Kepler, Ivy Bridge and PCIe3

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Arbegust

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I believe I read somewhere that Ivy Bridge CPUs were estimated to only bring a 10% to 15% power increase over Sandy Bridge. How are intergrated graphics and PCIe3 figured into that? Also isn't it true that PCIe3 graphic cards like the gtx 680 won't be bottlenecked by PCIe2 because it isn't nearly saturated yet? I also heard that PCIe3 is, at this point, a framework to build up to SATA 3. If this is true, could someone please explain? I'm a little fuzzy on what that means exactly. Finally, and more to the point, will the genesis of Ivy Bridge render Sandy Bridge and PCIe2 into obscurity? Please pardon the jumbled questions and thanks for any help in answering them!
 
I believe I read somewhere that Ivy Bridge CPUs were estimated to only bring a 10% to 15% power increase over Sandy Bridge. How are intergrated graphics and PCIe3 figured into that?

That's true. If you have Sandy Bridge, it's not really worth the upgrade, IMHO. But if you're still rocking a Core 2, it's a worthy investment. The integrated graphics are taking a step up to "HD 4000", which has 16 EU's, compared to the 12 in Sandy Bridge.
We should note that Gen 3 PCI Express speeds will be available on qualified motherboards and depending on the processor -- PCI-E 3.0 cards will function in PCI-Express 2.0 mode when connected to a Core i3 system.
If that clears anything up for you.


Also isn't it true that PCIe3 graphic cards like the gtx 680 won't be bottlenecked by PCIe2 because it isn't nearly saturated yet?


It will work with a PCI-E 2 slot, and shouldn't be bottlenecked too much, but I'd wait for others to tell you how well it works. I'm not an Nvidia guy.


I also heard that PCIe3 is, at this point, a framework to build up to SATA 3.

Where did you hear this..? I'm not too sure what you mean, but no, SATA and PCI-E are two different architectures (that's the simplest way I can think of to explain it.)

will the genesis of Ivy Bridge render Sandy Bridge and PCIe2 into obscurity?

Nope, not at all. Sandy Bridge is still, and will remain for some time, a very capable platform. And like you stated earlier, PCI-E 2.0 isn't even being used to its full potential yet.

Welcome to TF! :thumbsup:
 
To clarify, a PCI-E 2.0 16x slot will not bottleneck a 7970 or 680 card at all for regular gaming purposes or benchmarking. It has been said that the 680 can be hampered a bit in folding and the 7970 a bit in mining but IMO if you get these cards you will either grab a 3.0 setup or be gaming.

The thing to consider here is, IF you put SLI or Crossfire 680/7970 cards in a non 3.0 setup, it will be dropped to 8/8 2.0 which will bottleneck both cards in question. 8/8 3.0 is essentially 16/16 2.0. If you are running a socket 2011 rig it has natively 40 PCIE lanes so you should be able to run 2 cards at 16/16 2.0 (as Nvidia has stated they do not support X79 3.0 currently).

IMO if you have a 2500 or 2600k it is more than plenty for anything out right now. The upgrade path to Ivy is rather a want over a need IMO. It is also my opinion that if you can afford 680s or 7970s then you should be able to afford a SB-E setup too.
 
It doesn't bottleneck, but it does saturate it finally. I do believe there is a difference as I think any newer card will actually be held back by 2.0 16x. If you go SLI or Crossfire with these newer cards you will in fact be bottlenecked by dual 8x slots on a SB setup.
 
To clarify, a PCI-E 2.0 16x slot will not bottleneck a 7970 or 680 card at all for regular gaming purposes or benchmarking. It has been said that the 680 can be hampered a bit in folding and the 7970 a bit in mining but IMO if you get these cards you will either grab a 3.0 setup or be gaming.

The thing to consider here is, IF you put SLI or Crossfire 680/7970 cards in a non 3.0 setup, it will be dropped to 8/8 2.0 which will bottleneck both cards in question. 8/8 3.0 is essentially 16/16 2.0. If you are running a socket 2011 rig it has natively 40 PCIE lanes so you should be able to run 2 cards at 16/16 2.0 (as Nvidia has stated they do not support X79 3.0 currently).

IMO if you have a 2500 or 2600k it is more than plenty for anything out right now. The upgrade path to Ivy is rather a want over a need IMO. It is also my opinion that if you can afford 680s or 7970s then you should be able to afford a SB-E setup too.

Thanks for the clarification, PP. Didn't want to tell the OP something that wasn't true.
 
What you said was true, but I just wanted to explain why. I'm still skeptical as to how folding or mining would saturate the bus and not gaming considering they don't use the whole GPU.
 
I think it's mostly because in mining/folding there's a much greater use of memory bandwidth than in gaming.
 
Not really. BF3 can utilize more than 3GB in a triple monitor setup. Folding barely takes half of the mem on my card and doesn't load the controller at all.

foldingmem.jpg
 
I'm on about RAM rather than VRAM, and communication between it, CPU, and GPU. And bandwidth usage rather than capacity usage. It using a lot (relatively) but what it is using is constantly being updated.
 
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