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PCI Express™ will dominate new PCs
2004 will mark the most significant update to PC architecture in the past decade. This is the year when the new PCI Express™ architecture will arrive on the market to replace the AGP and PCI standards. Already one application - HDTV video editing - requires PCI Express, and there will certainly be others in the near future, including PC gaming .
ATI is at the forefront of this wave of innovation by being the first graphics provider to demonstrate a live-running PCI Express graphics solution.
ATI is supplying true PCI Express cards
ATI’s video processors have a native, or “true” PCI Express interface. They can communicate directly with the PCI Express bus at PCI Express speeds.
Other graphics companies have cards that are compatible with PCI Express, but they are still only AGP cards that are “bridged” by a second chip to be physically compatible with PCI Express slots on the motherboard. This architecture can only work at AGP speeds, and is more vulnerable to failure, performance bottlenecks and incompatibility with software applications.
Multiple Benefits of ATI’s True PCI Express Solution
ATI’s PCI Express design provides up to double the bandwidth of bridged PCI Express solutions. Full bandwidth is available in both upstream and downstream directions, whereas bridged PCI Express (AGP) provides only unidirectional bandwidth.
Better reliability
There are fewer failure points with native one-chip ATI PCI Express due to the smaller number of physical connections, which lowers the time delay between when data is requested and when it is delivered. This also translates into more robust error correction and recovery than bridged PCI Express.
Better power management
The serial bus with the reduced pin structure of the ATI native PCI Express architecture reduces the number of signals required, supporting lower power consumption and PCI Express's low-power idle states.
Notebook users will find this feature of particular importance.
More cost efficient
Unlike the bridged chip, the native one-chip design of new ATI PCI Express graphics processors will be brought on stream without significant incremental system cost.
ATI PCI Express Demonstration
ATI is being joined by Intel® and Pinnacle® Systems to demonstrate High Definition (HD) video editing on a PC at Intel Developer’s Forum in San Francisco the week of February 17th, 2004.
Made possible by PCI Express’s high speed data transfers, the demonstration has to use the industry’s only true PCI Express visual processing unit (VPU). ATI’s PCI Express VPU, in conjunction with the advanced real time HD engine being developed by Pinnacle, takes advantage of the new read and write capabilities offered by PCI Express.
The future is here, stay tuned to see it first with ATI.