PCIe and genuine 8xAGP on one board with new ULi chipset

[oddfellow]

Okay, like loads of people, I want to upgrade to socket 939, but I've only recently bought a new AGP graphics card. I can use the pc3200 from my socket A system, so that's not so bad, but buying the CPU and motherboard is gonna be expensive enough, without having to buy a new top-line peg16 graphics card.
However, it looks like new boards based on the new ULi M1695 chipset will provide the answer.
It is a PCIe chipset with genuine AGP support built in. AGP is not done via bridge chips or by bolting it to the PCI bus like in some other solutions. Also the chipset supports 2 8x PCIe slots for sli like support.

Anandtech has a preview which shows the reference board keeping up with nForce4 nicely. The details from ULi can be found here.

I'm quite excited about this chipset as it'll ease my planned upgrade path.

 

[BlueTsunami]

OMG..if thats true..that will probably be the board that i'm getting. I just recently bought a XFX 6600GT and i'm quite satisfied with it. This board would be able to allow me to be future proof (Since 939 sockets can take Dual-Core cpus AND have PCI-E) without having to buy a new Video Card (as semi-neglibable as it is). I hope it comes with nice features other than PCI-e and AGP side by side.

 

[hoom]

Yeah that would be cool
Means you don't need to do the whole very-expensive, all-at-once-upgrade to PCI Express

It would be extra cool but unlikely to see 8*AGP + 2 16*PCIE slots on one mobo.

 

[bystander]

Yeah that would be cool
Means you don't need to do the whole very-expensive, all-at-once-upgrade to PCI Express

It would be extra cool but unlikely to see 8*AGP + 2 16*PCIE slots on one mobo.

This is as close as it may get... (from the Anandtech article).

The M1695 provides a PCI Express Interface that can drive either 1 x16 slot of 2 x8 slots. The 2 x8 configuration is called SLI on NVIDIA motherboards, and the option of x16 or 2 x8 is even available in this Reference Board BIOS.

ULi has even been showing an x16 riser card that can be used to support 2 bridged x8 PCIe video cards from a single x16 PCIe slot. Apparently, this is just one of several options to provide "SLI-like" performance with two PCIe cards.

 

[oddfellow]

Like I said, I'm quite excited about it. By far the largest chunk of money that I spend on upgrades is on the graphics card. A board with this chipset will significantly help to ease the upgrade path. 8)

 

[BRiT]

Why not just sell the graphics card while it's still worth something? I'm sure you'll be able to get nearly the full price of what you payed for it if you ebay it or find someone local looking to upgrade.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

does it have any PCI slots at all? (not express). PPU units are rumored to be suing those first off.

 

[oddfellow]

does it have any PCI slots at all? (not express). PPU units are rumored to be suing those first off.

Yes it does. The reference board has 2 regular PCI slots.

Also, I saw a pic in a magazine of an early PPU board and it was "flippable", meaning it had a PCI interface on one edge, and a PCIe 1x interface on the other edge. I have no idea whether production boards will be the same though.