HyperTransport to 3.2 GHz

The HyperTransport Consortium, the organisation that controls the HyperTransport (HT) specifications, has recently announced a 3.1 version of the specifications. The biggest improvement compared to the HT 3.0 specifications is a raise of the maximum clockspeed from 2.6 GHz to 3.2 GHz. At the full 3.2 GHz, the link has a maximum bandwidth of 51.2 GByte/sec. 

The HyperTransport link is mostly used in AMD-based platforms, where it functions as the connection between the processor with integrated memorycontroller and the chipset. An interesting fact is that AMD's current topmodels use a 16-bits HT 3.0 bus clocked at 2.0 GHz, meaning that they have yet to reach the limit of the HT 3.0 specifications. The latest version of the HT link therefore offers room for future developments and should become a competitor for Intel's newly introduced QuickPath (also known as Common System Interface) for the Nehalem platform and the upcoming PCI-Express 3.0 features.

With the introduction of the HT 3.1 specifications, the Consortium also announced the successor of the current HTX expansion slot, named HTX3. An HTX slot allows an expansion card to directly communicate with the processor through a HyperTransport link. With a 2.6 GHz frequency, the busspeed of the new version is over three times the 800 MHz that it is now.

Tags: hypertransport nehalem quickpath

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