Your PC in 2008 and Beyond

Put Your Data in the Fast Lane

As CPUs grow more powerful and graphics cards rocket toward ever higher levels of realism and detail, a significant bottleneck in your PC's data flow remains: the system bus. When data travels through your PC, it's the system bus--not the processor--that limits overall performance. What you need is a faster bus.

What is it? PCI Express (PCIe) is the leading system bus architecture for high-end hardware such as graphics cards. The current specification, version 2.3, offers a data transfer rate of 5.2 gigabits per second. The next generation, PCI 3.0, will offer a data rate of 8 gbps. In addition to supporting much higher GPU performance, a key benefit of PCIe 3.0 may be the ability to power graphics cards directly from the system bus, rather than requiring a line into the power supply. But there's a catch: In order to support the higher data rates, the architecture will no longer work with the older 5-volt hardware used on PCIe versions 1.1 and 2.0. Whereas PCIe 2.3 supports both 5V and 3.3V cards, PCIe 3.0 will be 3.3V only. That means most current 5V hardware will be obsolete when PCIe 3.0 debuts.

When is it coming? PCI-SIG, the group that oversees PCI architecture specifications, expects to release the final PCIe 3.0 spec in 2009. PCIe 3.0 graphics cards should hit the market in 2010.

Pocket Presentations

Watching video on a cell phone is a pain. Even if you find the content you want, the tiny screen makes enjoying the program difficult. Before long, however, you'll be seeing shows right-sized again, thanks to your projector-equipped cell phone.

What is it? Microvision Pico projectors employ light scanning technology to generate a complete, full-color image from a beam of light. Within the device it's embedded in, a single red, green, or blue laser bounces off a tiny scanning mirror that oscillates vertically and horizontally to render the image pixel by pixel, producing a larger picture that projects onto a wall or other surface (as large as 120 inches, from 12 feet away in a darkened room). Controlling the scanner, the light source, and the optics is the PicoP engine, which coordinates the various components to control the intensity of each beam of light to create thousands of colors. By using a single beam of light rather than three beams, Microvision is able to make the projectors small enough to fit into cell phones without appreciably increasing the size of the phones. And the company even expects the integrated projectors to play a feature-length movie on just one cell phone charge.

When is it coming? Microvision has partnered with Motorola to build Pico projectors into mobile phones, and the first projector-equipped model is expected to debut in 2009. Meanwhile, the company is designing a projector accessory for PCs and game consoles that should be available by the end of 2008. Built-in projectors can be expected to add as much as $150 to the price of a phone, while accessory projectors will likely cost around $200, says Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices at Current Analysis and editor of the Home Theater View blog.