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PCI Express 6 spec promises massive headroom for AI and storage
PCI Express 5.0 has barely been finalized, but that isn't stopping its creators from dreaming about what comes next. The PCI Special Interest Group has unveiled a PCI Express 6.0 specification that should deliver up to a blistering 256GB per second across 16 lanes -- that's twice as fast as the yet-to-ship PCIe 5.0 spec, and four times as much as the 4.0 spec that's only just reaching computers. The PCI-SIG aims to achieve the feat by using Pulse Amplitude Modulation technology that can carry twice as much data as existing methods without needing to double the transmission bandwidth and use ridiculously high frequencies.
iFixit disassembles new iMacs, finds spare SSD slot and more
iFixit did their patented (well, the process should be patented) teardowns of a pair of brand-new iMacs and as usual, the team of technicians has found some unexpected surprises. In a quest to find out just how repairable the new iMacs are, iFixit opened up both the 21.5- and 27-inch models to see what makes them tick. Both new iMacs sport a way to add a second hard drive through the Fusion Drive SSD port. The port features a PCIe connection, so it will just be up to third-party vendors to come up with adapters to allow a simple drive installation. The 21.5-inch model no longer has a replaceable CPU, with the previously socketed processor now soldered directly to the logic board. Fortunately for power users, they can still replace the CPU in the 27-inch model. Both new iMacs have a new AirPort/Bluetooth card that is on the back of the logic board. The card uses a Broadcom BCM4360 802.11ac transceiver and three Skyworks SE5516 WLAN front-end modules for ultra-fast WiFi, and also features a BCM20702 Bluetooth 4.0 chip. iFIxit also reports that there's a new slimmer CPU heatsink and an update to the hard drive SATA power / data cables. The full teardown for the 21.5-inch model is available here, while the 27-inch is here.
ASUS' RAIDR Express PCI-e SSD is compatible with both legacy and UEFI BIOS
These days, it's fairly easy to find a PCI Express-based SSD to transform one's desktop -- Angelbird, Fusion-io, Micron and ASUS will sell you one, just to name a few. That said, the last of those three has just revealed a new entrant that will certainly catch the eye of many, as the RAIDR Express claims to be the first PCI-e SSD to be compatible with both legacy and UEFI BIOS. The so-called DuoMode feature is joined by 240GB of storage space, sequential 830MB/s read and 810MB/s write speeds and a reported 620,000 hours mean time between failure (MTBF). You'll also find the latest LSI SandForce controller, Toshiba-built 19nm MLC flash, and 100,000 4K read/write input/output operations per second (IOPS). The bundled RAMDisk utility allows users to dedicate up to 80 percent of a computer's available RAM for use as a high-speed virtual drive, and if you needed any further proof that it's fast, look no further than in the video after the break. Curiously, ASUS isn't talking pricing just yet, but it should start shipping in the very near future.
Micron's RealSSD P320h PCI Express SSD gets reviewed: wildly fast, but a little unstable
"Taking one's sweet time" just took on an entirely new meaning. Well over a year after Micron first introduced its RealSSD P320h PCI Express SSD, the aforesaid device is finally hitting the general availability stage. And with that, the flood of reviews begins. What sets this guy apart right out of the box is its native stature; much like Fusion-io (and very unlike most all other rivals from OCZ, Intel, LSI, etc.), this thing sidesteps the mishmash of SATA / SAS controllers and opts for a direct-attached PCIe approach. At around $7,000, it's clearly aimed first at enterprise, but given Micron's history in the consumer space, one could assume that this kind of wizardry will eventually trickle down. The fine folks over at HotHardware found their tester to be shockingly quick, easily outpacing its rivals when it came to read and write performance. Unfortunately, the Windows drivers provided weren't exactly mature, which led to a few booting issues when swapping in varying motherboards. Of course, no one ever said the Ferrari of PCIe SSDs would purr without a bit of finagling. Hit up the links below for the full spiel.
Lexar XQD memory cards announced, will duel with Sony for Nikon D4's attention
Nikon's D4 is currently the only belle at the XQD ball, and until now, Sony was its only memory suitor. However, Lexar's just arrived with a new line of cards to compete for the D4's affections. The Fremont-based company says it collaborated with Nikon to build the PCI Express-based memory, and that they'll hit the market sometime in the third quarter of 2012 -- with no mention of specs or prices so far. Unfortunately, that means we don't know how Lexar's offerings will stack up against Sony's H-series or S-series cards already on the market. That said, while you wait for more details about Lexar's new cards, feel free to check out the lovely data the D4 will be putting on 'em when they arrive.
AMD announces 900MHz version of the Radeon HD 7750, calls it 'the other 7750'
The original Radeon HD 7750 won plaudits for its low-wattage performance and $109 price tag, but now AMD's decided to put out an additional version with 100MHz more clock whizz. The new card also happens to be called the Radeon HD 7750, and it'll sit alongside its doppelganger on the shelves of the world's computer stores just daring you spot the difference. How will you do that? By checking if it requires a separate power supply: the original 7750 was powered entirely through the PCIe slot, limiting its power to 75W and hence its clock speed to 800MHz, while the new one accepts additional power to deliver slightly more grunt and stay ahead of looming competition from NVIDIA. XFX has already jumped aboard with the 7750 Black Edition Double Dissipation priced at $115 after a rebate, and AnandTech says other vendors will follow suit. So, unless you're totally out of power jacks, you know what to look for. Image courtesy of Newegg.
Intel's PCI-E 910-Series SSD reviewed: blazing fast, even under pressure
Intel's not one to mess around when it storms a new market, and its jump into enterprise-level PCI Express SSD seemed no exception. Now, a full review by Hot Hardware of its 400GB ($1,929) and 800GB ($3,859) 910-series confirms that while not as stupid-fast as some, the 2 GB/s read and 1 GB/s write speeds are still sublime. On top of that, throughput holds steady even when the device is besieged by thousands of IO demands. A lack of bootability and on-board RAID were complaints, but these SSDs are intended for datacenters, not your gaming PC. And for its target market, the lowish $4.82 price per GB and chart-topping 14 Petabyte max endurance are also endearing qualities. Given its history of SSD reliability, Intel is bound to draw a crowd of corporate admirers to its 910 series -- even though it's fashionably late to the boardroom.
Intel announces PCI-Express 910 SSD lineup for enterprise customers
See that SSD up there? For a moment, you might've thought it'd make the next great addition to your desktop rig -- and yeah, extra storage without any wires is a really cool idea -- but don't fool yourselves, because the Intel SSD 910 family of PCI-Express storage devices were built with enterprise in mind. Based on the company's 25nm MLC NAND flash technology, these devices will emphasize both speed and reliability, and will hit the market in both 400GB and 800GB configurations. Intel's own reports suggest the 800GB model will be the quicker of the two, which is said to offer sequential performance of 2,000MB/s read and 1,000MB/s write. Both the 400GB ($1,929) and 800GB ($3,859) models will be available mid-year. We've included the PR after the break, but those who'd like to get a bit more in-depth should hit up the links below.
Thunderbolt is everywhere, now let's make it faster with PCI-Express 3.0
Things are different on Planet Intel. Over there, Thunderbolt drives and peripherals are as cheap and abundant as artificial intelligences in a Culture novel, so the population's attention has already turned to what comes next. Some are prepared to wait for a promised 50Gbps optical interconnect by 2015, but an impatient few are trying to make Thunderbolt exploit the new PCI-Express 3.0 standard for more immediate thrills. PCWorld claims the latest form of PCI-Express found in Sandy Bridge E, Ivy Bridge and Xeon E5 chipsets could make 10Gbps Thunderbolt run "significantly faster", thanks to a 60 percent speed boost over PCIe 2.0. Maybe they're right, but back on this planet we're still 33 percent of the way through transferring The Best of Leo Sayer to our USB 2.0-equipped Xperia S.
Super Talent teases whip-fast RAIDDrive UpStream PCIe SSD
Super Talent's developed a PCI Express flash storage system that's far faster than your current SSD yet promises to be cheaper than the company's current PCIe offerings. The RAIDDrive UpStream uses a Sandforce controller to push around 1GBps of data at twice the speed of a SATA unit. Available to buy in 220GB, 460GB and 960GB editions, it sandwiches in four RAID drives to competitor OCZ's two, and is promised to be an "upsetter" by marketing director Peter Carcione. The company's hoping to get the devices into boxes and onto shelves by the end of April, for a price that's yet to be decided. Just remember, powerful SSDs are like having a butler: desirable, yes, but also a little pricey if your surname isn't Abramovitch or Buffett.
OCZ goes SSD crazy at CES, leaves no port unplugged
OCZ came rolling into CES this year with a pile of SSDs in tow. Most are pretty firmly aimed at the enterprise market but, what's impressive, is how the company has made sure to cover practically every interface . If you're looking to fill up some PCIe slots, the Z-Drive R5 and are R4 CloudServ have you covered. The former is based on the Kilimanjaro platform, designed with help from Marvell, and can deliver a staggering 2.52 million IOPS and 7.2GB/s. The latter is an evolution of the existing R4 line, but with nearly double the performance in a card that can carry up to 16TB of solid state storage. If rack-mount servers are more your style, the SATA 3.0-packing Chiron delivers a respectable 560MB/s and 100,000 IOPS in a 3.5-inch package. The most exciting item, at least for consumers, is the Lightfoot -- an external, compact SSD ready to take over your under-utilized Thunderbolt port. Lightfoot will be available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB sizes, though, price and release dates are still very much up in the air. Check out the gallery below and complete PR (with a few more products) after the break.
CompactFlash Association readies next-gen XQD format, promises write speeds of 125 MB/s and up
We don't need to tell you CF is one of the few memory card formats that's managed to survive the SD tidal wave (remember when you needed Memory Stick to use a Sony point-and-shoot?). But if you're the kind of serious shooter who uses CF, you might be tickled to know its high-speed successor is just about good to go. The CompactFlash Association said it's finished work on XQD, a next-gen format that promises faster speeds, along with a smaller footprint than current-gen CF cards. As for transfer rates, the included PCI Express interface promises theoretical write speeds as high as 5 Gb/s, though the association is quick to peg real-world writes at 125 MB/s and up. Still, that's plenty fast for processing RAW stills and 1080p video, and it's a clear bump over the 100 MB/s write rates (max) you'll get from today's CF cards. No word on availability or partnerships, though we know Nikon led XQD's development, and that Canon endorsed it, so it's safe to say we'll see this in some major releases sometime after the association starts licensing the technology in early 2012.
PCIe 4.0 inches towards reality, hits 16 gigatransfers per second (that's a thing, right?)
Don't get too excited just yet, but PCIe 4.0 is coming. PCI-SIG, the body that governs the standard, has announced the next evolution of the interface, which should start popping up in servers, desktops, laptops and even tablets around 2015. Sadly, details are pretty slim on the slot -- final specs aren't expected to be announced before 2014. All we know is that PCIe 4.0 will be able to perform 16 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), which tells us only slightly more than jack squat. It simply means that a PCIe 4.0 card will be capable of transferring 16 billion discrete chunks of data per second, twice that of PCIe 3.0. What that doesn't tell us though, is the size of those chunks. If they're the same size, 4.0 will provide double the current bit rate of 1 GB/s per-lane. If, for some reason, the channel width were halved there would be no speed increase -- but we seriously doubt that's the case. So, will we be looking at 32 GB/s PCIe 4.0 x16 GPUs in a few years? That is a definite maybe.
Angelbird's Wings PCIe-based SSD preview and benchmarks
Storage enthusiasts (yeah, there is such a thing -- what of it?) would probably tell you that PCIe-based SSDs are a dime a dozen these days. But in all seriousness, the prices we're seeing are proof that a few more competitors wouldn't hurt. A few weeks back, Austria's own Angelbird started to ship a solution that we first heard about during 2010, and we were fortunate enough to pop a Wings PCIe SSD RAID card into our Mac Pro for testing. For years, we've been booting this up and running every single application off of its stock HDD -- a 640GB Hitachi HDE721064SLA360 (7200RPM) -- as we surmise many of you desktop owners might be. Anxious to see if these are the Wings your existing tower needs to soar? Head on past the break for our impressions. %Gallery-134642%
MSI demos X79 motherboards with PCI Express 3.0 and UEFI BIOS at IDF 2011 (video)
While MSI wasn't quite ready to publicly divulge all the details of its forthcoming X79-based motherboards, it was more than happy to give us a teaser. We were shown three upcoming models from the company at IDF, all toting PCI Express 3.0 slots, overclocking buttons and that snazzy UEFI BIOS. The latter makes changing settings a snap, and is carried over from the company's existing Sandy Bridge boards -- it even comes with a button that launches a browser, but unfortunately the machines in the booth weren't configured to support it. We'll know more in Q4, but in the meantime a gallery awaits you below, along with a video after the break. Myriam Joire contributed to this report. %Gallery-134332%
Magma ExpressBox 3T gives you 3 external PCIe slots over Thunderbolt
Laptops aren't exactly renowned for their expandability, especially those beautiful slivers of aluminum from Apple. (Simply upgrading the RAM on your Air requires you break out the soldering iron.) Magma has a solution, the ExpressBox 3T. This silver case houses its own 220w power supply and a trio of PCIe 2.0 slots. Two of those slots are of the x8 variety (though one can hold an x16 card) while the third is scaled back to x4. And they all talk to your notebook via that wonderful little port known as Thunderbolt. It even comes with a carrying case which, we suppose, makes this hunk of metal "portable," but we certainly wouldn't want to lug it around very often. Sadly there's no info just yet about price or release date, but we do have a gallery of images below and the complete PR after the break. %Gallery-132908%
External Thunderbolt graphics card for Macs to be developed soon, thanks to Facebook poll
Have you ever let your Facebook friends determine a new product development decision for your company? Well, Village Instruments has, via an online poll in order to gauge interest in an external Thunderbolt PCI Express graphics card enclosure. Dubbed the ViDock Thunderbolt, this device will soon begin to dramatically improve the performance of today's Apple machines. Running at speeds of up to 10Gb/second, the new T-Bolt model can move data much faster than the company's current Express Card-connected external GPU. So if you're rocking the new MBP model, but you've got a hankering for more power out of your graphics card, you better start saving your Benjamins.
OCZ's Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD offers 2,800MB/sec, 500,000 IOPS, plenty of thrills
Hard to believe that we spotted OCZ Technology's original Z-Drive at CeBIT 2009. Just over two full years have passed, and already we've seen the 600MB/sec claims offered on that fellow eclipsed by a few successors. Today, the latest in the line is making its debut, with the Z-Drive R4 offering 2,800MB/sec and over 500,000 IOPS with a single SuperScale controller; step up to a dualie, and you'll see 5,600MB/sec transfer rates coupled with 1.2 million input-output operations per second. Not surprisingly, this guy's aimed squarely at enterprise users -- folks who can genuinely take advantage of the speed, and are willing to pay the unpublished rates (yeah, we asked!) that go along with it. It's retaining the PCIe-based form factor, and will be shipped in two standard configurations: a half height version designed for space constrained 1U servers and multi-node rackmount servers, and a full height version. Each of those will be made available with SLC / MLC NAND flash memory, and as with all of OCZ's enterprise kit, customer-specific configurations and functionality are available upon request. Full release is after the break, big spender.
MSI unveils Z68A-GD80 (G3) PCI Express 3.0 motherboard
The long-awaited debut of PCI Express 3.0 is finally here, and it's come aboard MSI's Z68A-GD80 (G3) motherboard. Rocking Intel's latest design standard, this board's packing two PCIe 3.0 -- one x16 and one x8 -- and three PCIe 2.0 slots, two USB 3.0 ports, and four DIMM slots. What's more, the board offers Click BIOS II, for a consistent interface whether you're tweaking at boot time or boosting clock speeds in Windows, and Virtu's switchable graphics. Unfortunately, for you mother lovers, there's still no word on pricing or availability for the Z68A-GD80 (G3). Full PR after the break.
OCZ's RevoDrive 3 X2 review roundup: SSD melts faces with 1.5GBps read and 1.2GBps write speeds
Did our footage of OCZ's new RevoDrive 3 X2 whet your appetite for more info on the super speedy SSD? Well, your wish is the web's command, and we've got a full roundup of reviews that'll tell you all you need to know. After putting OCZ's latest through its paces, the consensus is that the SSD is seriously quick in remembering and retrieving data. According to Tom's Hardware, the RevoDrive 3 X2 -- with its max 1.5GBps read and 1.2GBps write speeds -- "smokes everything" they've had pass through their lab. However, AnandTech noted that such capacious bandwidth is "simply overkill" for most users, as the drive only really flexes its muscles once the queue depth increases from enterprise-level workloads. Several sites noted that the lack of TRIM support on Windows machines was also a concern, and that more cost effective (albeit slower) storage solutions can be had with a DIY RAID array of SATA SSDs. Of course, you don't have to take our word for it, get down to the nitty gritty in the links below. Read - Hot Hardware Read - AnandTech Read - Tom's Hardware Read - PC Perspective Read - The SSD Review
