TechPowerUp today released GPU-Z version 0.4.9, our comprehensive graphics subsystem information and monitoring utility that lets you get important details about the installed graphics hardware in your computer, and lets you monitor parameters such as clock speeds, voltages, temperatures, fan speeds, and usages (on supported GPUs). The latest version of GPU-Z adds support for NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 570 graphics card, support for detection of PCI-Express 3.0 bus interface, detection of some new upcoming entry-level AMD Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs, and a large number of stability and reliability updates.

With this version, PowerColor and TechPowerUp return with the PowerColor Hardware giveaway. This time we're giving away some even cooler next-generation graphics cards, including two upcoming high-end PowerColor Radeon graphics cards, two PowerColor HD 6870 PCS+, and two PowerColor HD 6850 PCS+ graphics cards. To participate, simply download the latest GPU-Z, and click on the "PowerColor Giveaway", follow the instructions.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.4.9

A list of changes follows.

The PCI-SIG finalized the specifications of PCI-Express 3.0 bus, the latest version of PCI. Like PCI-Express 1.x and PCI-Express 2.x, PCI-E 3.0 is designed to be backwards-compatible with devices that use older versions of the bus. Keeping up with the major version trend, PCI-E 3.0 doubles the theoretical bandwidth. PCI-Express 3.0 can push 1 GB/s per lane, per direction, double that of PCI-E 2.0. A PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot would hence have its cumulative bandwidth at 32 GB/s.

Apart from pure bandwidth increases, PCI-Express also uses the new 128b/130b data encoding scheme, which reduces protocol overhead significantly, allowing near-100% utilization of available bandwidth. To put this into perspective, PCI-Express 2.0 had a data-rate of 5 GT/s, but with its overhead, could only effectively transfer 4 GT/s. The new scheme allows utilization of all 8 GT/s of the bandwidth PCI-Express 3.0 has, resulting in a data-rate of 1 GB/s per lane, per direction. The PCI-E specification document is available to PCI-SIG members. It is expected that the first PCI-Express 3.0 compliant devices will come to be in 2011.

PCI-SIG (Special Interest Group), the organisation responsible for development of PCI specifications announced that generation 3 PCI-Express (PCI-E 3.0), is off its target launch time from late-2009 to Q2 2010. Although work on the bus is almost finished, there seems to be problems with implementing backwards-compatibility with older generations of PCI-E. Assuming PCI-E 3.0 is standardised in Q2 2010, one can expect implementing products (motherboards and expansion cards supporting PCI-E 3.0) only by a year later.

PCI-E 3.0 packs features that overcome the bottlenecks of PCI-E 2.0, such as the removal of the 8P/10b encoding scheme that added at least 20% data overhead for the 5 GT/s PCI-E 2.0, reducing it to 4 GT/s effective. At 8 GT/s the new bus will have effectively twice the bandwidth.

Al Yanes, chairman of the PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) shared on Wednesday some additional details of the next generation PCI-Express 3.0 standard. The PCI-E 3.0 specification will almost double the transfer speed of PCI-E 2.0 at 8GT/s (gigatransfers per second). The good news is that PCI-Express 3.0 will be backwards-compatible with PCI Express 2.0. Since the connector will remain the same, the only difference should be in the electrical specifications. The final specs for the PCI-E 3.0 standard are expeted to be completed in late 2009, while testing is set to start in the second half of 2010. First products that will utilize the new slot will start surfacing some time after that.