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Comparisons
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Hardware Features
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- Systems
- Bus Connections
PCI Express Lanes
Point to Point Connection
In contrast to the parallel PCI buses PCI and PXI (PXIe) Express slots contain serial point to point connections. Each connection pair (lane) is able to reach a burst connection speed of 250 MBytes/s. One advantage of the PCI/PXI Express technology is the direct connection of each slot allowing a full transfer bandwidth for each single card. On the software side there is no difference between PCI/PCI-X or PCI Express.
PCI/PXI Express Lanes
The M2i and M3i Spectrum PCI Express cards base on the most commonly used x1 lane slot type with Gen1 interface. These cards do fit into any PCI Express slot available.
The M2p series uses a x4 lane connector with Gen1 interface. These cards fit into x4, x8 or x16 physical slots on the motherboard. It does not fit into x1 slots.
The fast streaming digitizers of the M4i series use a x8 lane connector and support Gen2. Using this card needs a x8 or x16 physical slot on the motherboard. It does not fit into a x1 or x4 slot. Please note that some motherboards have physically x8 slots or x16 slots which are electrically only connected to x1 or x4 lanes. The M4i cards do fit into these slots and work fine but are of course limited to the electrical connection.
Some motherboards offer open-ended sockets to permit physically longer cards. All Spectrum cards fit into these slots.
The PXIe cards of the M4x series use a x4 lane connector and support Gen2. These cards fit into any PXIe slot as PXI Express only uses one connector type.