Quote from: Anonymousgg on May 23, 2021, 19:45:52
Will Alder Lake even support PCIe 5.0 SSDs? It looks like it only supports a GPU.

Also, Alder Lake will work with either DDR4 or DDR5 motherboards. The cheaper DDR4 ones could drop features.

AMD can definitely get away with PCIe 4.0 on Rembrandt and Zen 4. Then introduce PCIe 5.0 later when there are actually GPUs and SSDs on the market that can take advantage of it.

I don't know what Alder Lake will support. I'm just saying that SSDs can readily take advantage of it. I'm expecting them to be the first consumer devices actually exploiting it. GPUs, on the other hand, are a different story. I'm under the impression that gaming GPUs can't even fully utilize 3.0 x16. So, I don't really see them utilizing 5.0 with four times the bandwidth anytime soon. There is potential for improving data transfer between RAM and VRAM. But really, a big problem there is latency of PCIe. The relatively high latency dampens utility of higher bandwidth. We will have to wait until PCIe 6.0 to get a significant improvement in that area (through incorporation of CXL). Once you cut latency down far enough to make accessing RAM cheap, it changes the game and bandwidth can become more interesting (VRAM could act more like a cache). As it is, it's preferable to have enough VRAM to fit your problem and avoid having to go to RAM. If you don't have enough, you can benefit from higher bandwidth but you can't avoid paying in latency.

I'm not saying they can't get away with it in a consumer platform. As I wrote, consumer PCs typically contain very little. And almost nothing is interface limited. Even with SSDs, we can argue whether there is a real benefit and not just theoretical one.

Quote from: _MT_ on May 23, 2021, 15:34:08

Quote from: leo_sk on May 23, 2021, 14:27:38
Given that even most consumer products have not completely made a switch to pcie 4, is it even reasonable to expect pcie 5 support? Are there any consumer applications that can see reasonable gain with pcie 5 right now?
Seems it would just raise cost for the chipset without providing anything much in return. Would be better if its integration be pondered 1-2 years later

SSDs are definitely one possibility. We can debate whether consumers need it but higher performance can be readily delivered there. Of course, you could simply produce a card with x8 or x16 interface. But the market would be smaller than for x4 m.2. A typical consumer has almost nothing in their computer. There isn't much to speed up.

Will Alder Lake even support PCIe 5.0 SSDs? It looks like it only supports a GPU.

Also, Alder Lake will work with either DDR4 or DDR5 motherboards. The cheaper DDR4 ones could drop features.

AMD can definitely get away with PCIe 4.0 on Rembrandt and Zen 4. Then introduce PCIe 5.0 later when there are actually GPUs and SSDs on the market that can take advantage of it.

Quote from: leo_sk on May 23, 2021, 14:27:38
Given that even most consumer products have not completely made a switch to pcie 4, is it even reasonable to expect pcie 5 support? Are there any consumer applications that can see reasonable gain with pcie 5 right now?
Seems it would just raise cost for the chipset without providing anything much in return. Would be better if its integration be pondered 1-2 years later

SSDs are definitely one possibility. We can debate whether consumers need it but higher performance can be readily delivered there. Of course, you could simply produce a card with x8 or x16 interface. But the market would be smaller than for x4 m.2. A typical consumer has almost nothing in their computer. There isn't much to speed up.

Given that even most consumer products have not completely made a switch to pcie 4, is it even reasonable to expect pcie 5 support? Are there any consumer applications that can see reasonable gain with pcie 5 right now?
Seems it would just raise cost for the chipset without providing anything much in return. Would be better if its integration be pondered 1-2 years later