I am sure PCI will go away eventually... it has taken this long just to see a replacement for USB 2.0 come along. It would have to start at the top with an industry leader like Intel making the change though... and there was enough furor about them removing IDE controllers from there chipsets! There would be an even larger outcry if they tried that with PCI, alas...
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Originally Posted by clifford_cooley
I was under the impression that PCIe x16 will also support x8, x4, and x1 cards. With this in mind, I don't understand why all the slots are not x16 or atleast x8.
If they are going to manufacture a board for the future why is there so many limitations put in place that really doesn't save any money in the long run. Limiting a board now does not support future tech. The boards are limited now for the sole purpose of selling a new board in the future.
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This is correct. Not all slots are 16x because it requires higher costs to manufacture... there is a better reason though.
There is no point in building 16x slots when the chipset doesn't have the ability to use more than ~24-40 PCIe links. Take for example the P55 chipset. The CPU has two 8x links. The chipset has 8x more links. That is 24 PCIe lanes... enough for one 16x slot and one 8x slot. The only option is to split 8 of the lanes into x4 and x1 slots, or some other combination thereof.