While the hype about the PCI Express bus is strong, few PC enthusiasts have already acquired systems featuring PCI Express x16 graphics cards, as it appears from a recent poll at X-bit labs.

The vast majority of experienced computer users, or 77%, still use AGP 8x graphics cards. Only 4% of users use other graphics cards, presumably AGP 4x, AGP 2x or different options like this. About 15% of X-bit labs readership use PCI Express x16 graphics cards, approximately 1% use PCI boards and 3% utilize integrated graphics.

The massive share of AGP 8x indicates that in less than three years after the introduction of the world’s first AGP 8x graphics cards virtually all enthusiasts transited to the new bus. Some of them have already upgraded to more advanced PCI Express, in fact.

The usage of graphics cores integrated into chipsets among X-bit labs readers is substantially below the industry-wide level of approximately 50%, which can be explained by the fact that PC enthusiasts usually tend to get add-in graphics cards realizing their potential over integrated solutions.

The pace of PCI Express adoption is neither high nor low. Probably it would be higher provided that Intel Pentium 4-based platforms, which had been the primary driving force for the PCI Express for about 6 months, offered higher performance than AMD Athlon 64-based systems, which lacked PCI Express support till very late 2004, in applications like games.

In general, readers of X-bit labs are up-to-date with existing technologies and look through many articles and review results before making purchase decisions. The poll in which about 3 thousand respondents took par was conducted in March - April, 2005.