PCI-Express Mobos Means Less PCI Slots?

[mr_fishbulb]

I've been looking at socket 939 boards and it seems if you want a PCI-Express board, you have to make do with only 2-3 available PCI slots. The MSI K8N Neo4-F seems to be an exception at 8 free PCIs.

What's going on? I'm used to buying boards (AGP ones) with 5 free PCI slots. How come the slots are dissapering?

 

[Dav0s]

becuase you gain pci-x slots.

not just the oens you run gfx cards in, but the 1x and 4x slots which can run pretty much same things as PCI when manufacturers finally get round to making them.

 

[outrunner]

Modern boards nowdays come with a lot of integrated parts, network, USB & firewire ports, soundcards etc. I would think the board designer thinks that slots can be reduced, and therefore save money for the company that produces the board.

 

[FarFarAway]

Board manufactorers only work to the specs of the chip makers: they choose what they want on the board so I doubt it.

PCI slots will still be needed as I'll be buggered if I've seen many PCI-E x 1 cards around

 

[mr_fishbulb]

becuase you gain pci-x slots.

Are they the tiny slots? I wondered what they were for - they look like the cards would fall out.

 

[mr_fishbulb]

I've not seen a message board ask for a reason for editing a message before.

Do you have to give a good reason?

 

[FragTek]

Wirelessly posted (Nextel. Done. |: BlackBerry7520/4.0.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

The need for standard pci slots is dwindling and are only really needed to run 1-2 cards at the max these days.

I only have 1 slot and it's definately put me in a hurtful position. I have a tv tuner and soundcard, but only 1 free slot. I decided to yank the tv tuner and go with the soundcard so that I could take full advantage of my digital 5.1 setup.

2 free slots suits the majority of users however

 

[mrbeef]

there running out of space on the current mobo standard size so they cant put many on especally with sli as it needs alot of physical space for the cards