The size of any PCI Express card is normally indicated by the number of lanes. Therefore, each lane consists of four wires or signal traces. For the x2 link, each lane is composed of two different data transferring pairs, one pair for transmitting data and the other for receiving data.
After inserting a PCIe network card, a logical connection will be formed between the slot and the card to communicate, which is called an interconnect or link, enabling a point-to-point communication channel between two PCIe ports and allowing both of them to send and receive ordinary PCI requests and interrupts.Īs the following diagram illustrates, the PCIe slot contains one or more lanes.
Instead of performing like a bus that handles data from multiple sources, a PCI Express card can achieve a series of point-to-point connections via switches to control where the data needs to go. The latest PCIe card has made improvements and become an inevitable trend when choosing network cards.įurther learning: PCI vs PCI-X vs PCI-E, Why Choose PCI-E Card? PCI vs PCI-X vs PCI-E are the three versions of network adapters with different designs and topologies. (The slot is as wide as or wider than the card.)
Most recent PC's motherboards have PCIe slots just for PCIe cards to be installed in the corresponding PCIe slot. Specifically, PCIe-based expansion cards are designed to fit into PCIe-based slots in the motherboard of devices like host, server, and network switch. PCIe card (aka PCI Express card, PCIe-based card) refers to a kind of network adapter with a PCIe interface, used in motherboard-level connections as an expansion card interface.
What is PCI express card? How many types of PCIe cards are there? What does PCIe x8, or PCIe x16 mean? Can I use a PCIe 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot? How to find the best PCI express card? Find the answers in this post. PCIe has been fully developed and widely applied in many network devices after debut, especially for the PCIe card. PCI Express (PCIe) standard's emergence is to meet the needs for higher bandwidth, greater flexibility, and better performance of networking devices.