PCI-E - White Elephant?

Jokester

Jokester

Jokester

Don
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We all know how great PCI-E is for graphics, but what about everything else?

All new motherboards now come with at least 1, if not more, x1 or x2 etc connector and have done so for many months. But where are the cards to plug into them?

I'm finding it increasingly frustrating that I haven't been able to identify any cards what so ever that can be used with these sockets. And with most boards placing the PCI slots immediately next to the PCI-E x16 connectors such that they're blocked with anything other than a stock single slot cooler, you are typically limited to only one slot at all on a SLI set-up.

So, where's the cards? (A PCI-E wireless card would be great!).

Jokester
 
Why would any company want to release a PCI-E wireless card (to use your example)

I cannot think of a reason, i am sure that they havent either hence the lack of expansion cards.
 
Jez said:
Why would any company want to release a PCI-E wireless card (to use your example)

I cannot think of a reason, i am sure that they havent either hence the lack of expansion cards.
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So people actually use the PCI-e 1x and 4x slots? There are some cards out already such as a TV tuner.
 
Unfortunately they're all coming out in the higher end market. There are some very capable RAID controllers, SCSI adapters, fibre channel cards etc on PCI-E for the mid range server market, and in that market they're quite cost effective.

The problem at the moment for Joe consumer is that the PCI bus still has enough bandwidth to handle their soundcards, modems and USB controllers... and it's cheaper to produce for it, so it's a no brainer for manufacturers.

We're lacking either some 'killer addon', that requires the extra bandwidth, or enough manufacturing capacity generated by the mid-range market to see enough people shift devices to the architecture. I cant see that changing for a while :(
 
Jokester said:
We all know how great PCI-E is for graphics, but what about everything else?

All new motherboards now come with at least 1, if not more, x1 or x2 etc connector and have done so for many months. But where are the cards to plug into them?

I'm finding it increasingly frustrating that I haven't been able to identify any cards what so ever that can be used with these sockets. And with most boards placing the PCI slots immediately next to the PCI-E x16 connectors such that they're blocked with anything other than a stock single slot cooler, you are typically limited to only one slot at all on a SLI set-up.

So, where's the cards? (A PCI-E wireless card would be great!).

Jokester
Click to expand...
Read somewhere here that sound cards (which should ideal be on PCI-E) have some issues with it? Other than that there's the Terratec Cinergy 2400i DT DVB-T TV Tuner which is PCI-Express. Thing is, with motherboards coming with everything onboard it makes some products unnecessary :cool:
 
Raikiri said:
So people actually use the PCI-e 1x and 4x slots? There are some cards out already such as a TV tuner.
Click to expand...
I can see why the OP may want them, and why a few odd users might want them, but look at the bigger picture, hardly any computers are PCI-E equipped, and there is no technical reasons to move.
 
Hence my decleration that PCI-E is a great white elephant, PCI is suitable for all the applications I need, so why the push for PCI-E, it's sacrificing consumer choice for no gain what so ever.

All I'm left with is two PCI cards with no PCI-E equivalents and only one slot to plug them into.

Better get used to onboard sound again :( .

Jokester
 
Raikiri said:
Both of mine are and nearly every single one in my college is :p In fact you would be hard pushed to get a new computer without PCI-e.
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You have simply picked examples where all the pc's are new or nearly new. In the grand scheme of things hardly any computers are pci-e equipped. None of mine are for example, or any of my companies customers which i have seen lately. Purely because their mainboards all date back 6 months or more.
 
I would hazard a bet that most expansion cards sold go straight into new, or nearly new machines though rather in machines that are more than 1 year old.

Jokester
 
Jez said:
You have simply picked examples where all the pc's are new or nearly new. In the grand scheme of things hardly any computers are pci-e equipped. None of mine are for example, or any of my companies customers which i have seen lately. Purely because their mainboards all date back 6 months or more.
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These machines are around 18 months old (college)
 
I think that at the moment PCI-E is at about the point PCI was 10-12 years ago, it's new, it's expensive to impliment and no doubt has it's bugs.
I vaguely remember (well it is 10+ years ago) that PCI took several years to get used for much more than highspeed IO cards and videocards.

Whilst it's much faster in theory than PCI the costs of implimenting it compared to PCI are still too high for mainstream use.
Give it another year or so and I suspect it will start to make a real inroads.
 
Raikiri said:
These machines are around 18 months old (college)
Click to expand...

Unusual, and its pointless arguing about it, my point is obvious and its the reason why there are no cards around. It'll gradually shift over just as the change from ISA did.
 
Jez said:
You have simply picked examples where all the pc's are new or nearly new. In the grand scheme of things hardly any computers are pci-e equipped. None of mine are for example, or any of my companies customers which i have seen lately. Purely because their mainboards all date back 6 months or more.
Click to expand...


Dont be too harsh on the guy - you picked two examples that are just as likely not to have PCI-E slots ( business pc's which are usually budget cut down models even when new) as his are TO have PCI-E

PCIE has been around I would guess a year at least as a premium product, and only relatively recently have AGP cards stopped being produced on an equally premium basis

It will take time for soundcards (which might actually use the bandwidth) to be developed and released ( I seem to remember also Creative announcing awhile back having problems designing a s/c for this slot) but very few other consumer products will use the capacity so is pretty unlikely to happen (unless mobo companies decide to start producing non pci boards and only PCI-E, but this itself is a catch 22)
 
A 108mbps wireless card uses up nearly all of the PCI bus bandwidth...so why havent they made PCI-E versions? After all the increased (and dedicated per slot) bandwidth was a key argument for implementing PCI-Express in the first place.
 
sr4470 said:
A 108mbps wireless card uses up nearly all of the PCI bus bandwidth...so why havent they made PCI-E versions? After all the increased (and dedicated per slot) bandwidth was a key argument for implementing PCI-Express in the first place.
Click to expand...

108Mb/s = 13.5MB/s

PCI = 133MB/s
 
I have to agree with the original poster. Unless I put my X800 into the upper graphics card slot (which i can't without increasing cpu temps), only 1 PCI slot can be used, and that too the bottom pci slot would reduce airflow to the graphics card cooler above.

A PCI-e wifi card would be fantastic.

Mul
 
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