400 video card, etc. PCI-E has nothing
right now that is of benefit to most users.



It is far better than IDE,


In a single-user desktop environment, no it doesn't.
And that is yet another popular misconception you fell for. Nice.


BULL****!!!


it is open


But importantly, so are its competitors.


it is available from multiple vendors.


But importantly, at a severe price/capacity premium vs competing technologies
which offer dramatically higher price/performance on your desktop.

You getting this yet?


So why is SATA (an inferior product)


Um....OK, let's play: what makes SATA an "inferior product" in your mind?
Fair warning: if you blow chunks about specific SATA drives I'll be happy to
kick you square in the nuts for your trouble. Don't bore me.


now being offered to everyone but not SCSI?


See above. And know this: SATA will not only own the desktop for awhile, it
owns the low-end server space already, and is making major gains in the
mid-range space.

Why? Simple: TCO and price/performance of SATA drives are better than the
closest comparable SCSI lines, and you can raid-up whatever bandwidth you
desire, cheaply. Game over, bub.

Listen, you Luddites can rail against the wind all you want, but you won't
change the fact The Future Happens, old technology is replaced with new.
PCI Express is the irresistible force that will wipe the future clean of AGP.

So you took a wrong turn in Albuquerque. fyi, the path you should have
followed is labeled "The Commoditization of Computing".

hth ;-)

/daytripper

LeeBos wrote:

Subject: P4C800-E Deluxe and PCI Express
From: "Michael W. Ryder"
Date: 1/20/2005 4:11 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

daytripper wrote:


On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:48:57 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
wrote:


I seem to recall IBM saying that MicroChannel Architecture was the best
thing to ever happen to PCs. Where is it now? Just because something
is "better" does not mean that the general public will accept it. Look
at Betamax vs VHS. Betamax was supposedly the better product but the
people bought the VHS standard and Betamax died.


A classic example of mis-applied logic. Nice work.

Since you went and waded in above your head, here's the clue you lack:

- MCA was a PROPRIETARY interconnect architecture.
- BetaMax was a PROPRIETARY technology package.
- PCI Express is NOT PROPRIETARY, it's an OPEN STANDARD.


And what does proprietary (i.e. Microsoft) versus open (Linux, BSD,
etc.) have to do with what the people will buy, or even need. Just
because there are cars out there that can do 200 mph does not mean that
everyone is going to buy them. There will always be those who buy the
"newest and greatest" just because it is or because they bought the line
fed them by the marketers.
Since you are so stuck on open standards how come SCSI-320 is not the
current goal of everyone? It is far better than IDE, it is open, it is
available from multiple vendors. So why is SATA (an inferior product)
now being offered to everyone but not SCSI?



hth ;-)

/daytripper








Because it's cheaper!

And PCI/AGP is cheaper and more available than PCI-E! So why is
everyone so enamored with PCI-E? Just because Intel says that PCI-E is
the directions du jour does not mean we all have to jump off a cliff.

Subject: P4C800-E Deluxe and PCI Express
From: "Michael W. Ryder"
Date: 1/20/2005 8:02 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

LeeBos wrote:

Subject: P4C800-E Deluxe and PCI Express
From: "Michael W. Ryder"
Date: 1/20/2005 4:11 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

daytripper wrote:


On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:48:57 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
wrote:


I seem to recall IBM saying that MicroChannel Architecture was the best
thing to ever happen to PCs. Where is it now? Just because something
is "better" does not mean that the general public will accept it. Look
at Betamax vs VHS. Betamax was supposedly the better product but the
people bought the VHS standard and Betamax died.


A classic example of mis-applied logic. Nice work.

Since you went and waded in above your head, here's the clue you lack:

- MCA was a PROPRIETARY interconnect architecture.
- BetaMax was a PROPRIETARY technology package.
- PCI Express is NOT PROPRIETARY, it's an OPEN STANDARD.


And what does proprietary (i.e. Microsoft) versus open (Linux, BSD,
etc.) have to do with what the people will buy, or even need. Just
because there are cars out there that can do 200 mph does not mean that
everyone is going to buy them. There will always be those who buy the
"newest and greatest" just because it is or because they bought the line
fed them by the marketers.
Since you are so stuck on open standards how come SCSI-320 is not the
current goal of everyone? It is far better than IDE, it is open, it is
available from multiple vendors. So why is SATA (an inferior product)
now being offered to everyone but not SCSI?



hth ;-)

/daytripper








Because it's cheaper!

And PCI/AGP is cheaper and more available than PCI-E! So why is
everyone so enamored with PCI-E? Just because Intel says that PCI-E is
the directions du jour does not mean we all have to jump off a cliff.







What I ment was that SATA is cheaper than SCSI.

I have both a P4C800E and a P5AD2E and can't see the diff between AGP and
PCI-E, except that the PCI-E was more expensive.

LeeBos wrote:

Subject: P4C800-E Deluxe and PCI Express
From: "Michael W. Ryder"
Date: 1/20/2005 8:02 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

LeeBos wrote:


Subject: P4C800-E Deluxe and PCI Express
From: "Michael W. Ryder"
Date: 1/20/2005 4:11 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

daytripper wrote:



On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:48:57 GMT, "Michael W. Ryder"
wrote:



I seem to recall IBM saying that MicroChannel Architecture was the best
thing to ever happen to PCs. Where is it now? Just because something
is "better" does not mean that the general public will accept it. Look
at Betamax vs VHS. Betamax was supposedly the better product but the
people bought the VHS standard and Betamax died.


A classic example of mis-applied logic. Nice work.

Since you went and waded in above your head, here's the clue you lack:

- MCA was a PROPRIETARY interconnect architecture.
- BetaMax was a PROPRIETARY technology package.
- PCI Express is NOT PROPRIETARY, it's an OPEN STANDARD.


And what does proprietary (i.e. Microsoft) versus open (Linux, BSD,
etc.) have to do with what the people will buy, or even need. Just
because there are cars out there that can do 200 mph does not mean that
everyone is going to buy them. There will always be those who buy the
"newest and greatest" just because it is or because they bought the line
fed them by the marketers.
Since you are so stuck on open standards how come SCSI-320 is not the
current goal of everyone? It is far better than IDE, it is open, it is
available from multiple vendors. So why is SATA (an inferior product)
now being offered to everyone but not SCSI?




hth ;-)

/daytripper







Because it's cheaper!


And PCI/AGP is cheaper and more available than PCI-E! So why is
everyone so enamored with PCI-E? Just because Intel says that PCI-E is
the directions du jour does not mean we all have to jump off a cliff.








What I ment was that SATA is cheaper than SCSI.

I have both a P4C800E and a P5AD2E and can't see the diff between AGP and
PCI-E, except that the PCI-E was more expensive.


My point was that SCSI is superior to IDE and SATA but no one is moving
all their new models to SCSI. SATA and IDE are more popular because
they do what people want them to do and are cheaper than the
alternatives. If only the best solution was sold we would all be using
Fibre Channel SCSI.
I just don't see why anyone should have to pay way too much to replace
working equipment for a new slot that offers NO benefit to the user.

Paul wrote:
The additional bandwidth offered by PCI Express might be
the next argument someone would present. But the PCI
standard already has options for giving users more bandwidth,
(like 64bit/66MHz clock etc). And yet, it never seemed to
make sense, for anyone to offer those enhanced standards,
in the form of desktop chipsets. Server motherboards have
the slots, but not desktops.

The reason being it is too expensive. Increasing the clock rate or
adding more wires onto the bus makes the board design more difficult,
which makes it more expensive to design, plus making it more likely that
more layers will be needed in the PCB, etc.

The AGP slot is a point to point connection to begin
with. The Northbridge is on one end, and the AGP card
is on the other end. There is nothing to improve on there,
as far as the electrical connection.

One problem being, AGP has no provisions for more than one slot, making
such applications as SLI impossible or impractical.

The additional bandwidth of the PCI Express bus is a
waste, and if you check some of the review sites, they
demonstrate how much of the bandwidth is needed. For
the current generation of GPU (video card chips), PCI
Express isn't helping. And, as GPU chips are pretty
near the limits of their performance anyway, it remains
to be seen whether PCI Express bandwidth will ever be
saturated at the x16 level.

Bandwidth saturation isn't the only issue, there are other things such
as latency and guaranteed bandwidth allocation that PCI Express also
addresses.

PCI Express means that a whole bunch of addin cards and
chips, will have to be redesigned. The cost of that
redesign will be passed on to the customers. So, don't
be surprised if a PCI Express LAN card or sound card
is a lot more expensive than the vanilla PCI one it
replaces. And the price of these cards will be higher
than it needs to be, even though the functionality of
the cards, to the end user, will be exactly the same
as the old PCI ones.

Sound cards aren't going to be a prime market for PCI Express cards for
a while, since they don't need the bandwidth. LAN cards likely will be,
since it's not possible to get full performance on a Gigabit Ethernet
card on a 32-bit PCI card, as well as SCSI and RAID cards.


I am all for superior technology replacing inferior
technology. The problem in this case, is so many years
have passed, that the inferior technologies we have been
using, have been tweaked to perform without problems. For
example, smaller geometry CMOS circuitry has made it
possible for virtually all Northbridge chips, to have
AGP 8X slots that work without a problem, whereas a
few years ago, there was a huge pile of duff boards
with bad AGP. If this superior technology had been
introduced years ago, when AGP sucked, I could
understand the need for the introduction of PCI Express.
The introduction at this point in time is unnecessary,
and is only intended to separate customers from their
money.

The problems with some motherboards and AGP weren't due to lack of
technology, they were due to shoddy design (VIA being a big offender).
Intel's chipsets generally had no problems with any version of AGP.

They could easily have kept AGP and the current Northbridge
intact, and introduced PCI Express bridging in the
Southbridge. They could have offered a single x4 PCI Express
slot, for use with high bandwidth controller designs. That
would have caused virtually no additional cost to consumers,
and offered a slot with enhanced bandwidth, for use with SATA2
RAID or other exotic controllers. If the North-South bus
needed to be enhanced, to support such a change, the
change would be transparent to the end user.

What would have been the point of this? If you're not going to use the
faster bus for the most performance-demanding component - the video card
- what is the use?

A PCI Express serial interface runs at 2GHz. This is a
barrier to entry, for the "lesser" CMOS technologies. It
means the fab which is located 2 miles from me, cannot
make PCI Express parts. A lot more fabs could make
ordinary PCI chips, and as a result, this is why we can
find barrels of PCI Ethernet cards at the computer store
for $10 a piece.

Of course some manufacturers will have to retool, the same would have
been true when moving from ISA to PCI but few would say that wasn't
worthwhile..

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

In article ,
(Paul) wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:54:23 -0500, (Paul) wrote:

In article , "Jody
Sleath" wrote:

Good info Paul. So PCI is a waste?

PCI Express allows a point to point connection between
the chipset, and the PCI Express plugin card slots.
This gives an improvement in the electrical connection
between a plugin card and the rest of a computer. So,
the x1 PCI Express slots have some justification, from a
theoretical perspective. Now, the fact that most ordinary
PCI cards work without issue, is a testiment to the fact that
this improvement, to me at least, seems to be an unnecessary
optimization.

The additional bandwidth offered by PCI Express might be
the next argument someone would present. But the PCI
standard already has options for giving users more bandwidth,
(like 64bit/66MHz clock etc). And yet, it never seemed to
make sense, for anyone to offer those enhanced standards,
in the form of desktop chipsets. Server motherboards have
the slots, but not desktops.

The AGP slot is a point to point connection to begin
with. The Northbridge is on one end, and the AGP card
is on the other end. There is nothing to improve on there,
as far as the electrical connection.

The additional bandwidth of the PCI Express bus is a
waste, and if you check some of the review sites, they
demonstrate how much of the bandwidth is needed. For
the current generation of GPU (video card chips), PCI
Express isn't helping. And, as GPU chips are pretty
near the limits of their performance anyway, it remains
to be seen whether PCI Express bandwidth will ever be
saturated at the x16 level.

PCI Express means that a whole bunch of addin cards and
chips, will have to be redesigned. The cost of that
redesign will be passed on to the customers. So, don't
be surprised if a PCI Express LAN card or sound card
is a lot more expensive than the vanilla PCI one it
replaces. And the price of these cards will be higher
than it needs to be, even though the functionality of
the cards, to the end user, will be exactly the same
as the old PCI ones.

I am all for superior technology replacing inferior
technology. The problem in this case, is so many years
have passed, that the inferior technologies we have been
using, have been tweaked to perform without problems. For
example, smaller geometry CMOS circuitry has made it
possible for virtually all Northbridge chips, to have
AGP 8X slots that work without a problem, whereas a
few years ago, there was a huge pile of duff boards
with bad AGP. If this superior technology had been
introduced years ago, when AGP sucked, I could
understand the need for the introduction of PCI Express.
The introduction at this point in time is unnecessary,
and is only intended to separate customers from their
money.

They could easily have kept AGP and the current Northbridge
intact, and introduced PCI Express bridging in the
Southbridge. They could have offered a single x4 PCI Express
slot, for use with high bandwidth controller designs. That
would have caused virtually no additional cost to consumers,
and offered a slot with enhanced bandwidth, for use with SATA2
RAID or other exotic controllers. If the North-South bus
needed to be enhanced, to support such a change, the
change would be transparent to the end user.

A PCI Express serial interface runs at 2GHz. This is a
barrier to entry, for the "lesser" CMOS technologies. It
means the fab which is located 2 miles from me, cannot
make PCI Express parts. A lot more fabs could make
ordinary PCI chips, and as a result, this is why we can
find barrels of PCI Ethernet cards at the computer store
for $10 a piece.

Paul

No offense, you likely meant well somehow, but the above myopic diatribe has
so many technical half-truths, "couldda beens", "shouldda beens", and errors
of omission as to render it a mere senseless slaughter of bytes.

The future is here, now...

/daytripper (one PCI Express platform design engineer who is grateful to see
Parallel PCI and AGP go the way of ISA and VLB...)

Well, at least you aren't a PCI Express evangalist :-)
I'll go away now, and wallow in my ignorance.

Have fun,
Paul

FYI:

Oh my... Shocked I am. I guess it really is hard
to make those suckers.

http://theinquirer.net/?article=18758

Paul

According to the specs of the P4C800-E deluxe motherboard it has one AGP and 5 PCI slots. You can only place a PCI (not PCI-E) or an AGP card into your computer, AGP is better/faster than PCI cards. shareit vidmate

The 4670 should be as fast as the 3850, but with better power/thermal numbers. If you have a slower clocked P4 or a single core (anything other then the P4D) then I'd get the 4650. Not a bad card, shouldn't cost to much, and probably won't need a new PSU either. vidmate.app saveinsta