PCI Express: Interconnect of the future
There are many recent technologies that have signalled a shift in the way
data is sent within a desktop computer in order to increase speed and
efficiency. Universal Serial Bus (USB), Serial ATA, and RDRAM, are all examples
of moving away from a parallel architecture to a high-speed serial format,
designed to ensure maximum bandwidth and provide future scalability.
The PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Bus has been widely used as a
general purpose I/O interconnect standard over the last ten years, but is really
beginning to hit the limits of its capabilities. Extensions to the PCI
standards, such as 64-bit slots and clock speeds of 66MHz or 100MHz, are too costly, and
just cannot meet the rapidly increasing bandwidth demands in PCs over the next
few years.
3rd Generation IO, or 3GIO, has been recently renamed PCI Express, and looks to be the replacement for the ubiquitous PCI bus, the most successful peripheral interconnect bus used in PCs. With support coming in the Intel Grantsdale chipset, along with Microsoft's next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, let's take a look at the technology that is designed to last the computer industry for the next ten years.
3 Comments
No Subject by Anonymous User on Saturday, September 20, 2003
The demo board is a BTX - ATX's successor: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1876&p=1
Anonymous User
Reply
No Subject by Anonymous User on Thursday, September 18, 2003
First, for AGP, the official document about PCI-Express states that it can coexist with AGP. You must know that the PCI Express will only replace the PCI standard, so we can presume that the first board shipping with PCI Express will also ship with AGP.
The PCI Express should not require any changes on power supplies, since it can go to lower voltages. I haven't read any technical spec, but it seems to be using some voltage-selection mechanism very similar to what is being used in USB devices (which did not require any power-supply mods).
Finally, for the form factor... well, I admit that I dunno. Form what I have read, no form factor mod should be necessary, but the demo board confuses me!
CYA!
The PCI Express should not require any changes on power supplies, since it can go to lower voltages. I haven't read any technical spec, but it seems to be using some voltage-selection mechanism very similar to what is being used in USB devices (which did not require any power-supply mods).
Finally, for the form factor... well, I admit that I dunno. Form what I have read, no form factor mod should be necessary, but the demo board confuses me!
CYA!
No Subject by Anonymous User on Thursday, September 18, 2003
the transition from PCI to PCI Express won't happen overnight. ISA slots had stuck around for nearly 10 years before they were finally gone, so don't assume that your PCI peripherals are obsolete just yet.
Thats very nice. But how about my brand new fancy AGP graphics card? I assume that purchasing a PCI-express motherboard also forces me to buy a new videocard.
Also when looking at the Intel layout demoboard I assume that there will also be a change in form factors and possibly also in power supplies. This means that all current cases would be obsolete then...
I realy enjoy the things that are going to happen in 2004 to the PC marked though! It's a real revolution again.
Thats very nice. But how about my brand new fancy AGP graphics card? I assume that purchasing a PCI-express motherboard also forces me to buy a new videocard.
Also when looking at the Intel layout demoboard I assume that there will also be a change in form factors and possibly also in power supplies. This means that all current cases would be obsolete then...
I realy enjoy the things that are going to happen in 2004 to the PC marked though! It's a real revolution again.
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@Leogrim what link are you hitting?
@ErinBird Note that today's 34nm drives have 5K write cycles vs. 10K, so lifespan should be shorter today.
@ErinBird http://bit.ly/cQt9eh and http://bit.ly/b4x7gh should help answer your question.
@patricknorton did someone say SSDs and RAID? http://bit.ly/c396gc
@Leogrim unfortunately we're still a few months away from that, this is for another project you'll be hearing about in the next month or two
Today FedEx dropped off Apple's Magic Trackpad, oh and 42 SSDs
Intel's Core i7 970 Reviewed http://bit.ly/aXkDW1, (Slightly) More Affordable 6-core in Bench too http://bit.ly/bJFTHh (along w 100+ others)
@ryan me neither, my Kindle is sitting drained in the other room, I never use it anymore.
@bacalou thanks for reading it :) and we do smartphones now too :-P http://bit.ly/d0oGPj
@justinlfowler need to check to see if things have changed with CS5 and 10.6
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