PCI EXPRESS X1

[paulmforumz]

Just curious, why would one need multiple x1 slots? I have seen some mobos with 2 or even 3 PCIe x1 slots.

Has anyone here needed more than one PCIe x1 slot?

 

[Slobogob]

More? What do you do with a single PCIe x1 slot? 8O

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

there are plenty 1x cards out there... though most are not for the average user.

 

[JamieMole]

they should just ah heck em off already. im sick of seeing perfectly fine motherboards with like 2 or 3 of em, its just silly. i want PCI SLOTS

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

I like them both. I want them to finally KILL SERIAL ports. NOBODY NEEDS printer / serial ports any more... USB is the way to go.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

You can get 9pin serial to USB adapters..
likes I said... NOBODY needs Serial ports... period.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

waste of Motherboard space... thats why.

 

[Crashman]

But the serial port is nearly free because it's supported by a multifunction chip. USB to Serial adapters cost money.

I agree, they should kill serial and parallel ports and include separate USB adapters for both in every box.

Sure, you'd end up paying $10 more for your motherboard and have these useless adapters to deal with, but at least your desires wouldn't be costing me money.

While we're at it, the Federal government should raise taxes in Florida and Texas, to help cover the cost of boarder patrol. As long as they don't raise my taxes it doesn't matter, now does it?

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Who cares. Pay the 10$ and get the adapter if you really need it.
Or upgrade to new technology.

The only computers that should have serial are small laptops (for router access).

 

[Crashman]

No, YOU pay $10 for me to get the adapter. They should include them in the box and make YOU pay for the adapter you don't need. Since I get my motherboards free, that's the best method.

Why should I be forced to pay for your desires? No, you're the one who wants to make the change, so you should be the one to pay for it.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Then Most manufacturers should offer an option to buy a mobo w/o serial, and more USB.

I would buy a no IDE/Serial mobo if I could... Though I agree we need IDE... we do not need serial.... oh and NO MORE STUPID PS/2 connections.

Legacy technology needs to say in its own era and leave new tech alone.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

I am not talking about the budget market, I.e. 200$ dell machines.


I am talking about spending $200 for a motherboard. I want options, and dont want to be forced down by old legacy ports that are as useless as the "scroll lock" key on my keyboard.

 

[rdhood]

Just curious, why would one need multiple x1 slots? I have seen some mobos with 2 or even 3 PCIe x1 slots.

Has anyone here needed more than one PCIe x1 slot?

You can expect this topic to get deleted. I wrote a rant on this very subject about two months ago and the topic was deleted.

Anyway:


You can get SATA cards, you can get hardwired network cards, Abit started making a wireless network card about one month ago (still not available anywhere), and you can get IEEE 1394 and USB cards for that slot.

I purchased a FW/1394 for $30 from techgeeks about a month ago. Would also like to try Abits wireless card... if it is under $50.

 

[mustardman24]

I am not talking about the budget market, I.e. 200$ dell machines.


I am talking about spending $200 for a motherboard. I want options, and dont want to be forced down by old legacy ports that are as useless as the "scroll lock" key on my keyboard.

The both of you have very good points, however for the main portion of the consumer market, if you buy a high end card it is most likely that all your equipment is fairly up-to-date and you shouldn't have a need for it in the home enviroment. Now serial and parallel ports in the business enviroment is a completely different thing as many businesses still utilize one if not both of them in some cases.

What it basically comes down to is the mobo you choose, there are ones with (for those of you who want serial and parallel) and there are ones without (for those of you who don't want it or rather just buy a USB adaptor).


Now back to the PCI 1x, I think that they could have some purpose somewhere down the line perhaps, but for now I think one is enough on a motherboard to at least have some insurance for the future. The only purpose I see in them now is for multi-monitor displays.

 

[Crashman]

Then Most manufacturers should offer an option to buy a mobo w/o serial, and more USB.

I would buy a no IDE/Serial mobo if I could... Though I agree we need IDE... we do not need serial.... oh and NO MORE STUPID PS/2 connections.

Legacy technology needs to say in its own era and leave new tech alone.

Why do we need "IDE"? I say we should keep the serial and parallel ports and dump IDE connectors. You can buy an Ultra ATA to Serial ATA adapter for $15.

 

[Crashman]

Look at where most boards put the x1 slots, it's likely that your graphics card will make at least one x1 slot useless. So you need two, if you take into account the useless one.

 

[obiwan05]

Personally, I currently will only buy a motherboard if it has Serial on-board (cheaper than buying a card). The hardware applications I use it for require high speed UART ports - usb to serial converters, and yes I do have one and tried others, are not realiable enough and generate I/O errors. I can do without PS/2 ports but do have requirements for parallel every now and then...

 

[mustardman24]

Look at where most boards put the x1 slots, it's likely that your graphics card will make at least one x1 slot useless. So you need two, if you take into account the useless one.

I'm talking about more than 2 or 4 monitors, something that businesses use. The engineering place that I used to work at used them on their systems for AutoCAD designers.

 

[Ford_Prefect]

You'd be surprised how many pieces of scientific equipment still connect through the serial or parallel ports. Even some of the stuff we have that's less than a year old still uses them.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

I'm not talking about the business sect. Here at work, we use plenty of serial printers and what not... but for the home builder, aka, the enthusiast, I don't want any legacy equipment on my new PC. If I want to use an old Serial Printer... I will plug it into my 486 running windows 95.

 

[mustardman24]

You'd be surprised how many pieces of scientific equipment still connect through the serial or parallel ports. Even some of the stuff we have that's less than a year old still uses them.

See that is a different ballpark, the mainstream user doesn't use them anymore, yes I realize that there may be a few clingy people out there but the majority have switched to USB.

 

[audiovoodoo]

You know just because something new comes out that does a job better it does not mean that the old way of doing it gets any worse or stops working.

Personally I'm quite happy that my new machine will let me carry on running old 'legacy' equipment. Lots of enthusiasts are IT pros who 'acquire' kit such as old parallel port laser printers or VT220 terminals they put in the bathroom.

If their presence affected performance in any meaningful way I could see your point. But when you can disable the device and never even know it is there I don't see the harm in them hanging around until after all my old kit has died.

 

[mustardman24]

Well yes there are some people who cling to it, but they are few. Take a look back about 10-15 years and pick any random computer, half of the stuff you see on them then doesn't appear on current computers. You might look back and be like WTF is a turbo button? But serial and parallel have been along for a long time now and they are pretty much phased out of the mainstream. Printers haven't come with parallel cables for a long time and to get them you have to buy them separatly. Personally I would rather have new technology in place of those old ports like eSATA or maybe more room for Dual Ethernet or something along those lines.

 

[bliq]

Then Most manufacturers should offer an option to buy a mobo w/o serial, and more USB.

I would buy a no IDE/Serial mobo if I could... Though I agree we need IDE... we do not need serial.... oh and NO MORE STUPID PS/2 connections.

Legacy technology needs to say in its own era and leave new tech alone.

Hey I need those PS2 ports for my KVMs. No, not those silly 2 or 4 ports ones you can buy at compusa... For the massive, networked 16 and 32 ports ones at my datacenter.

Come to think of it, don't get rid of serial ports either, where would I plug my console cables?

Hmmm, maybe that's why they don't get rid of them- servers need them, and since the big boys like Dell, HP, and Compaq make their money selling servers, and not selling computers to you and me, they need to keep them. So Intel and all chipset makers keep their functionality in the motherboards they build for servers. And so since it would be more expensive to design a chipset that didn't include this functionality separately, consumer class boards keep the functionality. and addling the physical port to consumer class motherboards is almost free, like someone said. That's why they're probably still there.

Legacy tech has it's place. The trusty console cable and the null modem adapter are indispensible pieces of equipment for a datacenter sysadmin.

 

[flasher702]

My beef with 1x PCIe connectors is... they are only 1x. WTF? That's less bandwidth than PCI (unless you try to use multiple PCI devices at once). Let's get some 4x Connectors in there.

One or Two PCI slots is nice for the transition as they did with keeping 1 or 2 ISA slots on many mobos for the longest time. But does anyone miss their ISA slots *now*? No. How long will it be before no one misses their PCI slots either? And you're complaining about PCIe slots taking space away from your PCI slots... exactly how many PCI devices do you have in there.... and why?

As for the whole Serial/Parallel/PS2 port debate: they really REALLY need to take them off the IO backplane. Especially the parallel port that no one uses and is huge. They aren't going to take them out of the chipset though. Why? Because there is no reason to. They are an established and simple protocol and actually have some distinct performance advanatages over USB (namely latency, low overhead, and dedicated bandwidth). But you don't need to by expensive adapters, just a little break-out board with the ports on it that connects to the mobo Via pins that take up very little space on the mobo and leaves the IO backplane open for other things.
Things like:
-Antennas for wireless
-More USB ports
-Firewire Ports
-eSATA ports
-analogue, digital, and optical audio ports
-vents
-BIOS reset button
-LED error indicators

They don't need to take the logic out of the chip and they aren't going to, it's tiny and very reliable. But most people don't need it. Retail packaged mobos could come with the breakout board(s) necessary, take up 1 or 2 expansion slots (just like they used to before they were all moved to the mobo IO backplane) and attach to the mobo with ribbon cables. A few little voltage regulators and such to maintain signal integrity. We're talking ~$5 for the whole thing. And you could also get creative about where you put it if you wanted to. In the meanwhile you get far more useful stuff on your IO backplane.

Getting unused ports off the mobo would be one step towards bringing the size of teh personal PC down a bit, which hasn't happened in quite awhile. Very frustrating when I'm trying to build a cube PC and half my backplane is taken up by crap I don't even want after already being serverly limited in mobo choice because people appearantly want 8 PCI/PCIe slots for gaming machines... A ducted voltage regulator HSF would be so much cooler (literally).

You can, of course, desauder unwwanted connectors off the board and replace them. Just epoxy the ports you do want to a custom IO backplane cover and route the cables from the pins on the mobo.