Why so few PCI slots?

MikeHunt79 · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:21

Ok, my old nforce 2 had 5 PCI slots, which is plenty.

1 was for wifi
1 was for soundcard
1 was for powercore DSP card

Now I've upgraded to c2d, my new motherboard only has 1 PCI slot.

I can use a USB wifi dongle which is fine, and maybe a USB soundcard, but why?

Could'nt they have more than 1 PCI slot? Is there any reason they have these stupid little PCI-e connectors that no one uses?

YorkshirePadd26 · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:40

PCI is old hat plain and simple, its being phased out.

Don't your new mobo have onboard sound ?

PCI-E is simply a newer standard,

Like PCI Express replaced AGP and so on etc etc.

If you had really wanted more PCI slots you should have bought a mobo with more PCI slots. So I really don't see the point in your rant !

YOU bought the wrong board for YOUR needs, is the way I see it.

Kinda like I bought a new 2 seater sports car but my family can't all fit in it, what a stupid car ! why do they make 2 seaters !

Phil99 · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:42

Keep an eye out for PCI-E X-Fi cards...the basic card is out soon, and I imagine the decent ones will be following shortly after.

There's also been PCI-E RAID/TV cards out for a while now, so cards are slowly but surely coming out for PCI-E. 1 PCI slot seems a bit low though, surely there are still plenty of boards with 2 or 3 slots that you could have got?

james.miller · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:43

thats your fault for choosing a baord with 1 pci slot? there are lots of c2d board with 3 slots :confused:

z0mbi3 · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:45

I think a lot of manufacturers are being too quick of of the gate as far as PCI redundancy is concerned. PCI will be phased out, but you'll still be needed more than 1 slot for awhile yet. You could have benefited from a bit of research before hand though

YorkshirePadd26 said:
So I really don't see the point in your rant !

It's not a rant it's a question. I assume that's why you answered it.

YorkshirePadd26 · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:55

z0mbi3 said:
I think a lot of manufacturers are being too quick of of the gate as far as PCI redundancy is concerned. PCI will be phased out, but you'll still be needed more than 1 slot for awhile yet. You could have benefited from a bit of research before hand though

It's not a rant it's a question. I assume that's why you answered it.

We could have a poll on that one if you like, I recall the last PCI card I used was................................................................................................

No can't remember, possibly an old AMR modem with used a custom PCI slot built into an old PC chips Mobo that was running a 1GHZ Athlon and had 256mb and at the time it was a beast of a pc.

I've not seen PCI cards used for ages and ages and i've built enough computers and repaired more than i care to mention.

stickroad · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:57

YorkshirePadd26 said:
We could have a poll on that one if you like, I recall the last PCI card I used was................................................................................................

No can't remember, possibly an old AMR modem with used a custom PCI slot built into an old PC chips Mobo that was running a 1GHZ Athlon and had 256mb and at the time it was a beast of a pc.

I've not seen PCI cards used for ages and ages and i've built enough computers and repaired more than i care to mention.

So because you haven't used a PCI card for................. ages. The manufacturers should stop making boards with PCI slots on? Do you think your the only person on this planet?

bloodiedathame · 12 Jun 2007 at 13:58

YorkshirePadd26 said:
We could have a poll on that one if you like, I recall the last PCI card I used was................................................................................................

No can't remember, possibly an old AMR modem with used a custom PCI slot built into an old PC chips Mobo that was running a 1GHZ Athlon and had 256mb and at the time it was a beast of a pc.

I've not seen PCI cards used for ages and ages and i've built enough computers and repaired more than i care to mention.

I still use a PCI wireless network adapter, PCI sound card, and PCI TV card.

YorkshirePadd26 · 12 Jun 2007 at 14:03

stickroad said:
So because you haven't used a PCI card for................. ages. The manufacturers should stop making boards with PCI slots on? Do you think your the only person on this planet?

Nope, but really out of all the Computers sold around the work how many come with a card installed in the PCI slot thats really needed ?

My guess would be not many at all.

Most of the functions PCI existed for are now built into the mobo and there is very very little need nowadays for them.

It only still exists as its an Intel standard, and not that many companys are will to jump the bandwagon to the PCI-e slot yet.

stickroad · 12 Jun 2007 at 14:04

YorkshirePadd26 said:
Most of the functions PCI existed for are now built into the mobo and there is very very little need nowadays for them.

Until manufacturers like, Creative, D-link etc start making cards that are PCI-E their is still need for PCI slots since most of the expansion cards are PCI.

YorkshirePadd26 · 12 Jun 2007 at 14:10

a.hay said:
I still use a PCI wireless network adapter, PCI sound card, and PCI TV card.

Yes good for you A.Hay well done.

So if you where to upgrade would you buy

A) Mobo number 1 with 1 PCI slot

or

B) Mobo number 2 with 3 PCI slots

MMMMmmmmm

YorkshirePadd26 · 12 Jun 2007 at 14:14

stickroad said:
Until manufacturers like, Creative, D-link etc start making cards that are PCI-E their is still need for PCI slots since most of the expansion cards are PCI.

Most consumers probably 80% or higher wouldn't ever dare unscrewing they're PC's and they'd buy a USB version of the same product.

Its an Intel standard slot and as of yet it hasn't been offically replaced, much like AGP.

MikeHunt79 · 12 Jun 2007 at 14:15

james.miller said:
thats your fault for choosing a baord with 1 pci slot? there are lots of c2d board with 3 slots

Yep, it was a bit of schoolboy error buying a motherboard with 1 slot on, but the board was local and at the right price. I guess I could always sell it and get one with more PCI slots I guess, more hassle but I can get away with using 1 for my powercore DSP card for now.

It was just a bit of a shock going from 5 slots to 1 :eek:

YorkshirePadd26 said:
Don't your new mobo have onboard sound ?

Yep, I have onboard sound, and despite it being 7.1HD or whatever it is, I doubt it will compare to my m-audio delta for music production.

I'm not an x-fi fan either, as I find creatives drivers are bloated and buggy, but anyway, Im going off-topic, and I've got a nice USB2 soundcard somewhere.

YorkshirePadd26 said:
PCI is old hat plain and simple, its being phased out.

But why? /borat I didn't really know PCI was being phased out, but that would explain so few slots.
PCI is more than fast enough for wifi, sounds cards and the like... The only botleneck I can see is RAID and Gigabit ethernet maybe (which is often onboard anyway). It's like they are changing it for the hell of it.

PinkFloyd · 12 Jun 2007 at 14:18

The lack of PCI slots on motherboards is annoying. If there were a large number of PCIe soundcards, tv cards etc to choose from it would be fine. But PCI is still being used for all these things. So most motherboards having 2 PCI slots and 3-4 PCIe (when 90% of users are only ever going to be using 1 for a graphics card..) is quite annoying...

My currrent board has 4PCI and I'll be using 3 of them when I get my Sata card working. Would use the 4th for my tv card, but my graphics card is in the way.

Participant · 12 Jun 2007 at 16:23

He's right, why didn't you check this.

I kind of agree on your point of PCIe hardware not being that wideley available, and I think it was pottsey that claimed that latency on PCIe ports was currently higher than PCI for certain hardware.

Delvis · 12 Jun 2007 at 16:33

PCI is still WIDELY used if you look...Everything other than the graphics card still PCI practically

Yes theres PCI-e RAID cards, theres loads of them, but at the moment (And since pci-e was released...ie before christmas) there hasent been any (Dont quote me, there may be a few...=/) sound cards released...

But as said above there is a Creative card apparently coming out in pci-e...God knows when.

**EDIT**

This is where i read about the card i think...That was back in January though:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20070111140528.html

Will_3rd · 12 Jun 2007 at 16:35

my brother's DS3P has iirc 2 PCI slots, one seems a bit stingy

balls · 12 Jun 2007 at 17:08

My present mobo, has two that I use for sound card and wifi, but I've just bought an old MSI mobo for a little fileserver with 5 PCI slots, but it has no onboard sound, Ethernet, firewire (rarely used) or S-ata ports so I'll be needing the extras.

TheVoice · 12 Jun 2007 at 18:38

YorkshirePadd26 said:
I've not seen PCI cards used for ages and ages and i've built enough computers and repaired more than i care to mention.

Wireless cards and soundcards, to name but a few? PCIe versions aren't exactly popular or common, and they're no-doubt more expensive either.

Bit like the IDE/SATA thing, really.

But I'm sure a mod could put together a poll for you if you really wanted one. I'm sure the results would surprise you.

ttreaders · 12 Jun 2007 at 18:46

It's just the way computers have gone. Years ago you could buy an 'uber' gaming motherboard and it was great for everything.

Now it's more specialised, motherboards are built primarily with gaming in mind so they typically come with only a few PCI slots as that is all that is needed. On the other hand there are still many motherboards available with plenty of PCI slots but are geared for the office environment.