DISTRIBUTORS AND partners of ATI have received a document which explains the Canadian firm"s strategy on PCI Express. Well, it"s a little bit more than that. The document we saw is positively theological in tone, claiming that the year 2004 will see the most significant upgrade to PC architecture for 10 years, as Express displaces the "venerable" AGP and PCI standards.
ATI further claims it"s at the vanguard of a "wave of innovation", and is the "primary validation" Intel partner for PCI Express. The document further says that the best way to move to PCI Express will be fully dedicated single chip graphics processors, to replace redundant AGP blocks. That will improve performance, lower cost and increase power.
Surprise! ATI has one of these in the pipeline. But "less efficient" graphics implementations of PCI Express are only PCI Express compatible, using a second chip to bridge slots on the motherboard. Such "compatible" devices will cause failure points, consume more power, create performance bottlenecks and introduce software incompatibilities. ATI" PCI Express stuff will give better power management, will offer bi-directional simultaneous and 4GB/s bandwidth. Other companies" stuff will lose 95% of PCI Express bandwidth because they"ll be "non native" or just "compatible".