The PCI-SIG announced today that the final version of the PCI Express Base 2.0 Specification is now out and available to members. PCIe 2.0 adds a number of enhancements including increased signaling speed (5GHz) which results in increased per-link bandwidth. Specifically, each lane doubles from 2.5 GT/s under the PCIe 1.1 spec to 5 GT/s under the 2.0 spec. This translates to a PCIe 2.0 x16 link having a peak bandwidth of 16 GB/s.
The new spec also supports a number of features at the protocol level. For instance, the new spec gives the OS the ability to dynamically adjust the speed of a link, and to receive notifications when the link speed and width change. Devices based on the PCIe 2.0 spec are backwards compatible with devices based on the 1.0 and 1.1 specifications. Now that the spec is finalized, expect products that support it to start appearing in later 2007. Graphics cards will be the first products to make use of PCIe 2.0 and along with DirectX 10, expect this year to have a Crysis 2-similar release.
News source: Ars Technica
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