Not to be confused with PCI Express, PCI-X (Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended) is a bus designed to meet the I/O demands of Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet, and Ultra3 SCSI. PCI-X is often used in servers and was first developed by IBM, HP, and Compaq in 1998 and include the below features.

PCI-X features

  • Up to 133 MHz bus speed
  • 64-Bit bandwidth
  • 1 GB/sec throughput
  • More efficient bus operation for easier interface.
  • Split transactions allows an indicator device to make only one data request and relinquish the bus, instead of constantly needing to poll the bus for a response.
  • Byte count that enables indicator to specify, in advance, the specific number of bytes requested, eliminating the inefficiency of speculative prefetches.
  • Backward compatibility

Bus, Computer acronyms, Motherboard terms, PCI

With the introduction of PCI Express, PCI-X is not as commonly found or used today.

  • Computer bus help and support.
  • Motherboard help and support.