PCI SIG gears up for PCI Express version 2

The PCI Special Interest Group, the bunch of chaps that control the PCI Express standard, have thrown the version 2.0 specification for the interface into the wild.

The spec, which now has a 60 day comment period before being finalised, moves the standard to serial, rather than parallel, communication. This brings some added speed to each slot, moving from 2.5 gigabits per second to 5.

There is also increased support for I/O virtualisation, making it easier for multiple virtual machines (running under VMWare, for example) to access hardware.

A further update to the 2.0 spec, to come further down the line, will add support for high-powered graphics cards, with as much as 300W being provided through the motherboard connector. That's a crazy amount, given that current cards pull around 150W.

Expect to see PCI-E 2 graphics cards and motherboards showing up towards the end of 2007 and early 2008.

300W of graphics power? Is that just too much? Let us know what you think over in the forums.