NVIDIA Introduces ESA - Enthusiast System Architecture
by Wesley Fink on November 5, 2007 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
How ESA Works
ESA will not use a new control bus, but will instead communicate over a standard USB interface. ESA sits on top of the existing USB specification and all that's really necessary is software to listen for and potentially adjust any ESA-enabled devices. Other software is already sitting on top of USB, so ESA is fortunately not breaking any new ground in how it works. The standards already exist and NVIDIA has already submitted ESA to the USB-if HID subcommittee for discussion.
As you can see, ESA is both a hardware and a software interface. Components that report ESA data and allow control must be ESA compliant. Software that reports and controls ESA components can exist either as a standard application running on top of an OS, as part of the BIOS, or it can load before an OS - or any combination of these approaches. For those familiar with USB it is OS independent, operating before the OS loads, and thus ESA can eventually be OS independent.
Software ties ESA together. As you can see in the upcoming utility that will be introduced with the 780i chipset, ESA compliant power supplies, cases, water coolers, and many other component classes can be monitored and controlled by the NVIDIA software. However, any hardware or software vendor - or a talented enthusiast - could write ESA software as ESA is an open standard. As the impetus for ESA, NVIDIA certainly has the lead in supporting ESA at this time, but if the standard is widely adopted you will see ESA components and hardware appearing from many directions.
ESA Certification
To provide consistency in ESA compliance, current ESA supporters have set up ESA certification by an independent test lab. Allion is a leading IT testing organization and is the testing lab for ESA. Allion will evaluate devices for compliance with the ESA standard and cross device compatibility.
At the very minimum, a device seeking ESA certification will have to implement the monitoring capabilities of the ESA standard - though not every type of device will need to monitor the same options, so for example one PSU may only elect to report certain voltage outputs. As an enthusiast tool, of course, every company developing ESA compliant components is also encouraged to provide control functions for the hardware. We see such things as power supplies that allow users to tweak voltage outputs and control PS fan speeds (and therefore noise) through software.
Components - like motherboards, power supplies, cases, and cooling devices - that meet ESA compliance and compatibility standards can use the ESA logo in their advertising and packaging. This will make it easier for computer enthusiasts to find components that will work with their ESA system.
ESA will not use a new control bus, but will instead communicate over a standard USB interface. ESA sits on top of the existing USB specification and all that's really necessary is software to listen for and potentially adjust any ESA-enabled devices. Other software is already sitting on top of USB, so ESA is fortunately not breaking any new ground in how it works. The standards already exist and NVIDIA has already submitted ESA to the USB-if HID subcommittee for discussion.
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| Click to enlarge |
As you can see, ESA is both a hardware and a software interface. Components that report ESA data and allow control must be ESA compliant. Software that reports and controls ESA components can exist either as a standard application running on top of an OS, as part of the BIOS, or it can load before an OS - or any combination of these approaches. For those familiar with USB it is OS independent, operating before the OS loads, and thus ESA can eventually be OS independent.
Software ties ESA together. As you can see in the upcoming utility that will be introduced with the 780i chipset, ESA compliant power supplies, cases, water coolers, and many other component classes can be monitored and controlled by the NVIDIA software. However, any hardware or software vendor - or a talented enthusiast - could write ESA software as ESA is an open standard. As the impetus for ESA, NVIDIA certainly has the lead in supporting ESA at this time, but if the standard is widely adopted you will see ESA components and hardware appearing from many directions.
ESA Certification
To provide consistency in ESA compliance, current ESA supporters have set up ESA certification by an independent test lab. Allion is a leading IT testing organization and is the testing lab for ESA. Allion will evaluate devices for compliance with the ESA standard and cross device compatibility.
At the very minimum, a device seeking ESA certification will have to implement the monitoring capabilities of the ESA standard - though not every type of device will need to monitor the same options, so for example one PSU may only elect to report certain voltage outputs. As an enthusiast tool, of course, every company developing ESA compliant components is also encouraged to provide control functions for the hardware. We see such things as power supplies that allow users to tweak voltage outputs and control PS fan speeds (and therefore noise) through software.
Components - like motherboards, power supplies, cases, and cooling devices - that meet ESA compliance and compatibility standards can use the ESA logo in their advertising and packaging. This will make it easier for computer enthusiasts to find components that will work with their ESA system.
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Spuke - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
I'm not getting this until I see some friggin benchmarks. And, to the person that stole my UT3 username, may you rot in hell.johnsonx - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
I don't know why, but as I read all this the first thing that popped into my head is that a virus could interface to the ESA controls and shut down your fans, fiddle with the voltages, reset all the warning thresholds, and generally screw up your system at a hardware level. This is something that has generally been impossible thus far (despite the various hoaxes about some virus that will destroy your monitor, fry your mainboard, and kill your cat). Hopefully nVidia and friends are considering this possibility as they go forward with this excellent concept.Shortass - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
Agreed, that would be utterly terrifying if a new Trojan came out that not only screwed up your files and locked you out of your system, but also overvolted all of your components and turned your fans down to 0%. Eeeek.Plasmoid - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
Sounds nice.Sounds a lot like what Abit have been doing with uGuru for the past 5 years.
Give me the ability to control my fan speed and clock speed by profiles, and change them with a hotkey, and im sold. The rest of the stuff sounds pretty handy too.
xsilver - Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - link
Yes I think abit is the master of this kind of stuff.uguru is the only thing I miss on my old system.
Even new asus boards dont support for advanced monitoring/tweaking abilities.
My main miss is the ability to overclock/underclock on the fly in windows. Ati tool already has a profile scheme where if it detects if a game is being launched it will switch to 3d profile; why does this not exist for CPU's and other components?
yacoub - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
There are two things that matter a lot when it comes to system monitoring/controlling software:Bloat - How much does it impact system response/performance? How much system resources are taken up running the software?
Interface - Is it small and configurable, or ugly and large like most of this crap when it comes from the OEM instead of a 3rd party user? One thing you'll notice with tools like ATiTool and SpeedFan is that they are designed to be unobtrusive, configurable, and light (from a resources perspective).
Most OEM tools are giant GUIs with a few buttons surrounded by tons of whitespace or ugly, space-wasting colored graphics and pointless clutter that would appeal more to an eight-year-old than an adult. They also tend to be bloated, taking a long time to load and using a lot of system resources just to monitor the system, which is counterproductive.
So until we see how this system rates in those two areas, we don't really have the info we need to make a judgment call as to whether this move by NVidia is progress or regression.
Ryanman - Thursday, November 8, 2007 - link
Given, Im no programmer, but couldn't the "bloat" issue be fixed with a couple different modes or something?You have the full on mode that can render the 3d temperature, monitor all systems, etc. etc. And then when you get in game (surely you could configure the program to automatically notice once your system is being monopolized by an application that needs it and "tone down" to where it's only monitoring CPU/RAM use and a couple temperatures (CPU, GPU, HDD) like Logitech's G15 Programs. Hopefully you won't be overclocking or optimizing while playing crisis.
And a sleek UI isn't that hard to make. Get a graphic designer and a couple UI experts to do it, can't be too expensive. Make the buttons big and some color options and I'll have it running all the time.
I'm personally VERY excited about this. I'm an ATI fanboy but ideas like ESA, trying to unify PC enthusiast use (like, say game consoles) is always a good thing. And people may not care about high-end systems and say this is useless, but one of the fun things about this platform is squeezing as much as possible out of it. Let the games begin.
pugster - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
I think it would be the first good move by the manufacturers. We can probably get rid of the excessive software bloat by the hardware manufacturers including software included by sound cards, video cards, and motherboards. I don't know about the hardware manufacturers giving up control of their hardware to software tweaks.goinginstyle - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
I am sorry but this article read like the press release from nvidia this morning. If ESA is all that then why not show us the hardware and software working together today? It just appears to be one more way for nvidia to try to control the desktop. Before you start yelling about open platforms, no company goes through this trouble without expecting something in return. That is why it would be interesting to see how well it works on a nvidia designed board compared to one from asus or msi. If something looks like a fish, smells like a fish, then it usually is a fish and this one might also be full of mercury. We go from the great 8800GT release to this in one week. :(Wesley Fink - Monday, November 5, 2007 - link
As I said in the review Final Words:"One of the frustrations of technology launches, as opposed to actual hardware and software launches, is that no matter what you write it ends up sounding something like a commercial for the product. That is why all the writers at AnandTech much prefer the hard reality of testing a product at launch, where we can make comparisons."
However, ESA is a proposed new standard for communication and control more than a real product. We plann to evaluate an ESA enabled system with as many ESA components as possible as soon it is available. At this point the new ESA chipset itself is not even launched.