, seems like it'd make more sense to at least put the gigE ports together on one lane with a PCIe switch or something.
the latency, added cost/complexity , and one lane doesn't buy much when folks are asking for something that soaks up.....
2GB/s (4 lanes) for the single SSD that tops out at a little more than 1GB/s.
If claw back x1 still x3 short.
If they keep stuff mostly the same they can still gain two more lanes cause it looks like Wellsburg will have integrated USB 3.0 and GigE.
Several problems. First as pointed out above x2 is not x4 . Even if got two back still wouldn't have enough for a SSD on same par as the first. ( dropping in a x2 from the laptop line-up may or may not be useful.)
Second, Intel's integrated GigE consumes a x1 PCIe lane to the Phys connection chip. It is just a cheaper way to GigE (with a cheaper discrete chip that leans on the chipsets for smarts) ... it doesn't reduce the number of lanes (i.e., puts more pins on the PCH chipset). The
current C600 (and I think previous) chipset had GigE. I think the hiccup is that is only provides one independent GigE socket. The Mac Pro still requires two. So doesn't really solve the 'two port' problem in a symmetrical way in either the C600 or C610 (Wellsburg) chipset.
Third, the chipset can be configured for four x1 and one x4 , or eight x1 , but I don't think can configuration bundle two x1 lanes into a x2. While there is a somewhat likely a possible kludge around that, Typically x1/x4 PCIe lanes are chopped up by a PCIe switch. Diluting the x4 would impact the primary SSD and the x1 doesn't cut it for a second SSD.
If Apple uses that functionality they'll have 6 lanes left over for SSDs. Whether they actually do that is another story of course.
Part of the problem here is a huge mismatch between what Apple wants to do and what the chipset provides. There are up to to 10 SATA ports that Apple has zero use for. If 4 of those could be flipped into PCIe ports that would be a far more productive 'fix' to solving the problem. Similarly 6 USB 3.0 ports (and 8 USB 2.0) ports. Again if four of those could be FlexIO flipped into x4 more PCIe v2 lanes, that would be handy.
Just like there were versions of the C600 line up that had more SATA ports at the high end there could be a "lower end" version of some C6x0 chipset that tossed some of the SATA/USB interfaces for more generic ones. As PCIe SSD go more mainstream it would only make more sense. (even small blade server designs could leverage a more general I/O than a bucket load of USB/SATA ports they are never going to hook too. )
Apparently Yosemite has some identifier for the R9 295X (and 290s are working for hackintoshers) so I'm guessing Hawaii GPUs will be coming,
If Apple could drop some GPU cards that had the DSP present and active that might go to mute some of the "what does this buy for audio" complaints. ( although I'm sure there will still be folks who complain it isn't the specific DSP they want to use..... )
