Haswell chipsets to consign PCI to trashbin of history.

[techs]

http://hothardware.com/News/Intels-...nally-Lose-PCI-Slots-and-Offer-All-6Gbs-SATA/

Intel’s Z87 Haswell Chipset Reported To Finally Lose PCI Slots and Offer All 6Gbs SATA

It's been a nice, long ride for the conventional PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) slot, but with the introduction of Intel's game-changing Haswell platform, the Santa Clara chip maker is reportedly doing away with support for the legacy ports. If you've been holding onto an earlier model Sound Blaster card or any other peripheral still using the old-school ports, go ahead and plan their retirement party now.





What will I do with my winmodem now?

 

[Cerb]

Like PATA, it will be awhile before it truly dies, but I'd be OK with only some mobos having bridge chips for a few years, and then a final death. There are enough other options, today, that even custom hardware no longer needs ISA or PCI like it used to.

I'm worried about Intel's continued RAM segmentation, but I think PCI had a good enough run, and can be let go of.

What will I do with my winmodem now?

Swap it out for a real one, just like back in the day . Quakeworld, in NT 4, with 3Dfx card, over an External Sportster...ah, the good ol' days*.

* Let's forget about fighting with BIOS resource assignments, low quality drivers for 3D cards, low quality internet connections, how slow HDDs were, $1/MB or higher memory costs, protected/real mode issues, needing custom cooling for factory parts, and...

 

[cl-scott]

While PCI doesn't need to die the same horrible death of ISA and it's manual IRQ assigning, it is a bit limited bandwidth wise by today's standards. Not useful for much beyond sound cards and ethernet cards, both of which have been integrated into motherboards for ages.

Personally, I just wish someone would come out with some ridiculously fast and universal system. A single bus that can connect HDDs/SSDs, video cards, RAID controllers, and everything else. I'm sure there is some good technical reason I'm not aware of which has kept this from happening already, but I can still hope.

 

[Cerb]

While PCI doesn't need to die the same horrible death of ISA and it's manual IRQ assigning, it is a bit limited bandwidth wise by today's standards. Not useful for much beyond sound cards and ethernet cards, both of which have been PCI-e for ages.

FTFY. It's rare for mother boards to have integrated sound cards or network cards (proprietary daughter board sound cards I have seen, though). The word "card" is part of referring to them being add-ons, and integrated features have not made them extinct. PCI-e 1x basically exists just for those kinds of devices.

Personally, I just wish someone would come out with some ridiculously fast and universal system. A single bus that can connect HDDs/SSDs, video cards, RAID controllers, and everything else. I'm sure there is some good technical reason I'm not aware of which has kept this from happening already, but I can still hope.

PCI-e already handles all of that except HDDs and SSDs, and putting them on PCIe via cabling is already in the pipe. Once--or if--that is sufficiently common, Thunderbolt will be able to handle basically anything but high-end RAID and video cards. I don't want to say it will happen, but if it doesn't, it will be much more an economic issue than technical one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Not sure how this is news. Z77 already dropped PCI bus support. All the mobos that you see on the market with PCI, use something like an ASmedia bridge chip, from PCI-E x1 to PCI.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Not sure how this is news. Z77 already dropped PCI bus support. All the mobos that you see on the market with PCI, use something like an ASmedia bridge chip, from PCI-E x1 to PCI.

Or you could just use something like this...

http://eu.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/PCI-Express-to-PCI-Adapter-Card~PEX1PCI1

Only for low profile cards unfortunately. And rather expensive...

 

[lamedude]

Not all. The B75 still has PCI.

 

[Revolution 11]

Or you could just use something like this...

http://eu.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/PCI-Express-to-PCI-Adapter-Card~PEX1PCI1

Only for low profile cards unfortunately. And rather expensive...

That is a expensive adapter. Basically $64 for a low profile adapter. I can easily find adapters for regular cards at $40, free shipping.

http://www.buy.com/prod/startech-com...214281661.html

I am not worried about PCI being unsupported. There are plenty of third-party adapters and products that allow you to use PCI cards on PCI-E slots.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

That is a expensive adapter. Basically $64 for a low profile adapter. I can easily find adapters for regular cards at $40, free shipping.

http://www.buy.com/prod/startech-com...214281661.html

I am not worried about PCI being unsupported. There are plenty of third-party adapters and products that allow you to use PCI cards on PCI-E slots.

Same adaptor, different price...()

But one question. Who still uses PCI and for what purpose?. You can get PCIe cards for -just- about anything, so unless it is some special or custom PCI card why bother with PCI...?

Edit; I mean it could be fun to try and run a Voodoo2 on a modern chipset, but what would be the point...?

 

[Fox5]

Same adaptor, different price...()

But one question. Who still uses PCI and for what purpose?. You can get PCIe cards for -just- about anything, so unless it is some special or custom PCI card why bother with PCI...?

Edit; I mean it could be fun to try and run a Voodoo2 on a modern chipset, but what would be the point...?

My sound blaster still works, why buy a new one?

 

[_Rick_]

Driver support?
It breaking?
It not supporting all the new fangled media?

All the usual suspects.

Additionally, I expect onboard sound implementations to become SoundBlaster matching sooner than later. Already some high-end boards have reasonably good implementations and even onboard headphone amps.

 

[mfenn]

Not all. The B75 still has PCI.

Read the thread.

Not sure how this is news. Z77 already dropped PCI bus support. All the mobos that you see on the market with PCI, use something like an ASmedia bridge chip, from PCI-E x1 to PCI.

 

[Zorander]

I've been hapily using my E-MU 1212m for years. I know there is a PCI-e variant out there but it feels stupid to buy the same card just because of a port change.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Or you could just use something like this...

http://eu.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/PCI-Express-to-PCI-Adapter-Card~PEX1PCI1

Only for low profile cards unfortunately. And rather expensive...

That is a expensive adapter. Basically $64 for a low profile adapter. I can easily find adapters for regular cards at $40, free shipping.

http://www.buy.com/prod/startech-com...214281661.html

I am not worried about PCI being unsupported. There are plenty of third-party adapters and products that allow you to use PCI cards on PCI-E slots.

Same adaptor, different price...()

No they aren't. The first card is "PCI to PCI Express Adapter Card", and the second is "PCI Express to PCI Adapter Card"...

 

[lamedude]

Read the thread.

I did and interpreted Larry's commment as Intel has already dropped PCI and all Intel motherboards use a bridge so this is non news but Intel still makes a PCH with native PCI.
AFAIK Intel's last mainstream chipset with PCI was ICH10 and was dumped with the move to single chip PCH's on LGA1156 so Z87 not having PCI is non news but assuming all "Haswell chipsets" as the thread title states drop PCI its minor news.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

No they aren't. The first card is "PCI to PCI Express Adapter Card", and the second is "PCI Express to PCI Adapter Card"...

Epic fail, I apologize...

But the point is still that such adaptors exists for those who need them...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Not all. The B75 still has PCI.

That's interesting. It would be even more interesting to find out if it is the same chipset die as the Z77, just with features enabled/disabled, or what.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

That's interesting. It would be even more interesting to find out if it is the same chipset die as the Z77, just with features enabled/disabled, or what.

I think I read -somewhere- that Intel uses the exact same chip for all 7-series chipsets. But that might have been FUD. It would make perfect business sense though. Having a standard chip that you can bin, disable parts of as needed and change the firmware on depending on target market would be logical...:hmm:

 

[mfenn]

That's interesting. It would be even more interesting to find out if it is the same chipset die as the Z77, just with features enabled/disabled, or what.

The marketing block diagrams call out features that are important to a specific audience. For B75 customers, PCI support is important, so they will take pains to point that out.

The dead giveaway that it is a PCIe/PCI bridge is if you go to the product brief and look at the block diagram there. They show the interconnect between the chipset and the PCI lanes as "480MB/s each". This doesn't make any sense as a native PCI bus as PCI is a parallel bus with 133MB/s of shared bandwidth. It does make sense as a PCIe device because a Gen2 x1 is 500MB/s.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I've been hapily using my E-MU 1212m for years. I know there is a PCI-e variant out there but it feels stupid to buy the same card just because of a port change.

I have the same card, I use it with my HD600, and like you I have no reason to change/upgrade. Would make me very sad if there won't be Haswell motherboards with PCI slots. What makes me even more sad is that 1212m and 0404USB (both of which I own) are essentially EOL products. EMU has "beta" drivers working on Win7, but after that it's all up in the air. They may work on Win8 given that those two are essentially the same systems, but this is it...

 

[mfenn]

Nobody is saying that Haswell boards won't have PCI. What this is saying is that mobo manufacturers will have to use an additional chip to get PCI support. They're already doing this for H77 and Z77 and I don't see any reason why they would stop for Haswell.

 

[bononos]

Good. Right now most people that don't use PCI are stuck with useless slots at the bottom.

 

[exdeath]

Next on the list needs to be hard drives, optical drives, etc.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

why would anyone care. everything is either integrated already or uses usb or pci-exp

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Nobody is saying that Haswell boards won't have PCI. What this is saying is that mobo manufacturers will have to use an additional chip to get PCI support. They're already doing this for H77 and Z77 and I don't see any reason why they would stop for Haswell.

Exactly... this will not be a problem... there will always be a solution for those that require conventional PCI...