So PCI-e 3.0 came out not too long ago and it offers much more bandwidth over 2.0/2.1,... to be exact i think 8GT/s
http://bit.ly/VWb9Ay
Logan said in one of his latest video that for gaming PCI-e 3.0 doesn't matter too much, "It's a bigger number". I believe that to be true.
So i'm asking this: What appications actually utilize the full PCI-e 3.0 bandwidth; Or is it just marketing that, "IT'S FASTER THAN EVER!"
Was there a real reason to make PCI-e 4.0?
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html
Currently at 1080p and higher resolutions with the GPU's on the market PCI 3.0 isn't really necessary. Having said that... the next gen coming might change that, but we won't know until that point. Don't stress about it. Hell AMD just got their first pci 3.0 board from Asus I think.
Oh and my opnionated answer to your question is... "they made it because they could". the tech to do it is there, so why not? haha
still doesn't really answer my question of: " What appications actually utilize the full PCI-e 3.0 bandwidth"
I don't think anything utilizes all of the bandwidth right now, but we might start seeing PCI-E based SSDs start taking advantage of more and more bandwidth.
SOOOOOO-?
CONCLUSION: PCI-e 3.0 is pointless,... for now anyways; (it'll be interesting to see what utilizes it all 1st)
and PCI-e 4.0 is just plain showing off
2 port and 4 port gigabit network adapters running true gigabit throughput would be a good example of pcie v3.0 not being useless. there is more stuff than video that uses a higher clock and bandwidth.
Good Point.
i know this to be true because it is my current dilemma. ;) lol
could also have a high fedelity multi channel sound card for audio production that would <3 pcie v3.
When 4K monitors get here and the GPU's get beefed up to handle them, we might see a need for PCI-e 3.0 in terms of Graphics.
So, the programs/hardware that utilizes PCI-e 3.0 is the following (that I know of):
PCI-e SSD's (at least the Enterprise level).
True gigabit networking cards
Professional grade Graphics Cards might utilize it as well (4 GPU's to a card can do that I'd imagine). Quadros and the like.
... and that's about it. Perhaps RAID cards as well. Oh, and Video Capture cards (1080p) might.
Other than that, there isn't much else that can go into a PCI-e slot that would even touch PCI-e 3.0 x16.
PCI-e 3.0 CAN be useful when it comes to the amount of lanes dropping to 8x. Then it's basically PCI-e 2.0 x16 speeds which is near the cap of video cards I believe. PCI-e 2.0 x8 hinders GPU performance slightly if I'm not mistaken.
Can someone verify that?