What are the really small PCI-e slots for?

[lorkp]

What are these used for? Do GFX cards need these as well as the x16 slot?

 

[imported_Kensai]

GFX cards do not need them. They are for the future when companies start making RAID cards, network cards, sound cards and other expansion cards that use those slots. It offers more bandwidth than PCI and doesn't share it.

 

[lorkp]

thanks kensai. I guess that makes sense because it's a bitch to have only 2 PCI slots/

 

[Continuity27]

Each PCI-E x1 slot offers twice the bandwidth of a PCI slot. Here's the fun part... every PCI slot uses the same bus... so if you have 2 PCI cards, you can assume they have around 1/4 that of PCI-E x1 .. Three cards is 1/6.. etc. Every lane for PCI-E is seperate from the others... many serial links as opposed to one parallel link.

PCI-E x4 has 8 times the bandwidth of one PCI slot etc..

Gigabit ethernet is TOO MUCH for PCI, hard drive controllers can be too much for PCI, etc. Hopefully many more devices will need it too, like sound cards... AI cards, etc.

This is also why server/workstation motherboards needed PCI-X (not to be confused with PCI-E) because PCI wasn't enough.

 

[LukeMan]

I just bought an Abit AN8 motherboard, and in the motherboard package was a PCI-E sound card for 1 of it's PCI-E slots. It looks so small and cute.