PCIe 2.0 and 2.1

[$cooter]

I see GPU vendors out there that are offering very similar products but some of the devices are PCIe 2.0 ready and some are PCIe 2.1 ready. My limited understanding of PCIe 2.1 is that it supports some of the systems soon to be available in PCIe 3.0 with the same speed as PCIe 2.0. Under what circumstances would this be advantageous? I'm trying to decide which 58XX card to get and this is adding another variable to sort out.

 

[evilsofa]

Don't worry about it. 2.1 cards will be compatible with 2.0 and 1.x slots, and 1.x and 2.0 cards will be compatible with 2.1 slots. 2.1 will be the same speed as 2.0; it's just bringing some of the behind-the-scenes stuff from the upcoming 3.0.

 

[$cooter]

Thanks, I have a feeling for compatibility and that the features are from the upcoming PCIe 3.0 convention, my question is more of "will it be useful for anything?" or more importantly "will it be usefull for anything soon? (i.e. features active now or requiring other PCIe 3.0 ready components not yet available to function)"