40 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|DEC 08 |www.maximumpc.com
USB 3.0
New spec promises a speed boost
PCI-E 3.0
Pleasantly predictable
Yaaaaawn
These once-promising technologies have yet to make an impact
DISPLAYPORT
While numerous sources (us in-
cluded) have pegged DisplayPort
as the next logical progression
in PC-to-monitor connectivity,
the connection has yet to make
a dent in the marketplace. It’s a
chicken-and-egg story: Monitor
manufacturers need to support
DisplayPort every bit as much
as videocard vendors, and each
seems to be waiting for the other
to make a big move.BLU-RAY
OK, the format war is over.
Blu-ray is the optical storage
king. Still, how many people do
you know that have a Blu-ray
burner? And of those, how many
use it for that purpose regularly?
High hardware and media prices,
along with perfectly acceptablealternatives, keep this tech
firmly planted on the fringe.10 GIGABIT ETHERNET
10GbE might make Richie
Rich happy, but hopes that the
superfast interface standard
will trickle down to regular-Joe
consumers anytime soon seem
fanciful. 10GbE over copper is
considered to be the poor man’s
fiber, but it’s still a mighty pricey
commodity. How pricey? An
add-in NIC will set you back
more than $1,000, so you can
imagine how much a four-port
switch will cost you.UEFI
Universal Extensible Firm-
ware Interface, the ballyhooed
replacement for the BIOS, wassupposed to have made its big
splash this year. Instead, its
debut has been more of dribble.
Of the mobo vendors, only MSI
seems remotely interested in
incorporating UEFI—and the
boards aren’t even out yet. Most
others seem to think it’s just not
worth the time and effort when
the current BIOS works just fine.OLED MONITORS
For years now we’ve been hearing
that organic-light-emitting-diode
displays are coming to the desktop,
but we’ve given up on waiting.
While the screen technology, which
requires no backlight to produce
its vibrant colors, can be found in
small devices, we just don’t see
manufacturers ramping up large-
scale production at prices that can
compete with LCDs anytime soon.WIMAX
When we fi rst heard of WiMAX back
in 2002, we hoped that one day it
would empower users with cheap,
high-speed wireless broadband.
While it’s not quite right to call
WiMAX a failure—there are hun-
dreds of networks deployed around
the world—it’s not ubiquitous
enough to compete with cellular
providers. We fear that by the time
it is, the tech will be irrelevant.802.11N
As we near the end of 2008,
we’re entering what seems
like the second eon of 802.11n
development, and unfortunately,
there’s no end in sight. The
involved parties are deadlocked,
so it’s entirely possible that the
draft N 2.0 version is the last
update we’ll see to 802.11n.USB 2.0 increased the
original data rate of USB
from 12Mb/s to 480Mb/s,
and now USB 3.0 is set to
multiply that bandwidth
tenfold. The new 3.0 con-
nectors and cables will be
physically and function-
ally compatible with older
hardware —of course, you
won’t get maximum bandwidth unless you’re using a USB 3.0 cable
with Superspeed devices and ports.
USB 3.0 will use nine lines; fi ve new lines will sit parallel to
the original four lines on a diff erent plane, making it easy to dif-
ferentiate between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 cables. Two of the new
lanes will transmit data while another pair will receive data; the
fi ft h cable provides an additional ground.
A new interrupt-driven protocol keeps nonactive or idle devices
(which aren’t being charged by the USB port) from having their pow-
er drained by the host controller as it looks for active data traffi c.
Active devices will send the host a signal to begin data transfer. This
feature will also be backward compatible with USB 2.0 certifi ed de-
vices. Hardware partners should have USB 3.0 controllers designed
by mid 2009, but consumers won’t see products until early 2010.Given the choice
between pre-pre-draft
specs, a political stan-
dards war, or a boring,
uneventful rollout, we’ll
take option C any day.
It doesn’t get any more
boring than PCI Express,
which launched and
axed AGP almost
overnight with very little drama. For the most part, it worked and
worked well. The rollout to PCI-E 2.0 went even better than the
original’s launch.
PCI-E 3.0 is just around the corner, and we’re confi dent in its
abilities. PCI-E 1.0 spit out 2.5 gigatransfers a second and PCI-E
2.0 doubled that to 5GT/s. PCI-E goes to just 8GT/s yet actually
doubles the data rate by improving the encoding effi ciency by 25
percent.
The PCI Special Interest Group said it took this route to
save power. The PCI-E 3.0 spec is expected to be fully back-
ward-compatible when it’s introduced in 2010. A final spec is
expected late next year with testing to take place soon after. If
it’s anything like PCI-E 1.0 and 2.0, it’ll just work.Technology Watch List