The New PC?

Approval near on Intel PC-overhaul plan is a CNET article on a plan by "a key industry group" to overhaul the innards of PCs, replacing such thing as the aging PCI technology.. While AMD has that HyperTransport technology, it looks like the industry group is looking at adapting Intel technology code-named Arapahoe. Intel's Desktop Platform Group hopes to have a specification with products ready by the second half of 2003. Doesn't mean AMD's HyperTransport won't be used though, AMD apparently never saw it as replacement for the PCI bus anyway. Instead it will focus on faster data transfer at the front-side bus. While everyone is waiting for Intel to get its technology further along, a PCI-X version of PCI slots will be used by several manufacturers. Looks like the introduction of this upgrade wasn't exactly smooth though

Intel was given short shrift in the PCI-X development process, despite having useful expertise from creating the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) technology for plugging in graphics cards, Snyder said. "Their input wasn't taken seriously by the technology working group," he said. "Intel had a lot of knowledge they learned from AGP. The result was a specification that required a lot of rework. That's what delayed PCI-X entering into the mainstream."