Understanding PCI Express

[n3wt3ch]

I'm new to PC Building and have really been having a great time learning and discussing new technologies and such. I have a few questions though. At this point in the game what kind of devices (besides video cards) are available for PCI Expresss and what is the advantage of using them. So far I'm under the impression that AGP is gone within in the next year so don't plan on a board with only AGP being very upgradable even in the near future and I've accepted that part of it. Really the biggest question I have is why do PCIe slots have different sizes (x16, x1, x4 etc.) and what devices will be developed for those different slots(besides the x16 slots because I understand those are for video cards). I'm sure I could find this information somewhere on the net, but I was hoping to get a bunch of different opinions and tech manuals aren't very interactive.

oh, another thing I just came up with... what's the difference between video cards with 8 pixel pipelines and 16? Are they twice as fast.

 

[Elbatrop1]

As you have probably already seen, video cards are using the x16 bus.

As for the x1 and x4, I havent seen anything that will work with these slots.

I even had a look on newegg for different cards to fit in them, and I still couldnt find anything.

My guess is that they are there for future upgrades. I can see the x1 good for a 10Gbps NIC, and an x4 for a HD tv tuner. These are only guesses, though.

 

[gaara]

The number reference refers to the bandwidth the interface offers, 16x is obviously 16x the bandwidth of that of 1x PCI-E. The smaller slots will be used for PCI periphirals you see now such as network and sound cards, and gamers will like the PPU device for PCI-E expected within the next year.

You can consider this transition similar to that of ISA and PCI.

 

[joshd]

yea the more pipelines on ur GPU the better

 

[n3wt3ch]

so the 16 pixel pipelines referrers to the number of lines the card is utilizing on the PCIE slot? Is that why people have told me that PCIe doesn't have an advantage over AGP at this point except that it is the new technology standard?

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

PCI-E currenty does not have a peformance difference

But it's cheaper, futureproof, and can support SLI

 

[Elbatrop1]

No, the pixel pipeline doesnt refer to the actual PCI-E interface's bandwidth.

It is something internal on the card. Unfortunately, its been a long time since I looked at a video cards architecture. Therefore, I dont know exactly what pipelines are exactly.

All I know is that more is better