6 ms·

It's a really good technical improvement, but it'll take a LONG time for this to filter down to software stacks for mere mortals. The improvement is largely be

by urthor 4y ago

It's a really good technical improvement, but it'll take a LONG time for this to filter down to software stacks for mere mortals. The improvement is largely being driven by the hyperscalers (Amazon et al) demanding it. The hyperscalers have a need for it because they have proprietary software stacks that are extremely good at pounding PCIE and bottlenecking on it.

mordae 4y ago
It is pretty easy to bottleneck your system with a couple NVMe sticks.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  Yes, but the average PC user doesn’t do that. It’ll take some time until we get PCI-e 7 NVMe sticks.
alias_neo 4y ago
I'm quite happy, for now, with I/O performance on my home devices; several Gigabytes per second is ok for the things I'm doing in 2022. What I'd really like to see is network equipment catching up, because I remember a few short years ago it was hit or miss if your new WiFi router would be gigabit and then it's just stayed there while we've pushed into 4K HDR streaming and game downloads over 100GB. I'd like to see home networks hit 10GbE+ in the mainstream so I can actually start throwing around the type of data I'm consuming; with my ISP being 1Gb/1Gb (symmetric), it's no faster to dig a file out of my storage server than to just download it again.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  At least 2.5 GBe is rapidly catching on in home networking, with more and more motherboards getting it by standard along with Wifi 6e routers that can finally exceed 1 Gbit real-world
  - zokier 4y ago
    Multigigabit ethernet switches are still afaik pretty rare though, so we are only halfway there
    - alias_neo 4y ago
      I'm about to move home and with it upgrade my network, I'm considering adding a Mikrotik 10GbE switch in there. I currently run a couple of Ubiquiti switches and pfSense on a Protectli box since my EdgeRouter died. I was all in with Ubiquiti at one point but I'm really put off by their output of late. I have no idea if the cheap £300 8-port 10GbE Mikrotik switch will do the job and I'd rather not spend any more on Ubiquiti, but I'll need a bit more than Amazon reviews to be sure whether or not to go that route in lieu of an alternative in that price range.
      - zokier 4y ago
        I do point out that that 8 port mikrotik is all sfp+, so you need modules also. The Mikrotik 1/2.5/5/10GbE SFP+ modules have msrp of $65 apiece, so 8x would cost additional $520. Still, $800ish is not outrageous cost.
        alias_neo 4y ago
        Good point. I suppose I can use some copper DAC for the servers sitting next to the switch though? There should only be one long run, from the racks to my home office, which should need fibre, in theory.
- urthor 4y ago
  Wifi routers are plagued by TERRIBLE 1% latency figures. I'm far more concerned with wifi not dropping out than mean performance.
ksec 4y ago
Well no, because PCI-E 6.0 or 7.0 will actually bring cost savings to consumers. What used to require 4x PCI-E lane SSD can now be done with a single lane. You save I/O die space with less lane required as well. I thought it is worth mentioning with a dedicated Storage API and SSD on the PS5, 90+% of loading time are spent on CPU vs very little on I/O.
- oblio 4y ago
  > I thought it is worth mentioning with a dedicated Storage API and SSD on the PS5, 90+% of loading time are spent on CPU vs very little on I/O. With faster buses and SSDs, this is probably going to get worse. I wonder if we'll see a CPU breakthrough within our lifetimes (let's say, before 2050).
- toast0 4y ago
  I kind of doubt we'll actually see cost savings. PCI-e 4.0 SSDs tend not to be 2 lanes vs 4 lane PCI-e 3.0 SSDs. Intel went from pci-e 4.0x20, dmi 3.0 x8 on LGA 1200 to pci-e 5.0x16, pci-e 4.0x4, dmi 4.0 x8; so same number of lanes, but most of them twice the speed. AMD has 24 lanes of pci-e in AM4 (at 3.0 or 4.0), and AM5 looks to also have 24 lanes of pci-e, but at 5.0. So we're going to get the same number of lanes, they'll be twice as fast (more or less), and we'll have to pay more for them. I do see that some dual 10G ethernet cards are pci-e 2.0 x8, and some are pci-e 3.0 x4, but I can't find solid pricing for like for like to see if that does actually reduce costs.

by urthor 4y ago

mordae 4y ago

It is pretty easy to bottleneck your system with a couple NVMe sticks.

rbanffy 4y ago
Yes, but the average PC user doesn’t do that. It’ll take some time until we get PCI-e 7 NVMe sticks.

alias_neo 4y ago

I'm quite happy, for now, with I/O performance on my home devices; several Gigabytes per second is ok for the things I'm doing in 2022. What I'd really like to see is network equipment catching up, because I remember a few short years ago it was hit or miss if your new WiFi router would be gigabit and then it's just stayed there while we've pushed into 4K HDR streaming and game downloads over 100GB. I'd like to see home networks hit 10GbE+ in the mainstream so I can actually start throwing around the type of data I'm consuming; with my ISP being 1Gb/1Gb (symmetric), it's no faster to dig a file out of my storage server than to just download it again.

kalleboo 4y ago
At least 2.5 GBe is rapidly catching on in home networking, with more and more motherboards getting it by standard along with Wifi 6e routers that can finally exceed 1 Gbit real-world
- zokier 4y ago
  Multigigabit ethernet switches are still afaik pretty rare though, so we are only halfway there
  - alias_neo 4y ago
    I'm about to move home and with it upgrade my network, I'm considering adding a Mikrotik 10GbE switch in there. I currently run a couple of Ubiquiti switches and pfSense on a Protectli box since my EdgeRouter died. I was all in with Ubiquiti at one point but I'm really put off by their output of late. I have no idea if the cheap £300 8-port 10GbE Mikrotik switch will do the job and I'd rather not spend any more on Ubiquiti, but I'll need a bit more than Amazon reviews to be sure whether or not to go that route in lieu of an alternative in that price range.
    - zokier 4y ago
      I do point out that that 8 port mikrotik is all sfp+, so you need modules also. The Mikrotik 1/2.5/5/10GbE SFP+ modules have msrp of $65 apiece, so 8x would cost additional $520. Still, $800ish is not outrageous cost.
      - alias_neo 4y ago
        Good point. I suppose I can use some copper DAC for the servers sitting next to the switch though? There should only be one long run, from the racks to my home office, which should need fibre, in theory.
urthor 4y ago
Wifi routers are plagued by TERRIBLE 1% latency figures. I'm far more concerned with wifi not dropping out than mean performance.

ksec 4y ago

Well no, because PCI-E 6.0 or 7.0 will actually bring cost savings to consumers. What used to require 4x PCI-E lane SSD can now be done with a single lane. You save I/O die space with less lane required as well. I thought it is worth mentioning with a dedicated Storage API and SSD on the PS5, 90+% of loading time are spent on CPU vs very little on I/O.

oblio 4y ago
> I thought it is worth mentioning with a dedicated Storage API and SSD on the PS5, 90+% of loading time are spent on CPU vs very little on I/O. With faster buses and SSDs, this is probably going to get worse. I wonder if we'll see a CPU breakthrough within our lifetimes (let's say, before 2050).
toast0 4y ago
I kind of doubt we'll actually see cost savings. PCI-e 4.0 SSDs tend not to be 2 lanes vs 4 lane PCI-e 3.0 SSDs. Intel went from pci-e 4.0x20, dmi 3.0 x8 on LGA 1200 to pci-e 5.0x16, pci-e 4.0x4, dmi 4.0 x8; so same number of lanes, but most of them twice the speed. AMD has 24 lanes of pci-e in AM4 (at 3.0 or 4.0), and AM5 looks to also have 24 lanes of pci-e, but at 5.0. So we're going to get the same number of lanes, they'll be twice as fast (more or less), and we'll have to pay more for them. I do see that some dual 10G ethernet cards are pci-e 2.0 x8, and some are pci-e 3.0 x4, but I can't find solid pricing for like for like to see if that does actually reduce costs.