Opinions on this emerging PCI Express stuff?

Alright, so I've decided I'm going to bite the bullet and build a new computer (it's been about 4 years since I built the one I currently use, and despite a recent video card purchase and 768mb of RAM, my Athlon XP1500+ has definately grown long in the tooth.) Anywho, I've admittedly fallen a bit behind the times in respect to the new technology, as I've had little reason up to this point to pursue the stuff out of anything more than curiosity. I'm going with a RAID setup this time around, with an Athlon 64 processor. In doing research into motherboards, I've become interested in PCI Express. ATI and NVIDIA have thrown full backing into it, but we've yet to see a whole lot utilizing the technology (although I assume this will change.) The potential is enormous, as it completely blows away the decade-and-a-half old standard PCI bus, with its inherently slow bus (66 mhz I believe, or something to that effect.) Now, I (luckily) didn't invest hundreds in my current videocard, so I don't stand to lose much from switching over to the new technology (AGP won't play with an Express architecture.) However, I'm always hesitant about adopting a new standard, as sometimes these things never end up getting off the ground. It doesn't seem like there's too much at risk if I switch to PCI Express. Is anyone else in this position? What are you leaning towards -- the new, up and coming technology that's yet to really be fully adopted, or the time-tested, tried and true current standard for architecture? If you're unfamiliar with PCI Express, Google it and do some research -- it's phenomenal stuff (double the bandwidth of AGP8x for one example :naughty: )

As a general rule I usually wait until any new technology is a few years old before I try it. When it's brand new hardly any software supports or utilizes it, and the ones that do are usually more expensive. Also the bugs that may come up haven't revealed themselves yet. Let someone who can afford it do the real-world bench testing. :2cents:

I don't know anything about PCI Express though. It sounds like the next step in PC's.

PCI is becoming the new "standard".

I don't know anything aboot it, but when my dad and my idiot brother went looking for a new graphics card 3 weeks ago, they came back with a bull shit 85 dollar one claiming "none others worked". Those "others" were PCI, you'll never get a PCI graphics card on a old motherboard.

I've made my decision, and I've decided that PCI is old hat. PCI-E is the way of the future. Support is better than I thought, too. I figure my new PCI Express-based Athlon64 with a RAID HD setup ought to carry me for AT LEAST a year. Stupid Moore's Law :rolleyes:

Take the plunge.


I always do, but it's my line of work to do it with someone else's money.