PCIe 3.0 Protocol Delayed
Tweaktown is reporting that the PCI-Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) has decided to delay the next generation PCIe protocol (3.0) until Q2 2010, pushing the new bus specification back an entire year. Previously 3.0 was scheduled for a release this year, followed by PCIe 3.0-based products appearing in 2010.
Computerworld expands upon the story, reporting that the SIG is taking extra time to verify and guarantee backward compatibility, electrical requirements, and other "granular specification details." When released, PCIe 3.0 is expected to provide faster data transfer rates of up to 32 GB/sec, and a lower power consumption than the previous PCIe 2.0 protocol.
"We don't need it yet, but we will need it soon," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64 in regards to the 3.0 delay. "Otherwise the bus becomes the bottleneck." High-speed network controllers and many disk controllers tend to be based on PCI Express. With disks and networks providing faster transfer rates, the PCIe protocol needs to get faster in order to support the bandwidth, hence the eventual requirement for PCIe 3.0.
According to Al Yanes, president and chairman of PCI-SIG, the backward compatibility aspect will allow a PCIe 3.0 card to plug into a PCIe 2.0 system without a hitch; the same will hold true for a PCIe 2.0 card plugged into a PCIe 3.0 system.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
-
Hanin33 nice that this SIG can get things done in a timely and efficient manner... are you listening 802.11 SIG??????Reply -
Gin Fushicho Maybe Nvidia will finally release something better then the GTX295 when PCI-e 3.0 comes out.Reply -
gwolfman It'll be nice though... possibly running SLI configs on PCIe x4 links/lanes might be possible :)Reply -
hannibal Yep! Better do it well! Year 2010 seems to be interesting. We will see PCI-e 3.0, Win7 sp1, maybe finally the n version of wireles lan..., second genereation of DX11 cards, usb3. But nothing that you have to wait.Reply
-
megamanx00 I think that it will be a while before network controllers and such need more than 4x PCI-E 2.0 lanes. I suppose it may make sense on the server side of things though.Reply -
Kaiser_25 Ya prolly good they are taking their time and not rushing it. This sounds like a responsible move on their part...quality assurance seems to be dead these days.Reply -
7amood PCIe 3.0Reply
SATA 6.0 Gbps
USB 3.0
enough reasons for me to wait before building my i7...
hope prices will go down while waiting.
on a second thought... maybe i'll buy and i7 then upgrade my motherboard later. -
cdillon The best part about PCIe 3.0 is how much more you'll be able to do with just ONE PCIe lane. Think embedded systems, laptops, etc. where space is a premium. Fewer lanes necessary to do a job means fewer pins on chips, which makes the chips smaller, fewer traces on the motherboard, etc. And the power-savings they mention with PCIe 3.0 are obviously an advantage there as well.Reply
-
IzzyCraft 7amoodPCIe 3.0SATA 6.0 GbpsUSB 3.0enough reasons for me to wait before building my i7...hope prices will go down while waiting.on a second thought... maybe i'll buy and i7 then upgrade my motherboard later.The computer industry is such a pain, there is always something better around the corner it's all a matter of how much better.Reply