What Is PCI Express?
For years, PCI hardware bus ports have been the standard for computer expansion cards. However, in recent years more and more hardware manufacturers have begun to switch over to the universal standard bus port called PCIe, or PCI Express.
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Origin
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Developed by Intel in the early 2000s, PCI Express was originally called HSI (High Speed Interconnect) and not part of the PCI family. After changing the name, Intel first began supporting PCI Express in 2004.
Increased Performance
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PCI Express technology is constantly improving. In 2007, Intel announced that PCI Express Base 2.0 doubled the output performance of PCI Express cards.
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The New Standard
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PCI Express bus slots are becoming the new standard for PC expansion cards. However, the universal standard is still the regular PCI computer bus.
Multimedia Performance
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Due to the superior performance over PCI and the now-defunct AGP, all major video card makers utilize PCI Express. Some sound card makers have also begun to support PCI Express, though most audio expansion cards still use Conventional PCI.
PCIe 3.0
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PCI Express 3.0 will improve gigatransfer rates and double the bandwidth over PCI Express 2.0. Intel expects to have PCI Express 3.0 available by the end of 2009, and the first products to utilize PCI Express 3.0 in early 2010.
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