What is means of x16 pci-express slot

[Guest]

Hello,
what is means of x16 pci express slot .i know it is graphics slot but what means of x16

 

[seerwan]

That means there 16 lanes.

as opposed to 8 or 4.

 

[seerwan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI-E

PCI-E was created in 2004.
Each lane provided 250 MB/s. 16 lanes, the maximum on a single PCI-E bridge (slot), equal 4 GB/s.

However, since 2007, it was revised and edition 2 came out and was called PCI-E 2.0.
The main difference was DOUBLING speed; each lane now provided 500 MB/s, so the total speed u get on a single PCI-E 2.0 bridge is 8 GB/s.

PCI-E 3.0 is coming out soon; again, bandwidth has been doubled to 1 GB/s per lane, for a total of 16 GB/s per PCI-E 3.0 bridge.

Go here for more info:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI-E#PCI_Express_2.0