POV on PCI Express 16x

[DPA]

what are your views on the new and coming PCI Express 16x slots?

these are to be the replacement for AGP, but I would have figured that we would just go ahead and keep the AGP and crank it to 16x, just like it has gone from 1x -> 2x -> 4x ->8x. Do we know what the TRUE application to this slot will serve versus keeping the AGP? What about the pipelining system between RAM, CPU, and AGP, is this going to be changed to RAM, CPU, PCI 16x?

support for this new system, will they be able to be used on non windows "longhorn" systems? I have read many pages stating that the support for these will be included in the release of "longhorn" but does this also suggest that there will be no other support?

I suppose that it could be considered to be a change like that of the introduction of AGP way back when, and that windows 95 could support the slot... hmmm.

what are your opinions/facts on this new slot system?

[Nighthawk]

I'm sure that linux and the other x86 unix variants will be updated for PCI Express.

I think one benefit could be a smaller card size, if all the expansion cards moved to PCI express. For example, if you look at the cheapest network cards, considering the amount of free space on the card I'm sure it could be shortened with a shorter connector.