what is the diff between 32 and 64 bit pci

[Four and Twenty 0]

i was about to buy this motherboard

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderi840_p.html

but i am concerened that it is only going to leave me with 2 usable pci slots. I downloaded the motherboard manual and it said that u could switch between 66 and 33 mhz but i am not sure that that will make it work the other thing is that one of the slots on the board is slightly dfferent so it looks like the normal pci card will not fit. I really want this board cause it is fukin sweet but i need to be able to use more than 2 normal pci slots.

[Down8 0]

Well, I can't give you any answers, but this may start you in the right direction: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/PCI.html

 

The deffinition is of no real value, but there are links further down that may answer your question.

 

-bZj

[TomAL 0]

like old isa 16bit slots where you can plug a 8bit isa card in, the same rule applies to the 64 and 32 bit pci slots they are longer but you can plug a 32bit pci card into a 64 bit pci slot.

 

Tom

[sapiens74 0]

I think the differnece is that 32 bit slots run at 33mhz and 64bit run at 66 mhz. You can use Regular PCI cards in either

[Intlharvester 0]

PCI can either be 32-bit or 64-bit AND 33Mhz or 66Mhz. The slots are backwards-compatible, but you do need to be somewhat careful how you mix cards.

 

A pretty good explaination came up on groups.google:

 

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=64-bit...d.earthlink.net

 

The only time I think you actually need 64-bit or 66Mhz PCI is when you are doing 1000bt ethernet or big SCSI raid setups.