PCIe 4.0: We have word of a number of SSDs coming soon. AMD will be releasing Navi graphics cards for it soon. I haven't seen anything about 10G ethernet cards using PCIe 4.0 yet. I calculate that a 10G interface should be able to fit on a PCIe 4.0 x1 interface. Is my math correct? And is there any word of such a card in the works from anybody?
Yes, PCIe 4.0 is 2GBps per lane. I doubt you'll see a PCIe 4.0 x1 network card anytime soon though. There's not really a market for one, as most everyone is still on PCIe 3.0.
no kidding, will not take long there will be AMD 7nm and PCI-e 4 etc in the world at large, likely for a "reasonable cost" considering the stupid amount of crap they fit under the same size lid as they have always used (more or less) since skt 939/940 (not counting Threadripper of course)
I doubt you will see a 1x 10GB card any time soon. The math is correct but it would be a niche as only new generation AMD boards would support it and it would get neutered in all other sockets. Once Intel gets PCIe 5 out then we'll probably see more 1x 10GB adapters.
Aquantia was acquired by Marvell, I wouldn't expect any new lines in this space, supposedly they just want them to improve thier in-car connectivity solutions.
IMO people worry about PCIE lanes too much. It's not like you are saturating the bandwidth of the PCIE bus 24/7. Even on my old Core i7 2600k I could easily use my 10 gig NIC and 1080ti without performance issues. I've never seen someone with so many devices they run out of lanes. You will run out of slots before lanes are an issue.
"I haven't seen anything about 10G ethernet cards using PCIe 4.0 yet." Because as with nearly every innovation in computing it's a classic "chicken & egg" situation. Why/how could ethernet card / whatever card vendors upgrade to PCIe 4.0 when there was no motherboard & CPU with PCIe 4.0 support? However now that AMD are providing the chicken (or is it the egg?) to the market they allow everyone to break this circle. PCIe 4.0 will truly take off when Intel upgrade to it, however I now hear whispers that they will move directly to PCIe 5.0 with Tiger Lake, in late 2020.. If that's the case PCIe 4.0 will probably turn out to be a stopgap PCIe version.
It's typical, actually. The writes are faster because they initially go into onboard RAM (or SLC) cache. When that fills up (under high sustained load), the writes be one a lot slower. But that's why those are "up to" numbers: the goal is to bamboozle the typical consumer who doesn't bother reading the fine print (or product reviews...)
No, the Anandtech article looks to be wrong. The Amazon US ad it points to for purchase says "up to 4, 950MB/s sequential read and 4, 250MB/s sequential Write speeds" as does https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/mp600-gen4-pcie-ssd
I'm glad I was right in my pricing predictions: very close to current high-end SSDs. Currently on Newegg the WD Black 1TB is $238 with the 2TB $500, and the 970 Evo Plus 1TB at $218 on sale (supposedly down from $250) and the 2TB at $498. No PCIe 4.0 premium, in other words - unless this controller is terrible, that is.
Are PCI Express 4.0 drives going to have faster random performance at low queue depths than PCI Express 3.0 drives? Superfast sequential is cool but mostly useless for the cast majority of users.
No it does not. Even with zero overhead the max of a m.2 with 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes is just under 4,000 MB/s. Of course zero overhead is impossible so ~3,600 MB/s is the real world limit of a PCIe 3.0 m.2 slot.
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CrystalCowboy - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
PCIe 4.0: We have word of a number of SSDs coming soon. AMD will be releasing Navi graphics cards for it soon. I haven't seen anything about 10G ethernet cards using PCIe 4.0 yet. I calculate that a 10G interface should be able to fit on a PCIe 4.0 x1 interface. Is my math correct? And is there any word of such a card in the works from anybody?MrAndroidRobot - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Just buy a motherboard with one build in like the Gigabyte Aorus XtremeR3MF - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
And what will those built in 10Gb controllers be attached too?DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Yes, PCIe 4.0 is 2GBps per lane. I doubt you'll see a PCIe 4.0 x1 network card anytime soon though. There's not really a market for one, as most everyone is still on PCIe 3.0.CrystalCowboy - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
"... as most everyone is still on PCIe 3.0."Check back after July 7, 2019
Dragonstongue - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
ROFLMAOno kidding, will not take long there will be AMD 7nm and PCI-e 4 etc in the world at large, likely for a "reasonable cost" considering the stupid amount of crap they fit under the same size lid as they have always used (more or less) since skt 939/940 (not counting Threadripper of course)
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Sorry, but your fantasy that PCIe 4.0 is going to take over the world is laughable.Chaitanya - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
Enterprises will be more than willing to upgrade to PCI-e 4.0 as it allows them add more network interfaces and storage.Ej24 - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
IIRC, IBM power systems have been shipping with pcie 4.0 for several years already so enterprise is already on board.Eletriarnation - Monday, July 1, 2019 - link
Of course it will, just as the standards we use now took over the world from the standards before then... it's just a matter of how long it will take.ERJ - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
I doubt you will see a 1x 10GB card any time soon. The math is correct but it would be a niche as only new generation AMD boards would support it and it would get neutered in all other sockets. Once Intel gets PCIe 5 out then we'll probably see more 1x 10GB adapters.ghm3 - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
Actually the math is not quite correct. A saturated 10Gb NIC would use 2.5GBps @ full duplex, and a single PCIE 4.0 lane is only 2GBps.TheUnhandledException - Saturday, June 29, 2019 - link
PCIe is also full duplex. PCIe 4.0 is 2 GB/s in each direction. More than the max of 10 GBe which is 1.25 GB/s max in each direction.samerakhras - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
you will see 10GB more on AMD boards onboard. will be cheaper and easier to add onboard.Intel is in big trouble in the desktop market
IanCutress - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
I've not seen any PCIe 4.0 enabled 10G controllers announced so far. I can poke Aquantia, see if they'll say anything.AdditionalPylons - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
+1Reflex - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Aquantia was acquired by Marvell, I wouldn't expect any new lines in this space, supposedly they just want them to improve thier in-car connectivity solutions.Chaitanya - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
It still hasnt been acquired by Marvell, its in process of acquisition(according to aquantia's website).TrevorH - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
This article has the read/write speeds reversed and needs correction. The Corsair website has it correctly as 4.9GB/s read, 4.2GB/s write.eek2121 - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
IMO people worry about PCIE lanes too much. It's not like you are saturating the bandwidth of the PCIE bus 24/7. Even on my old Core i7 2600k I could easily use my 10 gig NIC and 1080ti without performance issues. I've never seen someone with so many devices they run out of lanes. You will run out of slots before lanes are an issue.GreenReaper - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
If you had more lanes, or they went faster, you could have more slots . . .quantumshadow44 - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
why one needs copper (=expensive) 10GbE now?$200 NIC or $700 mobo with embedded NIC, $600 10GbE switch, 8 CAT cable...
Cheap SFP+ solution looks smth like this: https://youtu.be/MDiiHN0MPdA
Santoval - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
"I haven't seen anything about 10G ethernet cards using PCIe 4.0 yet."Because as with nearly every innovation in computing it's a classic "chicken & egg" situation. Why/how could ethernet card / whatever card vendors upgrade to PCIe 4.0 when there was no motherboard & CPU with PCIe 4.0 support? However now that AMD are providing the chicken (or is it the egg?) to the market they allow everyone to break this circle.
PCIe 4.0 will truly take off when Intel upgrade to it, however I now hear whispers that they will move directly to PCIe 5.0 with Tiger Lake, in late 2020.. If that's the case PCIe 4.0 will probably turn out to be a stopgap PCIe version.
TrevorH - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Write speeds higher than read speeds? That's unusual unless the figures are accidentally switched.boeush - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
It's typical, actually. The writes are faster because they initially go into onboard RAM (or SLC) cache. When that fills up (under high sustained load), the writes be one a lot slower. But that's why those are "up to" numbers: the goal is to bamboozle the typical consumer who doesn't bother reading the fine print (or product reviews...)TrevorH - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
No, the Anandtech article looks to be wrong. The Amazon US ad it points to for purchase says "up to 4, 950MB/s sequential read and 4, 250MB/s sequential Write speeds" as does https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/mp600-gen4-pcie-ssdValantar - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
I'm glad I was right in my pricing predictions: very close to current high-end SSDs. Currently on Newegg the WD Black 1TB is $238 with the 2TB $500, and the 970 Evo Plus 1TB at $218 on sale (supposedly down from $250) and the 2TB at $498. No PCIe 4.0 premium, in other words - unless this controller is terrible, that is.boeush - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Let me guess... those read/write bandwidth numbers are at queue depth 1,000,000. Am I close, or too conservative?oRAirwolf - Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - link
Are PCI Express 4.0 drives going to have faster random performance at low queue depths than PCI Express 3.0 drives? Superfast sequential is cool but mostly useless for the cast majority of users.PixyMisa - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
No, won't make any real difference for that use case. Tom's Hardware tested one, and the only area it stood out was sequential read and write.samerakhras - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
tomshardware became the worst reviewers on the internet.Their test was not p[roffesional at all . they used a PCIe 4.0 converter not a true PCIe 4.0 board in that test
peevee - Wednesday, June 26, 2019 - link
Sounds like you have swapped read and write speeds, at least in the article about Phison controllers they were the other way around.lashek37 - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
My Samsung 970 m.2 gets 5000mb/s speeds on the Asus crosshair Vll . I have screenshots to prove it. my board X470samerakhras - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
meh this cant happen ...TheUnhandledException - Saturday, June 29, 2019 - link
No it does not. Even with zero overhead the max of a m.2 with 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes is just under 4,000 MB/s. Of course zero overhead is impossible so ~3,600 MB/s is the real world limit of a PCIe 3.0 m.2 slot.