PCI express

[Mobius]

What exactly is PCI express and would I have to buy a new motherboard to use it?  

Thanks
 


Me, after thinking about all this upgrade stuff...          

[Gixer]

Its the new graphics interface that is replacing AGP.

[Mobius]

Ah, cool, thanks

[Ivan]

PCI Express has more bandwith... but isn't specifically for graphics cards.

PCI-E 16 (the large ones) have the most bandwith, and are often used for graphics cards. Some chipsets support 2 of these and if they are available on the bouard, you can run a SLI GeForce setup

The smaller ones are PCI-E 4, and have less bandwith available (but still more compared to standard PCI-33)

The other odd normal PCI slots available are

• PCI-32 5 Volt, with a different key gap. Have been used in the past by Apple.
• PCI-64 5 Volt, key same as with a 5 volt PCI-32, but same length as an ISA
• PCI-64 3,3 Volt, key same as the normal PCI-32 (which is a 3,3 volt), but with the extension.

Most PCI-64 slots can handle a PCI-32 card, but you need a special card if you want to have one that works in both 32 and 64 bit (like the Adaptec SCSI-160 adapter they once sold, which works in both, but is slower in the PCI-32 slots)

[the_autopilot]

Well explained Ivan.

If you do not have a PCI-expres mobo, you will have to get one. But not only that, you must have devies that support PCI-e as well.

As for actualy getting PCI-e, there's no advantage to it right now. Very few devices have support for PCI-e besides video cards and video cards get no advantage from using the PCI-e interface as opposed to the AGP interface.

However, there is one advantage to pci-e and thats SLI. Of course the mobo must support SLI (have two 16x pci express slots, though the bandwidth is divided among the slots as 8 x). SLI offers better performence cheaper for the average user. A 6600 gt sli is cheaper than a x850 xt and offer the same performence.
For the computer enthusiast, SLI offers the chance at huge performence like a 6800 Ultra SLI (let me tell you, it rocks).