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eddiecatflap · Nov 24, 2004, 04:53 AM

any news ?

its the only thing stopping me buying one

Leonard · Nov 24, 2004, 12:22 PM

No news. Not even rumors.

power142 · Nov 24, 2004, 02:05 PM

Originally posted by eddiecatflap:
its the only thing stopping me buying one

Why? Unless you're planning to use graphics cards in SLI in an old machine (which it will be in a couple of years), then go out and buy one now.

By all accounts so far, the GF6800 does quite a nice job right now, without waiting....

Simian · Nov 24, 2004, 03:46 PM

The 6800 may do a nice job but whats better than having one. Thats right having 2. LOL.

eddiecatflap · Nov 24, 2004, 03:53 PM

pci - express isnt only a video card interface tho'

its a very exciting development all round , personally i think its worth waiting

the dp1.8 is the best pmac at the mo , the others seem pointless as pci-x cards number only 4 on the mac.

Leonard · Nov 24, 2004, 05:06 PM

Originally posted by eddiecatflap:
the dp1.8 is the best pmac at the mo , the others seem pointless as pci-x cards number only 4 on the mac.

PCI-X is backwards compatible with newer PCI cards though, PCI-Express is not. That's most likely the reason for there being few PCI-X cards. If the PCI version will work in the PCI-X slot, why make a PCI-X version.

power142 · Nov 24, 2004, 07:59 PM

I like the idea of two 6800 cards, but I'm rather too fond of my ears

As for PCI-express or PCI-X, I have yet to see anything outside of the server arena (and SLI graphics) that convinces me that it is necessary... on the desktop.

Out of interest, what are the 4 PCI-X cards? I'm assming that one is the dual-port FC card that Apple sells with the Xserves, and another is a SCSI card. I'd be guessing, but next would probably be a gigabit card, but a 66MHz 64-bit PCI card could just as easily cope with that throughput.

You could be waiting a while for Apple, eddie, so why not buy a G5 and be happy?

Leonard · Nov 25, 2004, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by power142:
You could be waiting a while for Apple, eddie, so why not buy a G5 and be happy?

I have to agree with power142. If that is the only thing holding you back, I'd buy one now while supply is decent. Even if new PowerMacs are announced in February or March of next year it'll take you another month or two to get one.

Pierre B. · 01:49 PM

Originally posted by power142:
Why? Unless you're planning to use graphics cards in SLI in an old machine (which it will be in a couple of years), then go out and buy one now.

PCIe is better not only because it is the future. It has the big advantage to provide great bandwidth in both directions. This means that once the technology becomes available in Macs, one can expect a new class of OS and software technologies making use of this bi-directional high throughput.

Apple lately (see Tiger development) goes deep in exploiting the graphics chip capabilities. For this reason alone, it is imperative to bring PCIe next year, at least in the Power Mac line.

reader50 · Nov 25, 2004, 04:02 PM

PCIe has another advantage, there are no bus noise effects between multiple slots. Each slot effectively has it's own bus to the controller - which acts as a packet switch so cards can still talk to each other as needed.

Translation: there can be as many PCIe slots as desired. There is no longer a technical reason to limit a computer to 3-5 expansion slots.

UnixMac · Nov 26, 2004, 12:28 AM

Apart from SLI, which isn't coming to Mac anytime too soon sadly, there is no reason for PCIe on the Mac anytime too soon. The bottle neck isn't PCI or AGP, its CPU and mass storage. A faster PCI will not suddenly speed up computing.

I say buy now, the manufacture of the 2.5 GHz G5 and nvidia 6800Ultra are taxing the limits of simiconductor technology, things aren't gonna get much faster anytime too soon.

eddiecatflap · Nov 26, 2004, 12:01 PM

if that's true , why are they introducing pci-express on pc's ?

Leonard · Nov 26, 2004, 12:49 PM

Originally posted by eddiecatflap:
if that's true , why are they introducing pci-express on pc's ?

They have to give the PC people some reason to buy new PC's or they might buy a new Mac!

eddiecatflap · Nov 26, 2004, 01:17 PM

hahah , good point

UnixMac · Nov 26, 2004, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by eddiecatflap:
if that's true , why are they introducing pci-express on pc's ?

It's not going to be an overnight transition to PCIe on PC either... it's just like Firewire too a while to get popular, and USB is still around.. so will PCI and AGP.

Sure, eventually (in 3-4 years) PCIe will replace it, but if you're in the market for a machine soon, don't wait.

t500 · Nov 26, 2004, 06:13 PM

On the PC all major Mother Board makers are including PCI Express. Alienware is already showing a PC a 2 graphic cards running in SLI mode.

Most cheaper PC have AGP and the Cheapest only have PCI. The high end users are going to jump onto PCI Express quickly. If your not into games I don't think it would matter at the moment....

I don't understand why Apple is slow to adopt this technology. They were the fist to Drop the floppy, and Serial ports for USB...

I believe they make their own NVIDIA cards, maybe ADC was the hold up? Its gone now, So I guess we will see....

My DP1.8 has an AGP slot so I'm not in any hurry to move on. Just my 2 cents

SafariX · Nov 26, 2004, 07:06 PM

Originally posted by t500:
On the PC all major Mother Board makers are including PCI Express. Alienware is already showing a PC a 2 graphic cards running in SLI mode.

Most cheaper PC have AGP and the Cheapest only have PCI. The high end users are going to jump onto PCI Express quickly. If your not into games I don't think it would matter at the moment....

I don't understand why Apple is slow to adopt this technology. They were the fist to Drop the floppy, and Serial ports for USB...

I believe they make their own NVIDIA cards, maybe ADC was the hold up? Its gone now, So I guess we will see....

My DP1.8 has an AGP slot so I'm not in any hurry to move on. Just my 2 cents

I don't understand WHY we need it, as outside of SLI, it shows NO signs of increasing performance. Why pay more money for something that doesn't offer any tangible benefit?

NordicMan · Nov 26, 2004, 08:56 PM

Being as that Apple has committed to video production, and many smaller companies are committing their resources to buying Macs, as swift a G5 as they can get, now, Apple will want to cater to these customers, which are moving into HDTV, as well as needing to keep also SD out put. They have used the Cinewave capture card, with Final Cut.

Reading the MacWorld article, and seeing how Aurora Video Systems, BlackMagic Designs, and AJA Video have just recently come out with their PipeHD, Decklink HD Pro, and Kona 2 respectively, using the PCI-X technology, Apple surely will want to keep with this, unless these companies can move to PCI-extreme with out much trouble. They have given their resources for this move Apple has made into film. We would have to ask of these companies where they are at.

eddiecatflap · Nov 27, 2004, 06:18 AM

is it feasible to have pci-x and pci-e on the same board ?

power142 · Nov 27, 2004, 03:31 PM

Not sure... I'd expect it would add to the complexity of the traditional "north bridge" somewhat, unless there is already a HyperTransport -> PCIe tunnel.

The question remains, however, is what would we do with multiple PCIe slots? At least, on a desktop computer. As UnixMac says, I believe the bottleneck is storage, which isn't alleviated much shy of an XserveRAID

So we get back to the same point... high-end video professionals are already the people who could benefit from this. I'm not convinced the move from AGP/PCIX is so desparate on the Mac because of the OS/hardware integration that makes things like Motion and CoreVideo possible without too much extra programming effort on the application side of things.

Whether it's something a lot of people could benefit from is debatable, but whether Apple should add to the machines just because other people have is a different question