PCI-Express.... The death of AGP
Another year another evolution, we have heard a lot about PCI-X recently, and it appears that this technology will become redundant a lot quicker than initially was suspected. Today we had a Lab with Intel at IDF in regards to a new technology - PCI Express.
PCI has worked on a parallel bus running at 33Mhz for many years ?in fact for the last ten, it has been a while coming but a new slot system is needed. Over recent years there has been many improvements on the PCI bus, but it has come to the stage where it is too expensive to carry on doing these, and a revamp is needed.
The new system is running on a serial platform with point to point interconnects, running at either 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16 and up to 32 dual. this is couple with a 2.5GBp/s of which 2.0 GP/s is effective. This provides scalability up to 16GB/s between the nodes within the system.
There are several ways in which PCI-Express can connect to systems, Chip -> Chip, Chip -> Adapter, and also NEWCARD (which is a code name for a replacement for PC Card 16, or Cardbus).
Within the desktop environment PCI-Express provides higher bandwidth direct to the main board. This means that products such as gigabit Ethernet can take full advantage of this new technology. In theory this will provide PCI-Express X16 for graphics cards, and thus means the death of AGP - this has been a very short-lived port at around 7 years.
Other key features of this technology are the Isochronous support for streaming media for TV tuners, graphics cards, and other high bandwidth needs. PCI-Express also has native support for new form factors and hot plug modules such as NEWCARD.
The NEWCARD is a replacement for PCMCIA in the form of CardBus and PC Card-16, and there can be up to two NEWCARDS in the place of one cardbus. It can be used on PCI-Express or USB2. The NEWCARD aims to be low power, and cheaper to produce, and carries a smaller footprint.
The format is 100% backwards compatible, but some key features will need to be unlocked via new BIOS or Drivers but will be avaliable as with any new products. The PCI-Express solution is the next generation for PCI. It will be used in desktop, workstation, server, and commuinication systems in the next 18 months. Slowly PCI and PCI-X will fade out to make way for this new specification.
