PCI Express 3.0 specification formally delayed, products pushed to 2011

We've been enjoying (or just dealing with, depending on perspective) PCI Express 2.0 since early 2007, and it now looks as if we may still be utilizing said protocol come early 2011. Way back in June of '08, we began to hear whispers that the next iteration of the technology would be finalized by the end of this year, but now the PCI SIG has formally delayed the release of the specification until the second quarter of 2010. What does that mean for the consumer? Try coping with the fact that you won't see a PCIe 3.0 product until 2011. As the story goes, the delay was needed in order to "maintain backward compatibility with current PCI Express standards," and while the technical details of all that may interest some, it's the awfully unfortunate setback that's most notable here. But hey, at least all those PCIe 1.0 cards that are still totally relevant will work with your next (next-next?) PC!

[Via Reg Hardware]

[meepmeep Posted Aug 24th 2009 1:34AM]

Pretty sure computer companies make more from individual consumers than from huge corporations. In which case, support for legacy interfaces is all but useless.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 23rd 2009 11:05PM]

I forgot to add to my sarcasm:
AGP
ISA
ISAE
PCIX

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 24th 2009 4:17AM]

Don't Trust This Story! It is already out in Hong Kong China!

[tampa03cobra Posted Aug 24th 2009 3:25PM]

If only it were that simple, give us a bit more credit.

Parallel cards don't work in Laptops, also USB---Parallel interfaces are flaky at best. In the consumer market, nothing you do is mission critical, in the business world, whether a Nuclear power plant is able to avert an overload may depend on the serial interface between their terminals and the servers that run the coolant shutdown electronics working properly. Corporations and the military/government rely on having better faster processing hardware available that can interface with their massive in place infrastructure.


Gabe,

the only way you could interpret that would be volume, and that's iffy at best. The problem is the profit margin of the average consumer machine (especially in the age of the Atom) is literally garbage for PC OEMs. They lose money selling dirt cheap machines to the average consumer, the only way many large computer companies stay afloat is their sale of servers and other overpriced PC workstations in bulk to businesses.

Believe me, it's the reason why Microsoft looks at companies like Apple and laughs, hard. Even if they were to lose a large portion of the consumer market, Microsoft's bread is buttered by their massive enterprise offerings. Think of when a company buys 10,000 seats to Exchange, or 5,000 copies of Server 2003 for a new data center. Were talking millions in sales from one business. It take's a whole lot of high cost, medium return "gaming systems" to equal even a week of enterprise sales.

People on gadget blogs get confused into thinking that the world revolves around the consumer in every tech market. While the PMP market probably holds to that Mantra, I can tell you that a company like Lenovo or HP doesn't keep the doors open with it's sale of Netbooks and cheap celeron desktops.

All the R/D for the high end toys like Death_to_Dude is talking about, are paid for by the profits from sales in the business sector. So sorry if you don't like it, but you will find your quest to GPU nirvana really strangled if OEMs start closing their doors because they decided to ditch the 1,000s of corporations that keep them afloat.

Believe me, I'm a power user at heart, but I can promise you that without business, your market sector would be a joke. If companies don't have money, then the first thing to go are the high cost low volume ventures like developing those gaming motherboards. Look at a company like Alienware, Falcon Northwest ect... They can barely stay in business... It's the same reason why Honda is a massive world Corporation and Ferrari while having better products in every way, is much smaller in comparison. Know what kept GM alive this long? Rental car, fleet sales and Govt. The consumer market sucks for margins, everyone wants everything dirt cheap.


Sell enough Volkswagens and Audis, and you get to build the next Lamborghini. The Tech sector works the same way.