| ersonal computer is constantly changing with such | | | | other PC makers released the 32 bit EISA or |
| component upgrades for memory,cpu speed and | | | | Extended Industry Standard Architecture bus |
| hard drive capacity.And the video display is no | | | | 1993 brought us the Video Electronics Standards |
| exception. | | | | Association or the VESA Bus.This year also |
| The video display consist of a Graphics Card, | | | | allowed the release of the PCI or Personal |
| Monitor,and the Bus.If you're wondering what the | | | | Computer Interconnect Bus. |
| heck is a Bus in any video display,its the data path | | | | And in 1996 came the AGP or the Advanced |
| along which data moves into, out of, and inside | | | | Graphics Port while 1998 brought us the AGP 2.0 |
| the the computer. | | | | and in 2002 came the ,you got it, the AGP 3.0 |
| This data is sent from the motherboard and | | | | data bus. |
| central processing unit, to the graphics | | | | Finally in 2005 Intel and AMD introduced |
| card,travels along the data path or Bus, to the | | | | computers running at speeds of 4Gigabytes or |
| Monitor where our eyes can see it.The data Bus | | | | more.At these speeds the AGP port presented at |
| is partly responsible for our clear and fast the | | | | slowdown for the data. |
| graphics of our favorite games are displayed. | | | | So the folks at Intel put their heads together and |
| It does not matter how fast the CPU chip or | | | | came up with the PCIe.The Personal Computer |
| graphics card can send data if the Bus becomes | | | | Interconnect Express.The bus is like the PCI but |
| too small and prevents the data from traveling | | | | uses a serial port whereas the PCI use parallel |
| fast.This causes a bottleneck of data when the | | | | ports. |
| graphics card sends data faster then the Bus can | | | | Parallel ports send data in chumps and Serial ports |
| allow it to travel. | | | | send data one at a time.With the PCI bus, each |
| The first Bus was introduced by IBM or | | | | slot share a maximum of 132MB a second and |
| International Business Machines and was called the | | | | the PCIe allow each slot to have 250 Megabytes |
| ISA.The Industry Standard Architecture Bus was | | | | a second to send data. |
| slow and weak since it sent data at just 4MHz. | | | | PCIe is intended to be used as a local interconnect |
| But it was matched with the CPU chip of that | | | | only.As it is based on the existing PCI system, |
| day.The average cpu speed during this time was | | | | cards, and systems can be adapted to PCI |
| around 4.77MHz. This bus came in 1981 and IBM | | | | Express without any change in software.The |
| created a faster bus soon after with a 16 bit bus | | | | higher speeds on PCIe allow it to replace almost all |
| with a cpu speed of 8 to 10 MHz three years | | | | existing buses. |
| later. | | | | Nearly all high end graphics cards today in 2006 |
| By this time many other computer makers were | | | | from AIT and NVIDIA use PCI Express.And Nvidia |
| building Computers using the IBM design and IBM | | | | use the faster data transfer of PCIe for their SLI |
| quickly responded to the competition by making a | | | | or Scalable Link Interface technology. |
| proprietarybus called the MCA or Micro Channel | | | | This technology allow two graphics cards of the |
| Architecture. | | | | same chipset and model number to be ran at the |
| When IBM built proprietary Buses they mean they | | | | same time. This greatly boost performance like |
| built hardware or software, in this case Buses, | | | | you never thought possible. |
| owned and controlled by a single individual or | | | | Not to be out done, ATI came on the scene with |
| organization. | | | | their dual GPU system or Graphics Processing Unit |
| The Bus technology came about in the following | | | | called the Crossfire. |
| order. | | | | As you can see, the PCI Express bus is faster |
| 1983 IBM introduced the ISA Bus and in 1984 the | | | | and if possible, when purchasing your next |
| faster 16 bit ISA Bus arrived.Then in 1987 the 32 | | | | computer, be certain it comes with PCI Express |
| bit MCA Bus showed up.And in 1988 Compaq and | | | | slots. |