A+ 220-1001 Hardware PCIe Question

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How much data throughput does a PCIe 1.1 x16 slot provide when operating bidirectionally?

A. 2GBps
b. 4 GBps
c. 8 GBps
d. 16 GBps

With a 16x slot configuration the throughput should 4GBps .Does bidirectional mean full duplex? Then the answer is 8 GBps if fill duplex, if not 4GBps.

Hey @Richard,

The PCIe interface is a full duplex communication (like you mentioned bidirectional), however when talking about the standards the specification is measured in a single direction. For example:

So you are correct, the single lane speeds are mentioned as the baseline measurement, then scale to 4, 8, 16 lanes. In teaching this, I give the single lane speeds on a per revision basis, then tell students to multiple by the lanes used for a given revision. I then remind the students that this is a full duplex communication so in theory it would be double the for each lane's base speed.

@wes-bryan Thank you Wes!