What are the advantages of PCI-X over PCI?
PCI-X (Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended) increased the speed that data can move within a computer from 66 MHz (PCI) to 133 MHz (PCI-X). With PCI, one 64-bit bus runs at 66 MHz, allowing up to 532 MB/s data transfer between the processor and peripherals. PCI-X, on the other hand, allows one 64-bit at 133 MHz to transfer up to 1.06 GB/s. PCI-X removes the performance bottleneck between peripherals and processor, allowing for high performance technologies to reach their transfer rate potential. PCI-X is backwards compatible with PCI, but the bus speed will drop to 66 MHz or 33 MHz (dependent on PCI bus MHz). Both PCI-X and PCI cards can be used on the same bus, the transfer rate will run at the speed of the slowest card.
