Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

HailMary, so you are saying that a future Intel North Bridge will have PCI-Express built directly in.

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.

Let's consider that proposition. The Intel North Bridge diagram simpifies as follows:

PCI-X, IDE, DRAM, etc. <---> Express NB <---> Processor

vs. AMD:
PCI-X, IDE, etc. <---> Express HT tunnel <--->Processor, DRAM

Intel's advantage is that the PCI-X video card will have a more direct access to DRAM. This will decrease latency as the connection between PCI Express and the memory controller is internal to the Express NB.

AMD's advantage is that processor memory accesses have lower latency for pretty much the same reason - the memory controller is integrated into the processor die.

The two approaches seem to optimize for different types of applications. I don't see a clear advantage for one vs. the other.