AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series to be PCI-Express 3.0 Compliant
 

AMD's next generation of graphics processors (GPUs) that will be branded under the HD 7000 series, are reported to be PCI-Express Generation 3 compliant. The desktop discrete graphics cards will feature PCI-Express 3.0 x16 bus interfaces, and will be fully backwards-compatible with older versions of the bus, including Gen 1 and Gen 2. Motherboards sold today feature Gen 2 PCI-E slots, although some of the very latest motherboards launched by major vendors feature PCI-Express 3.0 slots.

The new bus doubles the bandwidth over PCI-E 2.0, with 1 GB/s of bandwidth per lane, per direction. PCI-Express 3.0 x16 would have 32 GB/s (256 Gbps) of bandwidth at its disposal, 16 GB/s per direction. AMD's next generation of GPUs, codenamed "Southern Islands" will be built on the new 28 nm process at TSMC, and will upscale VLIW4 stream processors. Some of the first PC platforms to fully support PCI-Express 3.0 will be Intel's Sandy Bridge-E. Whether AMD's GPUs have hit a bandwidth bottleneck with PCI-E Gen 2, or is AMD trying to just be standards-compliant, is a different question altogether.

Source: Donanim Haber

I'm betting on "standards compliant".

If this is true ASRock is going to sell a shitload of boards because of it.

I'm gonna have to agree. I don't see most video cards saturating 16x 2.0 in the near future.

The only use for PCI-E 3.0 will be for things like pci-e SSD which are the few things that actually use that bandwidth.

Any date for their launch?

I reckon just a check box feature to get one over on Nvidia.

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only thing i don't like about this new stuff is i doubt it will have xp drivers or be xp compatible :twitch::cry:

XP....your using it?

Boo-friggen-hoo. It's about damn time, if you ask me. ANYTHING to get people off that antiquated POS.

says the man who is still running it on at least one of his machines(according to his sytem specs):p

I'm guessing the dual-GPU 7xxx series might need more bandwidth, and the top single-GPU might suffer from x8 PCIe 2.0, but otherwise it's pretty much just another feature on the list.

Hey, I use it for legacy stuff. The machine barely gets turned on.

My comment was directed at the people who still use it as their main OS and refuse to upgrade.

Graphic cards use far more bandwidth than any SSD available at the moment. Even the Revo thingies.

I can imagine it.
6 months from now:
Nvidia fanboys: We got Physx !
AMD fanboys: We got PCIe 3 !

yeah but pci-e 3.0 will allow pci-e SSD's to use fewer pci connectors and still get bulk bandwidth, for example fitting in a 4x @ 3.0 slot instead of 8x @ 2.0

At Last! Some good news (and some news at all) from HD7000. I can't wait for MORE NEWS!

Yeah I agree. Seriously want to start seeing more on the 7 series on the front page news.

Any "extras" like this will be welcomed by me with open arms. Anything that helps it stay competitive with nvidia is fine by me. I just hope that there's a use for this and not just a pure gimmick to sell cards. But I'm sure the top end dual-card solution will be able to use a good chunk of the new bandwidth provided by the 3.0 interface.

Who said nvidia wont have pci-e 3.0???

Does this supply anymore power to the card than pci ex 2.0?

It isn't a big deal. Kepler could be Gen 3, too.

Whether it will support it or not isn't what matters. It's when will a Nvidia PCIe 3 supporting card be released. Remember DX11 and the ATI 5 series ? The first Fermis were DX11 compliant too. But still, the red camp kept going about how AMD was the first to get there.

Personally, I don't give a damn. As long as Nvidia doesn't take the bait and rush Kepler like they did Fermi.

If it wasn't going to be.....it will be now :laugh:

I can see the engineers over at Nvidia now.

John Nvidia: "Ok we got the PCB done now we just need to get the yields down and we will be good to go on Kepler"

Bob Nvidia: "Hey John that dick ATI Jim is on the phone. He says how you doing on Kepler because hes got PCI 3.0. What should I say?"

John Nvidia: "Tell that jerk we got PCI 3.0 too!"

Bob Nvidia: "But John we just got the PCB done.....we don't have PCI 3.0."

John Nvidia: "Is he still on the phone?"

Bob Nvidia: "Yeah?"

John Nvidia: "You are such a dip shit. Do you think he heard you?"
-----------------

ATI Jim: (still on the line)

It's for marketing. AMD HD5000 was first GPUs witch support DX11, but so called "DX11" games was a joke. :laugh: No doubt it will be again.