Sunday, 17 June 2012 10:52

Possible Shortage of PLX PEX8747 Gen 3.0 Bridges Could Impact More Than GPU Sales

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PLXWhen Lynnfield launched with its built in PCIe controller the motherboard makers of the world collectively groaned. They began to wonder how in the world they were going to run everything they want to put onto their motherboards with the limited number of PCIe lanes that were provided. The answer to this solution was simple, use a bridge chip… the problem was that there were not many that were up to the job. One of these companies that quickly became synonymous with high-performance motherboards was PLX. We first saw these on Asus motherboards (the P55 motherboards) and the system simply worked. Since then many more motherboard makers have adopted them and come to reply on PLX to keep things moving.

Now we hear rumors of a shortage of certain types of PLX bridge chips; in particular the PEX8747 PCIe Gen 3.0 Chip (the only Gen 3.0 Bridge on the market right now). If this is true that means GPUs like the nVidia GTX 690 will be difficult to make as will most motherboards with Gen 3.0 SLI Support (like the Rampage IV and Maximus V line up). We have reached out to some of the motherboard manufacturers that are currently using this (Asus, Gigabyte etc) to see if we can get some confirmation on the rumor, but so far have not heard anything back from those we contacted.

Again if this is the case and the shortage is real it will impact the sales of more than a few high-end motherboards, nVidia’s GTX 690 and even any plans that AMD might have for a Dual GPU card in the future. This is a very good example of how a single source for important parts can impact an entire ecosystem. We will keep our eyes on this one and follow up if and when we get more information on the rumor.

Original Source TechPowerUp

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Read 4689 times Last modified on Sunday, 17 June 2012 11:04

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