Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple and 3GIO?

arn

arn

macrumors god
Original poster
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,416
5,882
This NewsFactor article 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.
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2002/03/03/apple-and-3gio/
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.
 
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!!
 
maybe I should reword it then...

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...
 
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.
 
But HyperTransport is 12 GB/sec!

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.
 
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?
 
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?
Click to expand...

Perhaps solid state storage?

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

arn
 
Originally posted by arn


Perhaps solid state storage?

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

arn
Click to expand...


except to address reasonable amounts of it (for 'storage' purposes) you need....wait for it....64 bits!
:)
 
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.
 
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.
 
Maybe not

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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Solid state HDs

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:
 
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
 
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.
 
Hypertransport is a kind of 3GIO

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.
 
You people...

...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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back