PowerPC 970GX Reference?

[combatcolin]

There will never be an integrated card reader of any sort at the front panel of any Mac.

They just look awful, on the side iis OK.

 

[ddtlm]

wrldwzrd89:

They would want a transition period where they had both, to give people a chance to switch over. I think that very few PC mobos have dropped PCI entirely.

 

[~loserman~]

Realistically, if Apple was going to put PCI Express in one of their Macs, they wouldn't throw in PCI-X slots (which is what I believe the Windows PC manufacturers that use PCI Express do). Can anyone back me up or provide evidence that invalidates this reasoning?

No there is a very compelling reason to include both.
PCI-X is well established and there are very many expansion cards available for it.
Right now their are few devices that support PCI-express

Wouldn't you be bummed out if you had 2000 PCI-X Infiniband cards at $700 ea that you basically had to throw away because Apple decided not to include PCI-X

Within 3 years I would expect all Systems to stop coming with PCI-X but right now it is to early to make a whole scale change.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

No there is a very compelling reason to include both.
PCI-X is well established and there are very many expansion cards available for it.
Right now their are few devices that support PCI-express

Wouldn't you be bummed out if you had 2000 PCI-X Infiniband cards at $700 ea that you basically had to throw away because Apple decided not to include PCI-X

Within 3 years I would expect all Systems to stop coming with PCI-X but right now it is to early to make a whole scale change.

That makes sense if PCI-X and PCI Express aren't compatible (which I'll assume to be the case). In that case, you can simply disregard my earlier post.

 

[FFTT]

The subject of GPU cards probably deserves it's own thread, but you guys started it here again.

I've been wondering if there might be any possibility of Apple implementing
the use of some sort of "anything goes GPU" motherboard allowing the use of PCI, PCI-X OR PCI-express?

Could it be possible to configure a new motherboard to allow the user a choice of continued AGP support, while also providing support for X16 PCI-e cards as they come to market?

Expansion bay 1 PCI-e
Expansion bay 2 PCI-X
Expansion bay 3 PCI