MORE PCI BUS info
 

hey,

Anyone heard of PCI-X or PCI-2.0 (don't quote me on the PCI-2.0),

Anyway's I hear that PCI-X runs at 100-133Mhz :drool:
and I don't know what the specs are on PCI-2 or if it's a myth.

I know that some new mobo's have 66Mhz pci slots. But what the can even use the full potential of the 66Mhz pci slot?

My question really is, what can run on a PCI slot at 100-133Mhz, and when are we gona start seeing this on the new mobo's?

Davis

it'd better be soon, 'cause we're running out of bandwith!

Actually, that's not entirely accurate...

The PCI bus really isn't used for anything that requires a larger bandwith. The fastest card that one puts in there is the NIC. PCI is being used at higher speeds, but in servers only, where they slap a couple of ufast NICs.

What are your plans for your PCI bus?

can't tell you alot (it's for a comp were designing at my work), but it's for the network interface, which could be anything, it doesn't have to be ethernet.

:)

PS: would an increased overall BUS speed allow more OC? Basically, I'm currious on what is the bottle neck (if any on overclocking right now)?

Davis

No. it's not an obstacle at all. If anything, the PCI speed multiplier(divider actually) has to be adjusted to keep all the PCI cards at 66 MHz, which is not always possible with a few odd mobos. You can OC PCI cards, but most of them don't like it.

Ooh ... faster PCI ... higher FSB ... *booge* ... this is something that would go very nicely with hammers.

Well actually........

I dont know about a PCI-X interface but i do some other things.....

There have been 66mhz PCI buses out for quite a while. These are usually only found in high performace server boards that have a dedicated bus for 64bit 66mhz PCI devices (Gigabit networks and Triple Channel SCSI RAID adapters).
Personally I think it will only be a matter of time before a new PCI specification will come out....

Another thing, we are actually starting to really flood our PCI buses with modern day technolgies (if used correctly). ATA133 HDD's in a RAID 0 config are starting to get close to the almighty 133MBps max of our current 32bit 33mhz PCI bus. BTW, yes IDE interfaces are linked to the PCI bus through a virtual PCI slot. Gigabit network adapters WILL flood our PCI bus. However, the other things that we have on the PCI do not, such as sound cards. However, when these are teamed up with a USB2.0, ATA133 IDE RAID, and 100Mbps NIC............. the PCI bus does need a boost.

Any thing else? I am actually interested in hearing what could be out there :)

gigabit nics and hdd controllers would be the two obvious examples, but graphics cards would be another thing that can fill up the pci bus.

And noone thought about solid state storage (ram-disks)

PCI-X is going to be the standard for Hammer based motherboards. Go to www.amd.com for more details. Hammer looks like more fun every day ....

I sure hope it will be backwards compatible!

If Hammer runs like it sounds on paper...I want one, but the cost of CPU and MB alone will be high.

I'd hate to go with no network or sound for a couple months.:D

you can say that again In addition to a full IDE 0 and 1, Im running a PCI 6 channel IDE RAID Controller, NIC and Sound card
to make matters worse its the VIA KT266A, to gain stability I eventually modded my BIOS to disable APIC and configure the IRQs manually.