PCI 2.0 = PCI Express???

Carlimited

What is the difference between PCI, PCI 2.0, and PCI Express? I bought an nvidea video card last year, and the description states that it is a PCI 2.0. However, it fits into my PCI slot perfectly, and runs great. How can you tell if the slots are PCI, PCI 2.0 or PCI Express (or are they the same)?

aidan_walsh

Google, ftw!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_Component_Interconnect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

Carlimited

Thanks! I am assuming that a PCI card will not fit into a PCI Express slot then? By the way, what does "ftw" mean???

Karoma

"FTW" = "For [strike]The[/strike] Teh Win" = "huzzah" = "good thing" ... *shrug*

Carlimited

Ic

Laguna

Nope, PCI cards won't fit into a PCI-E slot, they're two different standards (and slot sizes ) altogether!. The bandwidth and performance on PCI-E is far greater than PCI as it's a newer 'invention' for want of a better word. PCI cards aren't great to be honest, if you're into games, you'll be wanting to look into upgrading to a new motherboard with at least a PCI-E slot, possibly even two, these boards being called SLI boards; so you can use the top end graphics cards (if your wallet can take it )...

Carlimited

In laymen terms, what is the difference between PCI, and PCI 2.0?

K.O.Kiki

In layman's terms: it doesn't matter really.
AGP & PCI-e are designed for gaming, and thus are much faster; and there'll be no PCI devices which would need increased bandwidth, which they could just as easily gain by switching to PCI-e if they did.

Carlimited

I have been doing a LITTLE research on this, and if I am not mistaken, PCI Express will become the standard (over AGP). Is that correct? And is PCI Express available yet?

Malafus

Carlimited wrote:

I have been doing a LITTLE research on this, and if I am not mistaken, PCI Express will become the standard (over AGP). Is that correct? And is PCI Express available yet?

You're a little behind. PCIe is already widely used, and AGP is very nearly gone. nVidia recently released the 7800GS, which is believed to be the last AGP card that will be made be either of the two big graphics card designers.

You can still get AGP cards, but aside from the 7800GS, they're all last generation.

Carlimited

I realize I may be a little behind (don't have to be told! LOL). Do machines now come with express slots then now, or regular pci slots?

ZENER

What about PCI-X then ? Where does it fit in or is it defunct already ?

ZEN

Carlimited

Isn't PCI-X a short for PCI Express???

ZENER

Not as far as I know, PCI-X is an extended parallel version of PCI whereas PCI-Express is a serail system.

ZEN

axer

Carlimited wrote:

Isn't PCI-X a short for PCI Express???

yes

ZENER

This explains a bit about them.

ZEN

ZENER

axer wrote:

yes

No it's not !

ZEN

axer

my bad, sorry.

ZENER

axer wrote:

my bad, sorry.

You're not the first to make this mistake, I've heard sales guys in PC World make this error. The latest PowerMacs all have PCI-Express slots which has caused confusion no end. It's easy to assume that they are one and the same thing . . damn abreviations

ZEN

_CreeD_

If I remember rightly PCI rev 2 (I think its been 2.2 now for a while) was a quick improvement made to the original (While ISA was still popular and PCI was all ultra fangly and little used, hence no major PR on it's release), it fixed some problems with timings, IRQ assignment and either majorly enhanced or even introduced bus mastering. Been quite a while since I read up on it though. In short it's a non-issue, just treat PCI as PCI regardless of whether it mentions a revision or not. PCI-X is an old corporate 64 bit/66Mhz version of PCI that never went mainstream.

Carlimited

Its amazing that such a little question created so much discussion!