Com-Central.net

The PCI SIG, overseer of the PCI Express add-in card standard, has finalised version 2.0 of the base specification. The new released doubles the signalling rate from 2.5Gbps to 5Gbps. The upshot: a x16 connector can transfer data at up to around 16GBps.

PCIe 2.0 remains compatible with PCIe 1.1, until now, the latest version of the specification, so older cards will be able to operate in machines equipped with the new version. Intel is expected to release its first PCIe 2.0 supporting chipsets, members of the 'Bearlake' family, next quarter.

The new specification makes the interconnect more interactive, with link speed now a dynamic that can be continuously adjusted by software. Equally, the link will report back changes in bandwidth to the host. Other tweaks to the protocol make for improved device, slot and interconnect management, the PCI SIG said.

PCIe 2.0 also supports more power-hungry add-in cards, though it's not yet known whether the interconnect will provide sufficient power for today' high-end GPUs, many of which require separate power feeds.

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Tough luck if y'all went with PCI-e.

HOLY BUS SPEED BATMAN!!

16GBPS? WOW!!!

mmm, maybe not to bad after all I decided to postpone the rig update to this summer

things will always get faster... it say intel releases chipsets in 3 months - any word on Athlon?

Do you mean 'non intel' chips Slow?...lol

is there another? LOL

yup things get faster, but i doubt the guys that have gone PCIe will worry, the budget is restricting most people not to go to the very top dog cards at the min, eg: nvid 8800 etc x2 = big money!!!! ,ad on the new mainboard n chipset and the $$$ are mounting bigtime'

The games we play dictate the rigs we need ,as far as i'm concerned most PCIE systems supporting 2x 7900gts etc will last a whole lot longer than expected.

Remember AGP disapearing off the shelves then suddenly returning on mass in most formats and sizes! well thats not dead in the water as was expected either, AGP cards are holding their own in the games i play online at the minute.

My opinion is that gamers on a budget will stick to pcie for a while and slam in the best card that $$ allow (with pcie2 backwards compatabillity we can use them later).

obviously there will be the hardend top end gamers that jumps in head first on release, but for the most of us should will be fine with the regular PCIE sli system.
New chipsets usually = $$$ on a bonus we may see a decrease in the cost of PCIE systems ....

OR I MAY BE TOTALLY WRONG AND JUMPED THE GUN UPGRADING LOL...
HOMEEEEEEEEEYYYY!!!!!!!! we had better got it right Mr!

5 Gold Stars and 7 Silver Stars in 2 months on BF2 is telling me my systems fine. oh n dandy.

lolol
PCI-ex2 will take a while yet to filter into gaming requirements.
Once the developers who write the games are using it, then you'll need it to play them.
Don't worry too much guys.

Interesting news but I doubt it means a whole lot in respect of the performance problems people are experiencing with FSX, if MS for MSFSXI released a 64 bit Flight Simulator with SLI and dualcore fully utilized one would get a huge performance boost with present day equipment runing under Windows XP Professional x64.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Mebbe.
But FSX ain't all that's out there.
And Stoopy has some good performance advice for FSX in the FSX forum.