Haswell boards and PCI crowding

newconroer · Sep 19, 2013

Anyone else notice that the Z87 Haswell boards are not very PCI friendly - not so much in the quantity of slots but the location? It's like every three out of four boards have the PCI slot on the wrong side of the PCI E lanes causing you to run out of space with using any normal sized GPU multi card setup.

Is this a sign that I should be using a PCI E 1x sound card? Aren't most still PCI ?

Fourstaff · Sep 19, 2013

newconroer said:
Anyone else notice that the Z87 Haswell boards are not very PCI friendly - not so much in the quantity of slots but the location? It's like every three out of four boards have the PCI slot on the wrong side of the PCI E lanes causing you to run out of space with using any normal sized GPU multi card setup.

Is this a sign that I should be using a PCI E 1x sound card? Aren't most still PCI ?

Yes its quite hard to find a slot for PCI now. I am pretty sure you can find one which has PCI on the "right" place, but you will need to look for the cheaper ones. Soundcards are migrating to PCIe precisely because of this reason, but as you pointed out there are a lot of good ones still on PCI.

newconroer · Sep 20, 2013

Fourstaff said:
Yes its quite hard to find a slot for PCI now. I am pretty sure you can find one which has PCI on the "right" place, but you will need to look for the cheaper ones. Soundcards are migrating to PCIe precisely because of this reason, but as you pointed out there are a lot of good ones still on PCI.

Yes, seems to be the way.
Thanks for responding as I'll keep it in mind on the next build.

Kursah · Sep 20, 2013

I've been using my Auzen PCIe x1 sound card since 2009, it wasn't long before then that pci-e sound cards were a newer thing. I think it kind of sucks that the PCI slot is going away with sooo many great PCI cards out there. The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music being one of my favorite sounds cards of all time. I love my Auzen card, but I wouldn't own it if it weren't for the X-Fi Xtreme Music that sold me that add-in sound cards are amazing!

JunkBear · Sep 20, 2013

It is just an opinion guys but I am not an expert so just take it easy ok! IMO they started to get this problem after they developped the socket 775 able to get duocore and quadcore. The boards that can handle only single cores where mostly DDR1 or DDR2 but some people still had the PCI graphic and many PCI hardware like LAN, Firewire, USB and sound cards. When DDR2 boards came in with better onboard stuff they cutted down on the PCI slots.

That's my explanation but hey...I could be wrong.

newtekie1 · Sep 20, 2013

PCI has been obsolete for almost 10 years, I think it is time to let it die.

AFAIK, Z87 doesn't even have native PCI anymore, so the board makers have to use a PCIe -> PCI bridge chip. I'm surprised they even bother anymore.

Frick · Sep 20, 2013

JunkBear said:
It is just an opinion guys but I am not an expert so just take it easy ok! IMO they started to get this problem after they developped the socket 775 able to get duocore and quadcore. The boards that can handle only single cores where mostly DDR1 or DDR2 but some people still had the PCI graphic and many PCI hardware like LAN, Firewire, USB and sound cards. When DDR2 boards came in with better onboard stuff they cutted down on the PCI slots.

That's my explanation but hey...I could be wrong.

Memory has nothing to do with it (well not much anyway, not as such), but yeah boards did get more and more stuff built in, and we got faster and faster stuff so them 133MB/s didn't last long.

It's sort of good that it goes away, because except for sound cards I can't think of any reason why anyone would want a PCI card in a modern system. For legacy systems or special stuff there are lots of interesting things to have there.

newtekie1 said:
PCI has been obsolete for almost 10 years, I think it is time to let it die.

AFAIK, Z87 doesn't even have native PCI anymore, so the board makers have to use a PCIe -> PCI bridge chip. I'm surprised they even bother anymore.

10 years? No way, no how. Ten years ago you encountered systems without AGP slots, so if your onboard video died your only option was PCI GPU's. Ditto if you wanted more than 1 monitor. Sound cards, expansion cards (USB 2.0 on older boards), NIC's... Tons and tons of realistically usefull stuff.

HammerON · Sep 20, 2013

I personally have not used a PCI slot since socket 939 days...
But I understand that others do...

JunkBear · Sep 21, 2013

HammerON said:
I personally have not used a PCI slot since socket 939 days...
But I understand that others do...

I am using it on a Compaq Evo D51S-sff.

The low profile AGP version of a big 64 megs MX440 and the PCI for a USB 2.0 Belkin card.

The two front usb ports are so mashed together that you can't fit 2 items of even a large usb won't fit.

newtekie1 · Sep 21, 2013

Frick said:
10 years? No way, no how. Ten years ago you encountered systems without AGP slots, so if your onboard video died your only option was PCI GPU's. Ditto if you wanted more than 1 monitor. Sound cards, expansion cards (USB 2.0 on older boards), NIC's... Tons and tons of realistically usefull stuff.

PCIe was released in 2003(yes, really, 10 years ago!), PCI became an obsolete technology at that moment. We continued to use PCI(just because it is obsolete doesn't mean it isn't useful), but it was technologically obsolete. We've prolonged its death 10 years, I think it is about time we let it it die.

Deleted member 24505 · Sep 21, 2013

newtekie1 said:
PCIe was released in 2003(yes, really, 10 years ago!), PCI became an obsolete technology at that moment. We continued to use PCI(just because it is obsolete doesn't mean it isn't useful), but it was technologically obsolete. We've prolonged its death 10 years, I think it is about time we let it it die.

I agree, same with the parallel and serial ports.

Frick · Sep 21, 2013

newtekie1 said:
PCIe was released in 2003(yes, really, 10 years ago!), PCI became an obsolete technology at that moment. We continued to use PCI(just because it is obsolete doesn't mean it isn't useful), but it was technologically obsolete. We've prolonged its death 10 years, I think it is about time we let it it die.

Ah we're using words differently then.

Bo$$ · Sep 21, 2013

still using one

Jstn7477 · Sep 21, 2013

Anything after LGA 1156 doesn't have native PCI slots and relies on an ASMedia or ITE PCIe to PCI converter. AMD still has them but then again they are still using the legacy NB/SB for AM3+ and the chipset itself hasn't really changed since ~2010 (I consider the 9xx chipsets a re-brand of the 8xx series).

vega22 · Sep 21, 2013

just because something becomes replaced or eol it doesnt make it obsolete.

that being said i have 2 of them on my z87 oc :lol:

i got rid of my pci sound card years ago xD

newtekie1 · Sep 21, 2013

marsey99 said:
just because something becomes replaced or eol it doesnt make it obsolete.

Actually, that is exactly what Obsolete means. The simplest definition of obsolete is "Replaced by something newer". Just because something is obsolete doesn't mean it isn't still used or isn't still useful, it just means something new has come out. And even if you make the argument that PCI wasn't obsolete right when PCIe came out 10 years ago, it definitely is obsolete today, there is no arguing that. PCI needs to die.

newconroer · Sep 21, 2013

Frick said:
It's sort of good that it goes away, because except for sound cards I can't think of any reason why anyone would want a PCI card in a modern system.

Therein lies the problem - the main reason PCIs are put on boards still is for use with sound cards, as they recognize many sound cards are still PCI. Which raises the question then, why put the slots in unfavorable positions? It just forces you to choose between PCI E device which may take up two slots/spaces, or a PCI device. Why not then just leave off the PCI altogether?

swaaye · Sep 21, 2013

newtekie1 said:
AFAIK, Z87 doesn't even have native PCI anymore, so the board makers have to use a PCIe -> PCI bridge chip. I'm surprised they even bother anymore.

And the PCIe-to-PCI bridge setup can cause problems specifically with sound cards. The "PCI bus" on my Z68 board doesn't work correctly with my old X-Fi card (but Audigy works fine).

Jstn7477 · Sep 21, 2013

swaaye said:
And the PCIe-to-PCI bridge setup can cause problems specifically with sound cards. The "PCI bus" on my Z68 board doesn't work correctly with my old X-Fi card (but Audigy works fine).

Yep, the only PCI card I have tried in my Z87 Extreme6 is an old IEEE 1394 card pulled from some old early 2000s HP desktop and it refused to initialize properly. Haven't tried any other cards but I'm positive the card still works on "true PCI" boards.

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Haswell boards and PCI crowding

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