PCI express

[Shard92]

Okay I've seen the PCIe x16 slot is obviously different ( I hear there is a PCIe x4 though I've never seen it ) put the PCIex1 seem to look like normal PCI slots. Are they backwards compatible and/or is there a difference between PCI and PCIex1? No we have not done much with PCIe yet. Just the video cards and that isn't much either....

[BOB IROC]

PCI slots are totally different than PCI-E Look at the attached pic. It is my motherboard and you will notice 3 black slots that are very small. Those are the PCIe X1 slots. The large black slot is PCIe X16, and the white ones are normal PCI slots.

Not sure about PCIe X4. Never heard of that. I know with some SLI motherboards with 2 PCIe X16 slots if you use 2 video cards both slots run at half speed.

[confus-ed]

PCI is parallel (lots of wires per circuit) .. PCI-E is serial (only two wires per circuit) & there's mucho technobabble on 'why', but its all to do with a physical phenomia called 'skew' - but less wires found in PCI-E actually means we can go faster in practice, is about all anybody really needs to be aware of

So when somebody is talking about PCI-E slots & says x1, x2, x4, x8 or x16, they are meaning how many lots of these 'two wires' any one card 'needs' - a low bandwidth device only needs one lot, a high one all 16 etc. The longer any PCI-E slot might be, the bigger its multiplier ..

[Shard92]

Thanks all! then apparently all the PCIe boards I've seen only have PCIe x16 and regular PCI slots...

[BOB IROC]

Well if a motherboard has 2 X16 PCIe slots you can run two video cards. That way the video Cards will work together and provide more power using SLI. Really only beneficial if you are a gamer. I am not aware of any other device besides a graphics card that uses the PCIe X16 slots.