Intel: Bye-Bye, PCI Bus, Nice Knowing You
Intel: Bye-Bye, PCI Bus, Nice Knowing You
Posted 06/24/2010 at 6:41am
| by Paul Lilly
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Do you hear that noise emanating from Santa Clara? It's the sound of the death knell for the PCI bus, and Intel's ringing it. Word from Santa Clara is that the world's largest and most influential chip maker will officially stop supporting the still ubiquitous PCI bus and switch solely to PCI Express with the company's upcoming H67, P67, and H61 core-logic chipsets intended for Sandy Bridge platforms.
It's about time, really. PCI Express has been around for several years now, and a move like this will give hardware developers the kick in the pants they need to fully transition to the faster bus interface. Most everything you need comes integrated nowadays anyway, everything from serviceable onboard RAID solutions to improved audio over year's past. Even dual-NIC ports are fairly commonplace on most modern motherboards.
In other words, this isn't anything to panic about, though it may mean ditching your old hardware -- like your PCI-based X-Fi card -- when it comes time to upgrade your system. The upshot here is that you should start seeing boards sporting more PCI-E ports than before, and who knows what unique designs mobo makers will come up with when no longer forced to relegate mobo real estate to PCI ports that few end up using anyway.
The death of the PCI bus only applies to the consumer side. Intel will still support the 32-bit interface on its enterprise-oriented Q67, Q65, and B65 chipsets.
Image Credit: Flickr ryan_franklin_az
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ProtoJMB
June 27, 2010 at 7:17pm
I have my X-Fi Xtreme Music that I refuse to give up! None of the new PCIe X-Fi cards live up to the original X-Fi series, as the original X-Fi cards support Dolby/DTS decoding on the card itself! I see no reason to get a new Titaniaum X-Fi card, I don't see what it has over my Xtreme Music at all. If I have to, I will rock a P55 board on my next upgrade. = P
eric0rr
June 24, 2010 at 2:32pm
honestly the pci bus seemed like a staple in hard ware for me, i guess i was wrong, but this is a shocker!
M-ManLA
June 24, 2010 at 12:36pm
I am glad Inel is doing this. I had posted somewhere on a site a few years ago that this will happen, and everyone dissagreed with me. To me this is good news. I am planning to buy a dual socket motherboard and I need as much PCIe slots that I can get.
Electronically charged
violian
June 24, 2010 at 11:43am
My PCI-bus is empty right now. It used to be occupied by an ethernet card, but now I'm using a USB-wireless adapter to get internet connection. Most new soundcards are PCI-express nowadays. And all motherboards I've ever encountered has built-in ethernet ports.
noobstix
June 24, 2010 at 10:05am
Since mobo manufacturers have gotten on-board audio and ethernet down, they've pretty much eliminated the use of most PCI cards. Oh well, I don't plan on upgrading for a long while so I'll still be using my sound card (which by the time this stuff becomes the standard, it'll probably be 10 years old).
Mobo: MSI 770-C45
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE
Memory: 6GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3
Video: 1GB Diamond ATI Radeon HD5770
Monitor: 19" Viewsonic VX1935wm
HDD: 320GB Western Digital SATA
CD/DVD: Pioneer DVR-111D
jlh304
June 25, 2010 at 5:17am
Well you could always use a pci express to pci adapter if you really have to use an older card.
Jeffredo
June 24, 2010 at 8:52am
One regularly (sound card) the other occasionally - a hardware based US Robotics modem for when I move and am waiting a week for the DSL to get going at the new place. Kind of a moot point though - I haven't used anything but AMD mobos since 2003.
Bender2000
June 24, 2010 at 11:09am
Do you think the sound card and modem will make it into your next upgrade? If you have to settle for an older MoBo next time just for them, that is lame. Admit it. I've found after a while you run out of driver support and have to ditch the old stuff anyway.
aviaggio
June 24, 2010 at 8:42am
like your PCI-based X-Fi card
You took the words right out of my mouth. For what I paid for this thing I need to get another 3-5 years out of it.
n0b0dykn0ws
June 24, 2010 at 8:02am
Are they going to provide enough lanes?
As long as they can provide enough lanes I'm all for this.
Choke the hell out of it and it's bad.
n0b0dykn0ws
gendoikari1
June 24, 2010 at 8:37am
Especially given Intel's plan to slap everything into the processor (like LGA1156's lack of lanes).
n0b0dykn0ws
June 24, 2010 at 8:02am
Are they going to provide enough lanes?
As long as they can provide enough lanes I'm all for this.
Choke the hell out of it and it's bad.
n0b0dykn0ws
Bender2000
June 24, 2010 at 7:52am
Other than soundcards and TV tuners, what do you use PCI for? I applaud them taking the step forward, anyone lamenting this change has too much legacy stuff or are stuck with a niche requirement. Now can they also dump BIOS to that extensible thingy? Please?
RtDK
June 24, 2010 at 9:36am
I was planning on buying a supplemental fan for my rig that would plug into the PCI slot.
Bender2000
June 24, 2010 at 11:06am
Aren't those fans just slot occupying and they run off a MOLEX plug from the PSU?
Blues22475
June 24, 2010 at 7:46am
This isn't such a bad thing considering there are better expansion buses to utilize. Though folks who have PCI devices will be in a rut because mobo makers (consumer side anyway) will not provide the necessary expansion slot for them.
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