Quote:
|
Originally Posted by dfiler
I think the significance of this technology rests primarily on the bandwidth for data returning from the GPU. All of a sudden the hardware relient nature of quartz extreme makes sense...
|
Your comment is encouraging. I figured Apple would have X16 PCI Express graphics cards at some point, but if Express is a big advantage to Quartz Extreme these cards may come sooner, rather than later.
Now if Apple would just figure out that adding expansion cards is almost free, we might see slots in lower cost desktops. So far, nobody shot down this cost issue. When PCI Express is on-board for graphics, there are many more channels available. Each slot is just the cost of a small connector and piece of tin to cover the opening.
If most X86 PCs are also built without standard PCI, as hmurchison suggests, Wintel machines will share this same cost advantage. However, I'm not so sure. The information I read from Intel a few months ago seemed to suggest motherboards will have both Express and standard PCI. In that case, there is the added cost of bridge circuitry and more connectors during some transition period, which could last several years. The Power Mac no doubt will do something like this too.
With all the brains at Apple, surely someone can think of advantages to having expansion slots in lower cost desktop Macs. Even if the only advantage is an ability to market Macs as expandable, it's probably worth the near-zero cost.