Peripheral Component Interconnect Express – PCI Express

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Peripheral Component Interconnect Express – PCI Express

PCI Express (PCIe) is a high-speed computer bus interface that allows expansion cards to connect to a computer system’s motherboard. It is a successor to the PCI and AGP interfaces, and provides significantly higher bandwidth and lower latency.

What does Peripheral Component Interconnect Express – PCI Express mean?

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCI Express) is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard for attaching hardware devices to a Computer System. It is designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP buses. PCI Express provides much higher bandwidth and lower latency than its predecessors, making it ideal for use with high-performance graphics cards, network cards, and other peripherals.

PCI Express is based on a point-to-point serial link architecture, which means that each device on the bus has its own dedicated connection to the host computer. This eliminates the bottlenecks that can occur with shared buses, such as PCI and PCI-X. PCI Express also uses a packet-based Protocol, which allows it to transfer data more efficiently than previous buses.

PCI Express is a flexible standard that can be used in a variety of applications, from small embedded systems to large-scale servers. It is also backwards compatible with older PCI devices, which makes it easy to Upgrade existing systems.

Applications

PCI Express is used in a wide range of applications, including:

  • Graphics cards: PCI Express is the standard interface for connecting graphics cards to computers. It provides the high bandwidth and low latency that is required for gaming and other graphics-intensive applications.
  • Network cards: PCI Express is also the standard interface for connecting network cards to computers. It provides the high bandwidth and low latency that is required for high-speed data transfer.
  • Storage devices: PCI Express is also used to connect storage devices, such as solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs), to computers. It provides the high bandwidth and low latency that is required for fast data access.
  • Other peripherals: PCI Express is also used to connect a variety of other peripherals to computers, such as sound cards, video capture cards, and USB controllers.

History

PCI Express was developed by the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI SIG) in 2003. The first PCI Express specification, version 1.0, was released in 2004. PCI Express 2.0 was released in 2007, followed by PCI Express 3.0 in 2010 and PCI Express 4.0 in 2017. PCI Express 5.0 is scheduled to be released in 2019.

Each new version of PCI Express has provided significant improvements in performance over the previous version. PCI Express 2.0 doubled the bandwidth of PCI Express 1.0, and PCI Express 3.0 doubled the bandwidth of PCI Express 2.0. PCI Express 4.0 doubled the bandwidth of PCI Express 3.0, and PCI Express 5.0 is expected to double the bandwidth of PCI Express 4.0.

PCI Express has become the dominant expansion bus standard in the computer industry. It is used in a wide range of applications, from small embedded systems to large-scale servers. PCI Express is expected to continue to be the standard for high-speed data transfer for many years to come.