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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...          

Its the new graphics interface that is replacing AGP.

Ah, cool, thanks

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)

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).