FPSLabs : NVIDIA unveils “ESA” protocol

Posted by in November 5th, 2007

Posted in: Latest

New telemetry protocol to help enthusiasts keep tabs on key PC components.

Via NVIDIA: “PC
industry luminaries, including NVIDIA, Dell, HP, Alienware, Falcon
Northwest, CoolerMaster, Thermaltake and others, today announced
details of a new open, and royalty-free standard for the real-time
monitoring and control of PC power supplies, chassis, and water-cooling
systems. The Enthusiast System Architecture (ESA) specifies an
information protocol that system components can use to “communicate”
with each other to adjust operating parameters, and relay important
system information back to the user. By implementing ESA, PC
manufacturers and do-it-yourself enthusiasts can now build finely-tuned
and higher performance PCs than they could have with existing
proprietary solutions.

“The industry-standard device communication protocol provided with ESA
enables a rich set of tools for tuning PC hardware performance. These
tools offer PC enthusiasts more flexible and granular control over
primary system support components,” said Kevin Kettler, PhD, and CTO of
Dell Inc. “For example, the ESA standard communication method is used
in Dell’s unique LightFX architecture, and will help accelerate
development of deeply immersive ambient lighting in PC games.”

The new ESA standard is built around the current USB HID class
specification and is designed to support new monitoring and control
capabilities for PC devices such as chassis, power supplies, and water
and air cooling peripherals. Until the introduction of ESA, there was
no standard communication protocol allowing such components to report
information back to users. Essential data, such as temperature,
thermal, voltage, and air flow attributes are made available in
real-time and are critical to obtaining maximum PC performance and
overclocking. With ESA, component manufacturers can now embed a wide
variety of digital and analog sensors into their devices which can
communicate real-time data for use in analyzing and optimizing overall
PC operating conditions. In addition, ESA’s logging functionality
offers PC manufacturers and system builders an inexpensive and easy way
to help identify PC operating abnormalities, and enable them to quickly
identify and resolve customer support issues.

“ESA is a communication protocol that ties together all the key aspects
of a system,” said Rahul Sood, CTO of Global Gaming Business at HP.
“Most significant to HP is the fact that we can potentially use
ESA-enabled technology to create a unique and immediately noticeable
benefit to our customers.”

Companies who have worked on the development of the ESA specification and deployment of ESA-compliant hardware include:

Major PC OEMs: Dell and HP
Major System Builders: Alienware, Falcon Northwest and Maingear
Global Motherboard Providers: ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, and XFX
Global
PSU, Chassis, and Cooling Device Providers: CoolerMaster, CoolIT
Systems, PC Power & Cooling, SilverStone, Tagan, Thermaltake, and
Ultra

Cross-device compatibility and compliance with the ESA specification
will be handled by Allion, a leading IT testing organization. Products
that have passed the Allion certification process will incorporate the
new ESA logo, providing consumers with a valuable tool in their
purchasing decision. The first ESA-compliant systems, motherboards, and
components will be available starting in late November from various
ESA-development partners. For additional information on ESA technology,
please visit www.nvidia.com/ESA.“

If it makes controlling fans and monitoring temperatures even easier
I’m all for it. Some users might find the idea that their case lights
up a different color depending on how hot your system is running useful
and cool but more than anything it’s all about the real time telemetry
data.

Source @ NVIDIA Press Release

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