Apple and 3GIO?

[arn]

This NewsFactor article (http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16589.html) discusses an upcoming technology designed to replace PCI/AGP... and probably involvement/support from Apple:

Now, Apple may be poised to push another standard called 3GIO, widely heralded as the successor to PCI and AGP expansion slots. Those slots, located on a computer's motherboard, allow insertion of video cards, networking cards and so on to enhance the computer's capabilities.

The new standard (3GIO) is expected to be introduced in 2004 and provide faster performance than current standards.

[Hemingray]

Welp, looks like I'll be holding off upgrading my computer for another couple years... ;)

[mongo1]

Wouldn't be surprised that Apple ends up having to support 3GIO. Intel and friends are pushing it through the PCI SIG as the replacement of PCI. It makes sense, serial, point to point, much faster interconnect speeds. Things you won't be able to get out of PCI even with PCI-X DDR.

You heard it here first, but the 3GIO spec will probably end up being called PCI version 3.

[eyelikeart]

that's pretty interesting....

now all the companies are going to have to adopt this when making graphics cards and such....

the technology just keeps going and going and going...

we will never be able to have technology remain steady....ever!!

[IndyGopher]

Well, let's hope that technology doesn't stand still.. it'd be a shame if the Motorola model became the standard.

[eyelikeart]

I wouldn't want to see technology stop either...

what I mean more is being able to keep up with it....

once u start learning about one technology....it's already become obsolete...

[beatle888]

HEMINGRAY

your post is hilarious :D






EYEHEART i agree with you.:p

[beatle888]

EYELIKEART:p

I agree with YOU.

p.s. I like art too.

[AlphaTech]

I wonder if that is what Apple is waiting for to release the G5 systems. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants to the peecee world to have Apple release the new standard first. Of course they would scamble to play ketchup as they always do. Then some peecee maker would claim to have innovated the technology when another really did the work. Just like dell did with claiming to be the first to offer a laptop that was wireless network ready when Apple had been doing it for a couple of years by then.

[Xapplimatic]

Confused... the difference between 3GIO and HyperTransport is??? Apple is already a supporter of the HyperTransport interconnect standard which claims to be roughtly 6x faster than the 2 GB intial verision of 3GIO.. Why would they suddenly favor something slower in both planned versions? It seems unlikely.

[Xapplimatic]

Thought 2: This all points out how woefully behind storage technology is in terms of speed.. The processors are already waiting on storage devices.. these darn harddrives can't spin fast enough to keep up with such a bus speed.. What are they going to do to rectify this?

[arn]

Originally posted by Xapplimatic
Thought 2: This all points out how woefully behind storage technology is in terms of speed.. The processors are already waiting on storage devices.. these darn harddrives can't spin fast enough to keep up with such a bus speed.. What are they going to do to rectify this?

Perhaps solid state storage?

Ram's getting awful cheap these days... :)

arn

[Pants]

Originally posted by arn


Perhaps solid state storage?

Ram's getting awful cheap these days... :)

arn


except to address reasonable amounts of it (for 'storage' purposes) you need....wait for it....64 bits!
:)

[krossfyter]

what argument is to be made for 3GIO being better than HyperTransport...since it looks like 3GIO is slower? Is it because of the initial test and it has a far faster capability? Im not understanding this.

[Beej]

About a HD made of RAM...

I saw something about that a while ago... like 5 GB worth of RAM hooked up as a HD. Had it's own backup power supply and all, incase the power went out. Cost a bundle, though.

But I think you're right, Arn, that's the direction it's heading.

[Simon Liquid]

Originally posted by Beej
About a HD made of RAM...

I saw something about that a while ago... like 5 GB worth of RAM hooked up as a HD. Had it's own backup power supply and all, incase the power went out. Cost a bundle, though.

But I think you're right, Arn, that's the direction it's heading.

I bet you could get a pretty big boost just by having a gig or so dedicated to caching the most used data from the hard drive. That wouldn't be *too* expensive, at least in the super-high end graphics work station.

[mischief]

I seem to recall a rumor about an exotic storage device from Sony. It was a cube of liquid crystal and the data was stored in a 3d matrix in such a manner as to have rediculously fast access times and effectively no volatility.

Apple has recently signed a patent sharing agreement with Sony. What if Apple premiers these toys as the first no-moving-parts storage over 10Gb?
It'd be a kick to have the first native Firewire drive be the first non-Disc HD. These things were also supposed to be cheap by comparisson and have much larger storage capacities.

If someone can find the Data and start a thread in HW I'd appreciate it. :cool:

[jadam]

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Hypertransport provides 12.8GB/sec of bandwith, and Hypertransport is already out. AKA nForce mobo. the nForce mobos have a 6.4GB/sec implentation of hypertransport. also, Hypertransport is compatible with PCI, AND AGP, thats how the hammers are ganna get AGP 8x. plus hypertransport will be used for multiprocessors to provide bandwith between each processor and the ram wich should be DDR 333 if Apple wants to catch up

[Xapplimatic]

Apple is a member of the HyperTransport consortium.. I'm pretty sure they intend to go forward with HyperTransport on their new motherboards.. I can't imagine why they would suddenly shift gears and go with something that's slower.. I think this rumor is just that.. a rumor.

[lewdvig]

What does Apple have to do with it???

[Xapplimatic]

Originally posted by lewdvig
What does Apple have to do with it???

Here ya go:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20612.html (http://http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20612.html)

Apple is part of the HyperTransport consortium.. Other articles on the Register say that Apple had sent 1.6 GHz G5 test units using HyperTransport motherboards to developers for eval.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/22677.html

[lewdvig]

I read the Reg and actually understand it.

HT is an AMD technology is it not? It being a flavour of 3GIO - 3rd Generation Input Output. When I have seen 3GIO used in the past it has been in reference to Intel's PCI-X and Serial ATA.

[lewdvig]

...is primarily a memory interface is it not?

[lewdvig]

...really haven't got a clue what your talking about do you?

110 ghz CPUs a week ago...

Now, entire motherboards using Hypertransport.

Want a PCI card? Sorry.

Want a video card? Sorry.

Hypertransport does nothing to fix all the bottlenecks on a mobo. It is just a fast memory bus.

Besides, Apple draws from the same parts bin as the average PC these days, so they won't being doing anything until its widely adopted by PC component manufacturers.

Heck if the current machines are any indication, Apple will adopt these sexy technologies a year or two after they become common on the PC.

If Apple gave us a long overdue DDR update you guys would be climaxing hard enough to short all the electronic devices in your homes. Talk about an easy audience. Apple has little pressure to innovate in any area other than design.

[mongo1]

Originally posted by AlphaTech
I wonder if that is what Apple is waiting for to release the G5 systems. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants to the peecee world to have Apple release the new standard first. Of course they would scamble to play ketchup as they always do. Then some peecee maker would claim to have innovated the technology when another really did the work. Just like dell did with claiming to be the first to offer a laptop that was wireless network ready when Apple had been doing it for a couple of years by then.

It would be a kick... But it will never happen...

Intel is driving the 3GIO standard through the PCI SIG. The 3GIO spec won't be finalized until later this year. Chipsets probably won't be available until '03. Intel's OEM's will then very shortly ship with 3GIO sockets, etc. Given Apple's lag on I/O technology (not counting Firewire) I wouldn't expect them to have a 3GIO interface until '04 or '05 earliest.
Keep in mind that while Apple develops their own chipsets, they're tied to Moto for processors for the time being. Moto is pushing Rapid I/O for the comms market (I think I remember something about future G4s/G5s having a RIO interface). So I see Apple putting RIO on the system board for chipset interconnect and still supporting PCI & AGP for the next couple of years.

Eventually 3GIO, but don't hold your breath...

[mongo1]

Originally posted by lewdvig
I read the Reg and actually understand it.

HT is an AMD technology is it not? It being a flavour of 3GIO - 3rd Generation Input Output. When I have seen 3GIO used in the past it has been in reference to Intel's PCI-X and Serial ATA.

HT was started by AMD, but now is owned by a consortium of companies, of which Apple is a member (see www.hypertransport.org for more info). 3GIO, previously codenamed Arapahoe, is being driven by Intel through the PCI SIG. Interestingly, Apple announced membership in the HTC days before Intel announced 3GIO and it's plans to drive it through the PCI SIG.

It should be noted that PCI-X is NOT Intel's even though Intel supports PCI-X in certain chipsets. PCI-X was developed by Compaq, HP and IBM then presented to the PCI SIG in mid '98.

[Xapplimatic]

Originally posted by lewdvig
...really haven't got a clue what your talking about do you?

...If Apple gave us a long overdue DDR update you guys would be climaxing hard enough to short all the electronic devices in your homes. Talk about an easy audience. Apple has little pressure to innovate in any area other than design.

I beg to differ. Apple was first to put out FireWire as a standard feature in a PC (duh, they codeveloped it), first to universalize USB across their entire line, first to go SuperDrive, first to dump floppies, first to offer built-in Gigabit Ethernet, first to move to all LCD panel line-up.. Apple has been innovating in a number of areas that have very little to do with case design.. The whole style over substance argument is itself a substanceless accusation about Apple products usually only forwarded by PC enthusiasts who have never used a Mac in their life and have no idea what Mac hardware entails.

Memory/bus speed is about the only area where Apple hasn't been setting the standard.. and again, this is Motorola's fault, not Apple's.. Apple has no ability to boost those until Motorola puts out the G5 or a revamped G4. Even 7455 G4 specs are at their limits in terms of bus speed on the current models..

From the Motorola product spec page:


Product Features

* 32-bit Superscalar core contains:
* Three issue (plus branch)
* 128-bit wide Vector Unit - AltiVec(TM)
* Integrated 256 KByte on-chip L2 cache
* Fully Symmetric Multi-Processing capability (SMP)
* 36-bit physical address space for direct addressability of 64 Gigabytes of memory
* Hardware and Software Tablewalk
* High Bandwidth 133 MHz 64-bit MPX Bus/60x Bus
* 2 times the number of BAT registers than previous generation
* Three power-saving user-programmable modes to reduce power drawn by processor
* Parity checking support on L1, L2 and L3 cache arrays



The bus is limited to 133 MHz by Motorola's PPC chip, not Apple's failure to make a faster motherboard! Quit blaming Apple for Motorola's failure.

http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7455&nodeId=03M943030450467M98653#features