PCI express

[Matt's Alias]

Is PCI express really that much faster than AGP? Is it fast enough to justify a new motherboard if i've got the money?

 

[Malfunction]

I've heard numerous times that PCI-Express really isn't quite worth it right now, but once the dual 6800 PCI-Express Ultras hit the public market, performance in PCs will probably boost up by a lot.

 

[blahblahblah]

No, there is no performance difference between AGP and PCI Express. For right now atleast. PCI Express won't show its advantages atleast for another year or longer.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Can we expect to be forced to buy two or three graphics cards in the future to be able to play games at a reasonable quality, since dual PCI-slots will be used to develop more complex games by developers.

 

[blahblahblah]

Can we expect to be forced to buy two or three graphics cards in the future to be able to play games at a reasonable quality, since dual PCI-slots will be used to develop more complex games by developers.

Two words and an acroynm: Voodoo 2 SLI

 

[Kazuki_Fuse]

Two words: Voodoo Died.

But really who the hell will be able to afford 2 graphics cards in one machine?? I reckon like the first time, SLI will come and go. You can only make money on an idea if people are willing to buy it.

 

[Ti133700N]

I bet Nvidia will come out with a "Twin Turbo" package that would contain two 6800

 

[Gunsnroses]

Difference to me now is. People are willing.

I find people pushing there computers, and there wallet to the limit, more so then they did when voodoo was king.

 

[[Matt]]

Two words: Voodoo Died.

But really who the hell will be able to afford 2 graphics cards in one machine?? I reckon like the first time, SLI will come and go. You can only make money on an idea if people are willing to buy it.

SLI died the first time because of the introduction of the AGP slot which meant you could only have one card. Before that SLI machines were very popular.

Also most games today hardly even push AGP 4x slots to the max never mind AGP 8x or PCIx 16x

 

[bosox188]

Well Nvidia made the $200 6600GT so people could have SLI for only $400, the cost of a 6800GT.

 

[Nex321]

if you put 2 cards together, lets say 6800 ultras. Will it have then 800 core/2000+ memory??

 

[Malfunction]

I don't really know the full specs., but I do know Nvidia is eventually releasing twin-6800 Ultras PCI-Express, which sit side-by-side with some sort of small bridge that connects the two of them, which I believe doubles your bandwith or something. I'm not sure if graphics could somehow increase from it, but when I do find out the details, I'll tell.

 

[bosox188]

You'd have to be rich to be running two 6800 Ultras. For one thing, that's $1000 for them, plus the mobo won't be cheap, and imagine TWO of those 2-slot huge power supply 2 molex connector Ultras in there.

 

[staddydaddy]

No, there is no performance difference between AGP and PCI Express. For right now atleast. PCI Express won't show its advantages atleast for another year or longer.

I always hear this but why do people say it? What's going to be so different in a year from now that PCI will be taken advantage of?

 

[Johan_Tayn]

Due to CPU "bottlenecking" performance in most games today, the video cards don't offer "quite" 2 fold performance, but really close. I'm personally looking forward to something like SLI in my next rig. :-D

Edit: With PCI-E, you can now run a Gbit ethernet card at full speed, or maybe even two! Plus RAID cards and SLI amounts to a big hill of beans.