PCI-x and Socket 940

Hi all,

I holding out for the range of PCI-X graphics cards but I have yet to see
any Socket 940 mobo's that support it.....has anyone seen them?

I have seen some dual cpu boards (S940) which do but are they functional
with just one cpu (FX53)?

cheers

I have seen some dual cpu boards (S940) which do but are they functional
with just one cpu (FX53)?
Any dual mobo should be able to run with only one CPU.

EJ
--
.... Tiger K8W-240

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 10:30:14 +0100, Gymni Choo wrote:

Hi all,

I holding out for the range of PCI-X graphics cards but I have yet to see
any Socket 940 mobo's that support it.....has anyone seen them?

I have seen some dual cpu boards (S940) which do but are they functional
with just one cpu (FX53)?

cheers

Do you mean PCI-Express graphics cards?. I've never heard of a PCI-X
graphics card, there really isn't any reason for it to exist. PCI-X is the
last incarnation of the parallel PCI bus. The basic PCI bus is
32MHz/32bits. PCI-X is 100-133MHz/66bits. It's used in servers only. There
are a limited number of cards available for PCI-X, mostly things like
Fibre channel controllers. PCI-Express is the new serial interconnect.
Each link is 2.5GHz (2Gbits because of 8B/10B encoding). PCI-Express can
have from 1 to 32 links per connection so it's capable of much higher
performance than PCI-X or AGP. Next generation systems are going to
replace both the PCI bus and the AGP bus with PCI-Express, but those
boards aren't out yet. For now what you want is AGP-8X for graphics, most
of the 940 boards have AGP-8X support. If you want PCI-Express graphics
you will have to wait another 6 months or so but it's not worth it.
Chances are there won't be any performance difference between first
generation PCI-Express graphics cards and their AGP-8X contemporaries.

Pci-X is still developing however.. (I dont understand why, unless there is
more reliability there)..
you can get SATA Pci-X cards .. the PCI-Express stuff will happen with
the Nforce 4 chipsets (or so I hear) .. I have seen some VIA roadmaps
showing the 800pro having express support (but it doesnt show it now) so I
am guessing they have push'd it back for their 900 series.. This is
something I want too, but I want to see some of the express spec (right now
it's somewhat limited as to what I can open and read on the psig site)

Old technologies take a very long time to die, remember how long ISA buses
were around. PCI-X cards will also work in 3.3V PCI 66MHz slots and there
are millions and millions of them out there. So PCI and PCI-X will be
around for a long time. There is talk of a PCI-X 2.0 but I doubt that it
will actually happen. To push PCI beyond 133MHz will require a change in
logic levels which would break it's compatibility with older PCI buses,
once you make it incompatible the you might as well go with something
completely different like PCI-Express. More importantly Intel has decreed
that the world will be PCI-Express not PCI-X 2.0. Intel wants to force the
world to be entirely PCI-Express but that won't happen for a while. Even
if Intel takes PCI support off of their chipsets, VIA, SIS and Nvidia
won't. Broadcom probably won't take it off for a while either.

Do you mean PCI-Express graphics cards?. I've never heard of a PCI-X
graphics card, there really isn't any reason for it to exist. PCI-X is the
last incarnation of the parallel PCI bus. The basic PCI bus is
32MHz/32bits. PCI-X is 100-133MHz/66bits. It's used in servers only. There
are a limited number of cards available for PCI-X, mostly things like
Fibre channel controllers. PCI-Express is the new serial interconnect.
Each link is 2.5GHz (2Gbits because of 8B/10B encoding). PCI-Express can
have from 1 to 32 links per connection so it's capable of much higher
performance than PCI-X or AGP. Next generation systems are going to
replace both the PCI bus and the AGP bus with PCI-Express, but those
boards aren't out yet. For now what you want is AGP-8X for graphics, most
of the 940 boards have AGP-8X support. If you want PCI-Express graphics
you will have to wait another 6 months or so but it's not worth it.
Chances are there won't be any performance difference between first
generation PCI-Express graphics cards and their AGP-8X contemporaries.



Pci-X is still developing however.. (I dont understand why, unless there is
more reliability there)..
you can get SATA Pci-X cards .. the PCI-Express stuff will happen with
the Nforce 4 chipsets (or so I hear) .. I have seen some VIA roadmaps
showing the 800pro having express support (but it doesnt show it now) so I
am guessing they have push'd it back for their 900 series.. This is
something I want too, but I want to see some of the express spec (right now
it's somewhat limited as to what I can open and read on the psig site)