A French web-site today disclosed XGI’s plans to roll-out graphics processors supporting PCI Express x16 interconnection that will substitute AGP in the second quarter next year. It is predicted that XGI’s PCI Express-supporting product family will be offspring of the Volari lineup.

According to a report from Clubic, company known under eXtreme Graphics Innovation name will offer both desktop and mobile graphics chips and solutions supporting the next-generation PCI Express x16 interface.

The PCI Express x16 slot will be used for graphics applications and will replace conventional AGP 4x and 8x slots on mainboards. It will grant roughly 4GB/s bandwidth, a 100% increase over the current AGP 8x standard and will provide up to 75W of power for the next-generations of graphics cards. 

Keeping in mind that even current high-end graphics cards consume up to 200W, we suggest that future products of the same kind will require additional power connectors for sure and they will hardly take advantage of more power provided by the PCI Express x16. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that power consumption of the upcoming entry-level and mainstream devices will surely also increase dramatically in future and they will benefit from the new standard, at least, they will have a headroom for such increase because of PCI Express x16.

ATI Technologies, NVIDIA Corporation, 3Dlabs and S3 Graphics/VIA have also announced plans to support PCI Express x16 in future VPUs.

Additional details about XGI’s PCI Express x16 products are not available at this time.