PCI Bus Technology
by Phil Barker
PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) local bus was developed by Intel and other industry leaders to bring current and next generation PC’s to higher levels of performance. The result is greater system performance through a 32-bit data path and a 33MHz clock speed -- with a maximum of 132MB per second data transfer rate. ALLIANCE Pentium PC’s feature a 66Mhz bus clock speed.
For comparison, older generation ISA 286/386/486 bus machines used a 16bit data path, 8MHz clock speed and a maximum data transfer rate of 5MB per second.
The older ISA standard has a hard time keeping up with the new generation of SVGA graphics and Windows applications that require greater bandwidth.
PCI technology supplements rather than replaces the traditional I/O bus. Existing ISA, EISA and MicroChannel cards work with the PCI bus. Most PCI systems will support three to five performance critical peripherals, whether integrated directly onto the motherboard or added via PCI expansion cards such as multimedia, graphics, disk drives and LAN cards.
For the future of PCI, a 64-bit specification exists for future PCI designs, but is not expected to be introduced until later in 1996. This bus will effectively double data transfer performance to 264MB per second.
Hint: Call Electrosonics to assist you in making the best performing and highest quality PC’s for your work environment!