Ivy Bridge Architecture

[PerryC]

Not sure if this has been posted, (didn't find it on any searches...but it wouldn't surprise me if missed it) but I stumbled across this on Anandtech. The article was originally posted there on the 17th

AnandTech - Intel's Ivy Bridge Architecture Exposed

[Arinoth]

If that is accurate, Ivy is a failure in my books as look at the pci-e lanes, only one x16, unless they'll be using another chip to amplify this my 1366 will be able to run multiple gpus for gaming then ivy...

[PerryC]

It seems to me that Ivy is more about what the processor is capable of, like the increased performance (yeah its not that great I know), better power usage,and the increased IGP capabilities. I also understand the supporting chipsets need to improve to make full use of those increased capabilities.

[SugarJ]

Ivy Bridge is a die-shrunk Sandy Bridge. It's the tick to SB's tock. There won't be any major architecture changes. Those of you looking for lots of PCI-E lanes will be wanting the SB-E chips coming before the end of the year.

[techman95]

wait SB and now IVY only have 16 pcie lanes? Am i glad i got a 990fx board cause i filled up all my expansion ports and my usb ports already, and ive only had the board about a month. how do yall use all the usb and sata ports on the p67 and z68 boards with 1 or more gpus? or is intels transfer system different than amds, cause amds just uses pcie lanes at 2000MHz to communicate between every interface from sata to expasion slots.

[PerryC]

SB and Ivy have, iirc, a total of 40 lanes split up however the board manufacturer sets them up. No one expansion slot is able to use more than 16 (at least the way I understand it)

[esperasoppa]

Based on this, does it make sense to buy SB now that I want a new computer, or should I wait to see Ivy's actual performance and the possible price drop of SB? ( how much would the drop be? huge?)

Also, what about SB-E, from what I read and remember, its only adding small new features right?

[PerryC]

Ivy will be compatable with current p67/z68 boards, though likely with a BIOS update. Besides the die shrink it has some performance tweaks and better integrated graphics than the SB chips. A newer updated look at the Ivy architecture here Inside the Intel Ivy Bridge Microarchitecture | Hardware Secrets

SB-E will be replacing the higher end 1366 chips....and will probably come with their price tags ~$1000, and its a whole different motherboard- socket 2011. Quite a few of the features initially announce to be included with that X79 chipset have been dropped...can't recall which ones exactly. Haven't done too much reading on those cpus and chipset as it is way outside my price range.

With the poor showing of the Bulldozer cpus from AMD I wouldn't much of a price drop on the SB processors even after the release of Ivy. If you purchased a SB rig now I doubt you would be disappointed with it.

[esperasoppa]

Oh well, guess I should stop playing the waiting game then. Thanks man.

[lKashl]

Originally Posted by techman95

wait SB and now IVY only have 16 pcie lanes? Am i glad i got a 990fx board cause i filled up all my expansion ports and my usb ports already, and ive only had the board about a month. how do yall use all the usb and sata ports on the p67 and z68 boards with 1 or more gpus? or is intels transfer system different than amds, cause amds just uses pcie lanes at 2000MHz to communicate between every interface from sata to expasion slots.

To be honest I'd much prefer the extra transfer speed in SATA 3 and PCI-e on intel boards than a minimal fps gain through the x16 lanes an AMD board can offer in crossfire as opposed to an intel counterpart.
AMD FX-8150 Black Edition 8-Core Processor vs Core i7-2600K Review - Platform Benchmarks

Guess its just a matter of perspective though :)