PCI Express

[hagg3rty]

Ok PCI Express Whats the deal are we going to get slots on new motherboards and no more Agp?
(noob)

 

[SoCalBoomer]

Just as long as I can get a mobo with multiple 16 bit slots. . .

 

[biostud]

yes

 

[KristopherKubicki]

The upcomign VIA chipsets will support both AGP and PCI-E. SIS's might as well. The rest are basically scheduled to replace AGP with PCX.

Kristopher

 

[50]

Will PCI express be only a one slot thing (like AGP) or will we have several PCI Express ports? Will PCI-X be used for other things besides video cards? Is it backwards compatible with PCI?

 

[jrphoenix]

Originally posted by: KristopherKubicki
The upcomign VIA chipsets will support both AGP and PCI-E. SIS's might as well. The rest are basically scheduled to replace AGP with PCX.

Kristopher

Hi Kristopher.... I notice your profile says editor.... are you an editor on the forums only or do you work on the general anandtech site as well? (just curious). I was curious if you had any idea on release dates? I am wanting to uprgade to socket 939 / PCI-Express (at least compatiable) motherboard by June 1 at the latest. Does this time frame seem like I will be able to get the new AMD / graphics tech to come out?

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: 50
Will PCI express be only a one slot thing (like AGP) or will we have several PCI Express ports? Will PCI-X be used for other things besides video cards? Is it backwards compatible with PCI?

PCI Express x16 for Video, x1 for other stuff.

 

[AIWGuru]

Originally posted by: jrphoenix

Originally posted by: KristopherKubicki
The upcomign VIA chipsets will support both AGP and PCI-E. SIS's might as well. The rest are basically scheduled to replace AGP with PCX.

Kristopher

Hi Kristopher.... I notice your profile says editor.... are you an editor on the forums only or do you work on the general anandtech site as well? (just curious). I was curious if you had any idea on release dates? I am wanting to uprgade to socket 939 / PCI-Express (at least compatiable) motherboard by June 1 at the latest. Does this time frame seem like I will be able to get the new AMD / graphics tech to come out?

He runs around editing people's posts.
That's it.








(he works for the site in general. He writes articles too.

 

[AIWGuru]

Originally posted by: 50
Will PCI express be only a one slot thing (like AGP) or will we have several PCI Express ports? Will PCI-X be used for other things besides video cards? Is it backwards compatible with PCI?

16x PCI express will probably only have one slot to start out.
There will, of course, be a few 1x slots and some legacy PCI slots.
16x slots are not just for graphics thought since since express' design allows more channels per slot as needed for any device.
Theoretically, there could be several 16x slots.
Whether you could actually use these all for graphics would be, I think up to the GPU maker.
Of course, a 1x slot has aobut the same bandwidth as a 1x AGP slot (down anyway - more going up) so it could always be used effectively for a secondary GPU.
re: your other question, I believe that anandtech has a guide to pci express.

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: AIWGuru

Originally posted by: 50
Will PCI express be only a one slot thing (like AGP) or will we have several PCI Express ports? Will PCI-X be used for other things besides video cards? Is it backwards compatible with PCI?

16x PCI express will probably only have one slot to start out.
There will, of course, be a few 1x slots and some legacy PCI slots.
16x slots are not just for graphics thought since since express' design allows more channels per slot as needed for any device.
Theoretically, there could be several 16x slots.
Whether you could actually use these all for graphics would be, I think up to the GPU maker.
Of course, a 1x slot has aobut the same bandwidth as a 1x AGP slot (down anyway - more going up) so it could always be used effectively for a secondary GPU.
re: your other question, I believe that anandtech has a guide to pci express.

IIRC, PCI Express will be backwards compatible, so there won't be a need for legacy PCI slots.

 

[AIWGuru]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324

Originally posted by: AIWGuru

Originally posted by: 50
Will PCI express be only a one slot thing (like AGP) or will we have several PCI Express ports? Will PCI-X be used for other things besides video cards? Is it backwards compatible with PCI?

16x PCI express will probably only have one slot to start out.
There will, of course, be a few 1x slots and some legacy PCI slots.
16x slots are not just for graphics thought since since express' design allows more channels per slot as needed for any device.
Theoretically, there could be several 16x slots.
Whether you could actually use these all for graphics would be, I think up to the GPU maker.
Of course, a 1x slot has aobut the same bandwidth as a 1x AGP slot (down anyway - more going up) so it could always be used effectively for a secondary GPU.
re: your other question, I believe that anandtech has a guide to pci express.

IIRC, PCI Express will be backwards compatible, so there won't be a need for legacy PCI slots.

No, the PCI express 1x slot will sit in front a legacy PCI slot.
You can see an illustration of this HERE
PCI express is NOT backwards compatible without a legacy slot for legacy hardware.
It is backwards compatible insofar as it's transparent to the OS, however.
For some reason, a lot of the boards we saw at CeBit didn't use this design, however, and had dedicated PCI slots at the bottom of the board. I don't know why.

 

[Cerb]

SiS said their next A64 chipset won't support AGP
I hope they don't do that. I want my next mobo to be a SiS, but don't want a new vid card until I absolutely must have one.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Do you think that PCI x16 will be available for socket 754 Athlon 64s? That is the only thing holding me up in my system ordering now.

 

[k3nt]

pff I've been waiting for months to build my comp. screw PCI express, yeah I said it. You may not want the 1st generation of something completely new like that. PCI express is overrated. Only a few years down the line will it become really mainstream.

Just get either a 6800 or x800 when they come out and you'll be plenty happy, lol. =)

 

[AndyHui]

Originally posted by: jrphoenix
Hi Kristopher.... I notice your profile says editor.... are you an editor on the forums only or do you work on the general anandtech site as well? (just curious). I was curious if you had any idea on release dates? I am wanting to uprgade to socket 939 / PCI-Express (at least compatiable) motherboard by June 1 at the latest. Does this time frame seem like I will be able to get the new AMD / graphics tech to come out?

I don't think you will be able to get a socket 939 + PCI Express system by June 1. Probably Q3 is a better time frame for what you want, but even then, I would wait just a little longer for bugs and things to settle down from first revision PCI Express hardware.

 

[rade]

I heard somewhere that PCI-Express cards will be hot-swappable, is this true?
If that's the case, I suppose the process of inserting/removing the cards from the slots would have to be quite a bit easier to make it practical. I would think it could become a very handy feature in SFF computers where you only have one slot available except for the graphics card slot...

 

[spaceghost21]

I'm building new computer soon and am going with Socket 939, should i also wait for PCI Express? What is it exactly?

 

[Nickel020]

PCI Express is basically a new "slot" in which you insert the graphics card, so if your mobo has a PCI Express slot you can only use PCI Express video cards. We don't really know when PCI Epress mobos and video cards will be available in quantity, but as of now they will grant no performance benefits. The only benefit will be that upgrading you video card in the future will be easier as no one knows whether upcoming video cards (in 2005) will still be available for AGP slots.

 

[AndyHui]

Originally posted by: rade
I heard somewhere that PCI-Express cards will be hot-swappable, is this true?
If that's the case, I suppose the process of inserting/removing the cards from the slots would have to be quite a bit easier to make it practical. I would think it could become a very handy feature in SFF computers where you only have one slot available except for the graphics card slot...

PCI Express cards will be hot swappable so long as they have the hot swappable bays installed. There are a number of options that PCI Express brings, such as having a separate "box" for where your cards are.

Originally posted by: spaceghost21
I'm building new computer soon and am going with Socket 939, should i also wait for PCI Express? What is it exactly?

PCI Express is more than just a replacement for the AGP Slot.

Please have a look at my PCI Express: Interconnect of the Future article.

 

[stickybytes]

All this talk about amd pci-express slots, what about intel's? When will intel motherboards with pci-express slots come out?

 

[AndyHui]

Intel's boards with PCI Express, based on the Grantsdale and Alderwood chipsets are already being tested and produced. You should see them next month.

 

[stickybytes]

Originally posted by: AndyHui
Intel's boards with PCI Express, based on the Grantsdale and Alderwood chipsets are already being tested and produced. You should see them next month.

whoopeee. im getting one in august. so that the prices calm down and the bugs are worked out.

 

[AndyHui]

I've got release dates now listed as June 21 for the Intel kits.

 

[Brickster]

Am I hearing September for the AMD kits?

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Pci-express is a point to point scalable serial interface that is replacing the PCI bus. There will be a 16x slot (or two or more it is scalable) for video cards and other very high bandwidth hungry cards. 4gigs each way i think. There will also be a 4x slot and a 1x slot which with the 1x slot being the predominat slot with sound cards, etherent cards etc. Pci-express is not Intel's standard but an industry wide adopted standard to replace the ancient PCI bus with a much faster, more advanced scalable bus. It doesn't effect AMD becuase their motherboard support of it is coming in September or October. The first generation PCI-express shows no improvement in speed over its AGP cousin as far as performance. Who can say down the road though. The PCI-EXpress is bidrectional at full speed unlike AGP so in the future the GPU's can act more CPU like or hd editing can become more mainstream. PCI-express will run the peripherals such as sound cards, video cards etc up to the southbridge chip on the motherboard than (if you have an AMD chipset the hypertransport bus takes over) it runs to the northbridge chipset that has the memory controller (if you are Intel) on it. AMD has hypertransport which is fully compatible and complementary to PCI-Express.