Where is PCI-Express headed?

[x0d]

I need to move data within a PC at very high speeds (~3 gigabyte/second), from the main system memory to some proprietary interface cards I'm building.

Now, I want to know whether PCI-E is going to make a debut in the server market. Ideally, I'll have something like a dual/quad Opteron motherboard with 2 PCI-E x4 (or x8) slots (for 2 interface cards, each at 1.5GB/s), plus, possibly, other two PCI-E 8x slots for hooking a monsterous RAID array (lets say we'll split the load across two adapters, something like 60-80 15k SCSI disks in RAID0, combined).

My guesses as for why the above isn't going to become reality:
1. I don't see PCI-E in server boards, at all
2. No PCI-E RAID cards
3. Boards I do see with PCI-E, although consumer level boards, only come with a few PCI-E 1x slots

Are the above assumptions correct? If not, should I go with PCI-X533?
Shouldn't it be dying once PCI-E is out?

This is a quite crucial decision. Kinda hard to forsee the market.

Thanks for the help.

 

[OdiN]

PCI-X is still going to be rather pervasive in the market for now. Any Xeon board will have them rather than PCI-E. This won't begin to change until newer Xeon-type CPU's are released. I'm not sure of Intel's schedule on that but the current Xeon chips will likely still sell fairly well until the typically high priced newer components drop down. This is of course thinking of a mainstream server rather than for a larger corporation.

 

[FishTankX]

Why not PCI-E x16?

 

[Wahsapa]

its better to think of pci-e as not even out yet, because well, with its showing so far it might as well not be out at all.

i think nvidia is coming out with the nforce4 which is rumored to have 32x pcie lanes, which is also rumored, to be set up as one 16x one 8x(which has the same phy connection as a 16x lane) and the rest 4x or 1x.

pcie is first making its debut in the server market. pcie is far to new to go out and buy boards with what you are looking for, just stick to pci-x.

if you need to do this NOW then pcie is not an option. if it can be held off for a year, then pcie will be the obvious choice.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: x0d
I need to move data within a PC at very high speeds (~3 gigabyte/second), from the main system memory to some proprietary interface cards I'm building.

Now, I want to know whether PCI-E is going to make a debut in the server market. Ideally, I'll have something like a dual/quad Opteron motherboard with 2 PCI-E x4 (or x8) slots (for 2 interface cards, each at 1.5GB/s), plus, possibly, other two PCI-E 8x slots for hooking a monsterous RAID array (lets say we'll split the load across two adapters, something like 60-80 15k SCSI disks in RAID0, combined).

My guesses as for why the above isn't going to become reality:
1. I don't see PCI-E in server boards, at all
2. No PCI-E RAID cards
3. Boards I do see with PCI-E, although consumer level boards, only come with a few PCI-E 1x slots

Are the above assumptions correct? If not, should I go with PCI-X533?
Shouldn't it be dying once PCI-E is out?

This is a quite crucial decision. Kinda hard to forsee the market.

Thanks for the help.

Unfortunately, on the server side, there now seem to be two forces pulling in opposite directions -- you have PCI-E going forwards, and faster versions of PCI-X *also* going forwards. It's a mess.

I think in the long term everyone will be moving to PCI-E, although it has yet to really hit the server market (you'll probably start seeing it on server boards by the end of the year or early next year). If you have to start doing anything now, stick with PCI-X, as it is likely to be around for a while for servers. If it dies, it'll be a slow death (like anything in the server market...)

 

[Dewey]

PCs aren't that good of memory movers. Take a look at some telecom embedded processors, etc. Switches and routers move data quickly.