PCI-Express

What do you guys think of PCI-Express (8GB/s transfers)? ATI's R400 is suppose to use it, which will be cool. How many of these express slots do you think they'll have on a motherboard? I need a new mobo now but would like to wait for this.

I'm interested in hearing what you think of it.

EDIT: Here's one link that talks about it.

Sounds great, but IMO it's just another technology that won't be used (properly) for a long time, just like AGP 8X. I definetly wouldn't hold back on getting a new board for this "feature".

Yeah, I was starting to think the same thing.

BTW: Great avitar.

lol.. Thanks

Well, I like the tech. It takes the place of AGP slots, so you can put your video card in any slot. And you can use multiple cards without sacrificing performance. It's also compatible with other devices, so you can put a card in that top slot. It's also faster than PCI, so you can have RAID cards that transfer as fast as the drives can handle, and you don't need to get 64bit or 66mhz pci cards. It's an idea whose time has come.

8GB/s although, then if you look at your memory bandwidth with Athlons, your a bit stumped, hell even intel until the 1066MHz FSB. Yes memory one day will handle that nicely - but talking about it being imminent seems a bit pointless to me.

but then the 8GB/s is the 32x right? it is being launched with the 16x for GFX I think so that shouldnt be too bad. But then caffinehog, you make it sound like ALL slots have a huge shared bandwidth that the GFX will just happen to cut the largest slice of - is this true, I was under the impression that it would still be good old - this slot is this speed, and the rest are that.

To the best of my knowledge, boards will come with multiple slots. Of course this is up to motherboard makers. Judging from this link, it sure sounds like multiple slots are likely. Firewire, Usb 2.0, gigabit networking? Sounds like they plan on multiple slots. On top of that, PCI-X, a competing standard, supports multiple slots, and is available as such on several server motherboards.