PCI SIG Releases PCIe 2.0

symbolset notes that The Register is reporting that PCI SIG has released version 2.0 of the PCI Express base specification: "The new release doubles the signaling rate from 2.5Gbps to 5Gbps. The upshot: a x16 connector can transfer data at up to around 16GBps." The PCI-SIG release also says that the electromechanical specification is due to be released shortly.

Graphics get easier and easier to render

[scwizard]

Slower than they get easier to create.

Re:Sigh

[Indy1]

its a good thing. By getting the standard approved way before its needed, it gives everyone (hardware oem's, os developers, etc) plenty of time to integrate support for it. Rushing critical standards like this leads to nasty problems (think VLB) or outright non adoption.

When the ATA standards 33, 66, 100, etc, were adopted, everyone was saying the same thing - why in the hell is it needed. But by getting it adopted and published before it was needed, it gave all the chipset and motherboard vendors time to build it in their products. Result - in the past 10 years hard drives have NOT been bottlenecked transferring data between the drive and motherboard. You can get a screaming fast hard drive, stick it in an older motherboard (say with in 2-3 years of the hard drive's date), and it almost always works without issues.

Pci-e 1.0 took too long to come out. The Pci bus has been overwhelmed by modern video cards (which led to the AGP hack, which fortunately worked fairly well), scsi and raid controllers, ethernet cards (pci cant even give a single gig nic enough bandwidth), usb 2.0, firewire 400 and 800, etc etc etc. Pci-X was complex, expensive, and not widely available. It also ate up too much of the motherboard real estate.

By getting on the ball with Pci-e 2.0, we won't see the same problem again for a while. Now only if firewire 800 and e-sata could be more common........

Re:Sigh

[evanbd]

Well, it's back-compatible with PCIe 1.0 and 1.1, so it aside from price there's on disadvantage to including it. Whether there's demand for it is another question, but I'm sure the graphics card makers will find something to do with it. Think back to AGP 2x/4x -- those made it onto cards and motherboards fairly quickly, iirc.

Re:Sigh

[mabinogi]

I'd assume it'd be backwards compatible, similar to the AGP standards - in most cases you could stick any AGP card in an AGP 8x slot (as long as the motherboard still supported the voltages used by the older AGP versions, which was true in most cases).

If that's the case, then there's no barrier to adoption and manufacturers can just start cranking them out as soon as they're ready. It's only when a technology requires a completely new platform at multiple levels that adoptions is slow, and that was why PCIe took so long.

Re:Confusing article texts...

[SQL Error]

I have no idea why they'd do it, but they're probably adding the upstream and downstream bandwidth to get the 16GB/s figure.

Because it gives a bigger number.

Re:Nothing beats GPU in the CPU

[suv4x4]

Not really. AMD's primarily targeting the mobile market with Fusion

And...? I use a laptop, for example.

Also multiple CPU-s was primarily targeting the server market.. but look at the processors now. Two fully functional CPU cores in one processor, even for non-pro desktop machines.

It aint capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

until you get rid of copyrights, patents and incorporation.

Oh, and laws like DMCA and the newer laws on madatory DRM.

They aren't capitalist. They're socialist.