Nvidia next-gen launches April 13th

Sir Random

Check it out here:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1550756,00.asp

po0k

I really don't see why they're even bothering to produce a PCI-Express card.
They're the same chips, both with a native AGP-8x interface, but the PCI-Express version have a bridge, so even though the PCI-E external interface has 8GB bandwidth, the GPU can only take at most 2.1GB of that so it's wasted anyways, and due to the translation through the AGP8x-PCIE bridge, you could very well see a performance drop on the PCIE cards over the AGP-8x.
No point buying a GeForce PCX card till the NV45 comes out (native PCIE and/or not AGP-8x on GPU).

Still, it's muste as there are sfa PCIE motherboards around at the moment.

Also, from what I've seen, the mobo southbridges in development at the moment seem to be using PCIE 1x slots as a replacement for PCI, but 1x only gives 65MBye/sec for each card, which isnt nough for GigE cards (which could use upto ~125MByte/sec at full tilt).

Sir Random

Originally posted by SyxPak
I really don't see why they're even bothering to produce a PCI-Express card.
They're the same chips, both with a native AGP-8x interface, but the PCI-Express version have a bridge, so even though the PCI-E external interface has 8GB bandwidth, the GPU can only take at most 2.1GB of that so it's wasted anyways, and due to the translation through the AGP8x-PCIE bridge, you could very well see a performance drop on the PCIE cards over the AGP-8x.
No point buying a GeForce PCX card till the NV45 comes out (native PCIE and/or not AGP-8x on GPU).

Still, it's muste as there are sfa PCIE motherboards around at the moment.

Also, from what I've seen, the mobo southbridges in development at the moment seem to be using PCIE 1x slots as a replacement for PCI, but 1x only gives 65MBye/sec for each card, which isnt nough for GigE cards (which could use upto ~125MByte/sec at full tilt).

Intel are pushing for early adoption of the BTX/PCI-E format, so nvidia want to have cards ready to maintain their lead in the OEM market.
I'll be getting the AGPx8 NV45 to finish off this rig. It'll be this time next year before I start building a BTX/PCI-E rig.

uberpixie

the reason Nvidia went with a bridge was that it was quicker than redesigning and manufacturing a new card from the ground up to support PCI express natively.
(read it somewhere, can't remember where)

That way they get the hop on ATI this round by getting out the first gfx card to support pci express.

Be interesting to see if the next gen makes an actual jump in performance.

Even more interesting to see how cheap all the current high end becomes:-)

Sir Random

Originally posted by uberpixie
Be interesting to see if the next gen makes an actual jump in performance.

Don't confuse next-gen with PCI-E.
This thread was meant to be about next-gen chips (NV40-45) which will be much faster than the current cards (estimated more than twice as fast), with 16 pipelines, improved pixel and vertex shaders, better ram etc.

The PCX interface is a change in industry standards that all card makers will have to adapt to, regardless of what gen chips they use. Nvidia's first PCI-E cards aren't even next-gen chips, but versions of current cards, PCX5950, PCX5750, PCX5300 & PCX4300