Intel Says Farewell To PCI Bus 415
KingofGnG writes with this snippet from Sir Arthur's Den, which will make my desktop computer sad: "Soon another technology that in past years dominated the always changing universe of computer hardware will bite the dust. That's the decision by Intel, the merciless executioner of standards that the company itself imposes on the market. In upcoming months it will end official support for the PCI bus. Developed by the chipmaker in 1993, the PCI Local Bus standard was implemented on all motherboards for x86 and compatible platforms until 2004, the year it passed the baton to the younger and faster PCI Express technology."
Not so painful (Score:5, Interesting)
Back when they started dropping ISA support, I had to hunt a bit for a board with ISA support. Things like sound cards, modems, COM / LPT port cards, and so on all came on ISA cards. The couple of desktops that I've used only had one PCI card between them - a network card because there weren't drivers for the on-board one. It's much less common to have a collection of PCI cards than it was to have a collection of ISA (or EISA / VLB) cards to move to a new machine. Graphics cards are about the only thing that you regularly find as expansion cards, and these are typically upgraded at least as frequently as the motherboard anyway.
PCI is now more of a way of connecting the chips on the motherboard than a way of connecting daughter boards, and as such it's far less traumatic when it is replaced by something newer. Aside from driver developers, few people care what interconnect is used between two chips on a motherboard.
Re:And to think, if we just bought 68K machines (Score:5, Interesting)
Number of buses that have been killed off during the years is considerable:
And those are only the ones I can come up with out of my head.
Re:Now What? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now what am I supposed to do with my Voodoo II video card?
A Better Question is how am I going to hook up my legacy scsi array?
Re:ok... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and can someone tell the shitty mobo makers to stop requiring MS DOS floppy disks to flash their BIOSs?
Yes, definitely. But most motherboards these days, even old ones, tend to support booting to USB devices. That means you can often flash from a USB drive as long as you configure it right. (I keep a specially formatted stick in my bag for just such cases, so I can just toss on the right drivers and plug it in.) But really, the problem is with BIOS. Let's just transition to EFI already, can't we?
And because I'm sure someone's going to reply and chastise me, I'll ask upfront: what are some EFI-like projects, i.e. BIOS replacements, that are free and open?
Re:You already have better (Score:4, Interesting)
The Voodoo 3 actually fell into a quite modest size and power envelope.
Hell, you can still find new ISA motherboards... (Score:5, Interesting)
This ATX board I found, supporting C2Duo/C2Quad processors, has ISA, 4x serial, parallel, FDD, PS/2 mouse & keyboard, etc., in addition to dual gigabit Ethernet, RAID, SATA, PCI-Express x16, PCI, HD audio, DDR2, etc.
http://www.adek.com/PDF/MB-P4BWA.pdf [adek.com]
Re:Some of us still have PCI cards (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on how you define native. The TI XIO2213 is "native" if your definition of native is a chip that connects directly to a PCIe bus. If you are more pedantic about it, the XIO2213 is really just a PCI FireWire chip with a PCIe-to-PCI bridge part combined into a single package, and thus decidedly non-native. It's a fuzzy grey area. Either way, though, it gets the job done.
Re:ok... (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly, which is one of the first features I look for in a motherboard. Asus has had an excellent implementation for years, Gigabyte does quite well too.
Re:Now What? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess it's time to go out and buy some PC gear with PCI
I think you are panicking a little too soon. Intel is planning to remove PCIe from their next generation of cheap-end chipsets. It will be quite a while before current gen chipsets are completely phased out and even longer before motherboards with PCI dissapear completely (heck you can get core 2 motherboards with ISA if you know where to look)
Re:ok... (Score:3, Interesting)
PCI isn't really something that is in need of being killed.
ISA was like that.
Various PC legacy IO ports are like that.
PCI is relatively sensible and still very useful.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Whats the replacement (Score:3, Interesting)
So we still have PCI Express for video cards, but whats going to be the replacement bus for other cards (sound cards, wireless network cards, additional Hard drive interfaces, extra USB ports, and custom stuff?
Re:Now What? (Score:2, Interesting)
There are industrial Core 2 Quad systems out there with ISA slots. I don't know how much power you need on your acquisition platform, but I think that'll probably fit the bill.
Re:Now What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Piker. I support some scientists (among other users) and they've got some Seriously Old Kit. Some of their instruments require Windows 9x, some have ISA controller cards (PCI for their very newest stuff), and there's one OS/2 3.0 machine that runs three instruments. Don't complain to /me/ about your PCI stuff needing to be replaced.
When it costs $3k to upgrade to newer software that supports WinXP (plus a newer computer that's probably a retired desktop to run it), and well into double digits to replace the instrument, they just want their stuff to keep working.
Re:ok... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Now What? (Score:1, Interesting)
StarTech PCI Express to PCI Adapter Card Model PEX1PCI1 [newegg.com]
It's an adapter that turns your low-profile PCI card into a full-height PCI-express card.
Re:Now What? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sell it to Amiga user.
Thanks! :)
Probably not about bandwidth (Score:4, Interesting)
This probably isn't about bandwidth, but moving forward. Sure, PCI can handle a lot of the devices, but it can't handle every device. Moving forward, we have the option to do something like we did with PCI/ASA and have two physically different slots on the motherboard, or we can move forward with a scaling interface that supports auto speed negotiation and is physically compatible at all speeds of operation. (ie: put a PCI-E 2x card into a PCI-E 16x slot and it'll work.) This offers more flexibility when building out systems for different types of users, and takes the next step forward to give hardware with the new design a longer life. (ie: If PCI had been scalable in the same way, all those PCI cards would still be worth something, as would those ASA cards if they too had been compatible in the same way PCI-E is.)
One time I sawed off the back of a PCI-E 8x slot on my motherboard and put a PCI-E 16x video card in, sticking clean out of the back of the slot, and it worked like a charm. You just can't do that kind of thing with ASA and PCI.