Why Concurrent PCI from Intel Delivers Superior Multimedia Performance.

Better Video Better Audio Better Scalability Features Technical Summary

Better Video. Intel's Concurrent PCI Architecture, available with the Intel 430HX and 430VX PCIsets, enables more efficient operation of CPU, PCI and ISA transactions for faster and smoother multimedia performance. Concurrent PCI's Multi Transaction Timer (MTT) optimizes performance for "short-burst" applications such as RGB video capture and tuner cards. In video applications, you'll see smooth video frames and higher overall system performance.

Better Audio. Concurrent PCI's Passive Release reduces CPU utilization for soft MPEG clips. That's because Concurrent PCI allows CPU and PCI masters interleaved access to the bus during ISA, DMA and bus master cycles. CPU and PCI masters have concurrent access to memory, even while a relatively slow ISA transaction "owns" the bus. Best of all, these performance advantages are available without reprogramming.

Better Scalability. Intel's Concurrent PCI Architecture provides deeper write buffers to enable superior multimedia performance for both CPU and PCI add-in cards. The 430VX and 430HX PCIsets enable the use of PCI 2.1 and 2.0 compatible add-in cards for long system life, built-in scalability and the flexibility to adapt your system to future applications.

Features Technical Summary

FEATURES	TECHNICAL SUMMARY	BENEFIT TO APPLICATION
Multi Transaction Timer (MTT)	The MTT allocates a minimum time slice to a PCI Master that holds its request line asserted. A PCI Master of this type performs multiple "short bursts" on PCI without having to rearbitrate for each burst.	For "Short Bursting" cards with time sensitive data (e.g. Frame Grabber boards), MTT reduces overhead to enable fast multiple data xfers in one PCI request. Video data streams from Frame Grabber cards appear consistent and smooth, even under varying system loads.
Passive Release	This mechanism enables more efficient ISA Bus Master cycles to PCI by absorbing ISA overhead before requesting PCI. On multiple data cycles, the PCI bus is free for other agents' use in between each ISA bus data phase.	For systems with ISA and PCI masters, passive release enables more efficient PCI transactions, reducing both PCI Master latencies and CPU utilization. As an example, audio cards place less load on the system, enabling more CPU and PCI concurrency.
PCI Delayed Transaction	This mechanism latches PCI-to-ISA cycle information into the Intel PCIset, freeing the PCI bus. Masters then use the PCI bus while the PCIset performs necessary transactions on the ISA bus. Data is transferred later to complete the transaction.	CPU-to-ISA transactions are made more efficient for PCI masters since the PCI bus is not slowed down waiting on CPU-to-ISA transactions. Delayed transactions to any ISA card and within the PCIset itself improve overall system efficiency, resulting in smooth display of video frames in multimedia applications.
Enhanced Write Performance	The Write Performance of the 430HX and 430VX PCIsets have been improved in four ways; deeper CPU-to-DRAM and PCI-to-DRAM buffers, write merging on CPU-to-DRAM writes, and faster retiring to DRAM. The write merging feature collects multiple byte, word, and Dword cycles and merges them into a single write to DRAM.	With larger posting buffers DRAM availability has less impact on write cycles, reducing overall system latencies. By merging CPU writes to DRAM of less than 64 bits wide, DRAM performance is increased on both 16-bit and 32-bit applications. Overall, multimedia compression and decompression code runs faster.

Intel's Concurrent PCI Architecture optimizes performance of Pentium® processor-based systems.
Building on the widely accepted Intel 430FX PCIset which features Bus Master IDE, 100 MB/s PCI bandwidth, Pipelined Burst SRAM and EDO DRAM technologies, Concurrent PCI Architecture is available on motherboards designed with the Intel 430VX and 430HX PCIsets. It's the easy way to optimize multimedia performance and quality, while unleashing the power that the Pentium processors were designed to deliver.

It's available now!

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