PCI Express 3.0 Standard Delayed To 2010; Products Not Until 2011

If you were holding off on picking up a new motherboard thinking that you'd wait until PCI Express 3.0 made its appearance, you'll have to put up with your existing 'board for a while longer.  The PCI Special Interest Group has confirmed that the specification for the standard will be delayed into 2010, rather than the late 2009 launch initially expected, with organization president Al Yanes explaining that it was the much-vaunted backward compatibility that was causing the most headaches.

"In this particular case, with pushing the technology so hard, and with PCI gen 3 providing so much more capabilities but with the need to be still backwards-compatible, we had to do the diligence required to move the date" Al Yanes, president, PCI SIG

That delay will likely see the first products using PCI Express 3.0 not emerge until 2011, Yanes confirmed.  Most affected will be graphics card manufacturers, who will use PCI Express 3.0's greater throughput for higher performing video.

The new standard supports speeds of up to 8.0Gbps, compared to the 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps of the previous two versions.  It also shifts from from their 8- and 10-bit encoding to 128-bit and 130-bit encoding; according to Yanes, the current delay is in validating hardware to make sure it selects the correct encoding scheme at the three different speeds.

[via Reg Hardware]