Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[j3pflynn]

"And just who have you heard is going to incorporate PCI Express into the processor that is going to put K8 at such a disadvantage?"

I don't think that was his argument. Intel will have chipsets that have PCI Express connections and direct memory connections, so going from a PCI Express video card to memory can be very direct. AMD is at a disadvantage because a tunnel will have to map from PCI Express to HT to get to the northbridge embedded in the processor. There is an issue, but I'm not sure it is worth a red flag just yet. How much extra latency are we talking about, and is it really a factor for the next generation graphics cards, or even beyond that.

I don't know that there will necessarily be any latency disadvantage. After all K8's "northbridge" is operating at full processor speed, while Intel's NB will be at a much lower speed. And Intel's will not have the memory controller on processor, either. As relatively low as the throughput rates are on those devices on the peripheral busses compared to memory or other processors on HT, that's probably still going to be the primary issue, not the latency involved with those devices, wouldn't you think?