Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Intro to PCI Express
Many newer motherboards are now using the PCI Express interface, or PCI-E. Here is a definition, courtesy of PCWebopedia:
An I/O interconnect bus standard (which includes a protocol and a layered architecture) that expands on and doubles the data transfer rates of original PCI. PCI Express is a two-way, serial connection that carries data in packets along two pairs of point-to-point data lanes, compared to the single parallel data bus of traditional PCI that routes data at a set rate. Initial bit rates for PCI Express reach 2.5Gb/s per lane direction, which equate to data transfer rates of approximately 200MB/s. PCI Express was developed so that high-speed interconnects such as 1394b, USB 2.0, InfiniBand and Gigabit Ethernet would have an I/O architecture suitable for their transfer high speeds.
The PCI bus has been basically the same for many years now while most other components in the PC have been increasing in speed. It is easy to see how these newer hardwares can completely saturate the PCI bus. So, PCI-E is the new incarnation of PCI which offers increased speed through higher bandwidth, dedicated data lines. The switch to a serial interface rather than parallel also means the connectors are smaller and there is less signal degradation.
If you are looking at doing a major PC upgrade, you might want to look at PCI Express as an option. The industry will slowly adopt it as a norm.
An I/O interconnect bus standard (which includes a protocol and a layered architecture) that expands on and doubles the data transfer rates of original PCI. PCI Express is a two-way, serial connection that carries data in packets along two pairs of point-to-point data lanes, compared to the single parallel data bus of traditional PCI that routes data at a set rate. Initial bit rates for PCI Express reach 2.5Gb/s per lane direction, which equate to data transfer rates of approximately 200MB/s. PCI Express was developed so that high-speed interconnects such as 1394b, USB 2.0, InfiniBand and Gigabit Ethernet would have an I/O architecture suitable for their transfer high speeds.
The PCI bus has been basically the same for many years now while most other components in the PC have been increasing in speed. It is easy to see how these newer hardwares can completely saturate the PCI bus. So, PCI-E is the new incarnation of PCI which offers increased speed through higher bandwidth, dedicated data lines. The switch to a serial interface rather than parallel also means the connectors are smaller and there is less signal degradation.
If you are looking at doing a major PC upgrade, you might want to look at PCI Express as an option. The industry will slowly adopt it as a norm.
# posted by One Level : Wednesday, June 15, 2005
