I'm sitting in my PC Service and Support class right now, and my teacher keeps telling me that in the near future, USB and firewire will replace PCI expansion slots. I can't imagine where she gets this information, but I thought you guys might turn this topic into an interesting discussion.
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Firewire and USB to replace expansion slots?
- Thread starter Chunk
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Nazo
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Near future? No. Far off future, just perhaps. You'd be surprised what you can do via things like USB and firewire now that bandwidth is growing to quite reasonable rates. The biggest problem lies in the fact that a lot of stuff still must be done via software. Take for example the Audigy 2 NX, which is an external 7.1 capable soundcard. Basically it's looking like in the far off future, you'll have onboard for most of your stuff and perhaps, just PERHAPS, you might have all your other stuff through a system like usb or firewire (maybe usb 4 or firewire 3) d-:
corran_horn314
Limp Gawd
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no...
pci slots have the advantage of being internal(of course you could plug something into the usb or firewire pins on the mobo...) so theres nothing sticking out with more wires to tangle. and usb and firewire cant match the bandwidth of pci, pcix, pcie, or agp which many devices need
pci slots have the advantage of being internal(of course you could plug something into the usb or firewire pins on the mobo...) so theres nothing sticking out with more wires to tangle. and usb and firewire cant match the bandwidth of pci, pcix, pcie, or agp which many devices need
Nazo
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Unless things like bluetooth improve.
That's what I'm saying. Not near future, definitely. But, a few years from now? Just look at what USB2 did for USB 1... It could theoretically be possible.
I do think that video cards are going to stay internal even in that future though. They need that really high bandwidth. I mean, heck, they already are using something that is supposed to be at least 4x faster than PCI (supposedly 8x isn't really being used very thorougly yet.) Not to mention PCI-E is supposed to be something like 16x. I don't THINK that built in is a very viable option there either. It's not like a network interface or something where it doesn't matter much just as long as it works at all. Video cards are changing as quickly as CPUs and motherboards, so people require the ability to upgrade (though maybe someday internal will finally not suck so badly.) Of course, with the amount and speed of memory available increasing and 1GB+ becoming quite typical, it does become a bit more viable to have internal video.
That's what I'm saying. Not near future, definitely. But, a few years from now? Just look at what USB2 did for USB 1... It could theoretically be possible.
I do think that video cards are going to stay internal even in that future though. They need that really high bandwidth. I mean, heck, they already are using something that is supposed to be at least 4x faster than PCI (supposedly 8x isn't really being used very thorougly yet.) Not to mention PCI-E is supposed to be something like 16x. I don't THINK that built in is a very viable option there either. It's not like a network interface or something where it doesn't matter much just as long as it works at all. Video cards are changing as quickly as CPUs and motherboards, so people require the ability to upgrade (though maybe someday internal will finally not suck so badly.) Of course, with the amount and speed of memory available increasing and 1GB+ becoming quite typical, it does become a bit more viable to have internal video.