The First PCI-Express Products
Although PCI-Express has been in the works since 2001, only now are PCI-Express products beginning to arrive on store shelves. The new ATI Radeon X-series (X300, X600, and X800) GPUs are designed specifically for use in PCI-Express slots. NVIDIA uses an AGP/PCI-Express bridge technology to enable the same GPUs to be used in both types of graphics cards.
The first motherboard chipsets which support PCI-Express are listed in Table 2.
Table 2 Chipsets Incorporating PCI-Express Support
Vendor/Website |
Model # |
Processors Supported |
ALi |
M1685 |
Pentium 4, Celeron 4 |
Intel |
915P, 915G (Grantsdale) |
Pentium 4, Celeron 4 |
SiS |
SiS656 |
Pentium 4, Celeron 4 |
ATI |
RX480, RS480 |
Athlon 64 |
SiS |
SiS756, SiS761, SiS761GX |
Athlon 64 |
VIA Technologies |
K8T890, K8M890 |
Athlon 64 |
Note that the Athlon XP and Duron processors are not supported by PCI-Express chipsets, at least initially. Given AMD's drive to move mid-range and high-end users to 64-bit computing, this isn't surprising.