How much better is PCI express than old PCI for video cards.
Compare this also to the old AGP interface. The most graphics intense
thing I do is watching DVDs and other video files.

Is pci express with 256MB ram performance only beneficial for advanced
video-gamming?


Thanks,
Patrice

pci-express is a fenomal new devolopment for video performance.
Pci-express takes your standard 8 bit channel and makes it 16 bit
which untill now was unheard of for video cards. Although the new
video cards are more expenses they are starting to become a standard
and in my opinion worth the money

a good overview of the three (pci/agp/pci-e):

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Features/pciexpresstech/

-you will probably not see any performance difference in dvd/video
file playback between the three, but if you want to ensure that you
can continue to use your video card in future computers you would want
a pci-e card because pci/agp are slowly going to be phased out

If you want to measure performance in terms of theoretical throughput,
then here are the numbers comparing PCI and PCIe (PCI Express):

PCI shares 132MBps among all components in the PCI bus. This includes
all of your peripheral cards, such as sound cards, PCI video cards,
ethernet cards, and so on.

PCIe has various "speeds" coming in terms of a number of channels
available to it: 1x, 2x, ..., 16x. 1x offers 500MBps of bandwidth,
while 16x offers up to 8000MBps of bandwidth. As you can see, the
potential performance increase over PCI is substantial.

For you, watching DVDs and videos, the performance increase will
probably not be noticeable just yet. PCIe video cards are generally
aimed at gamers and professionals at this point. PCIe will have
benefits for other reasons as well, namely it provides more bandwidth
for gigabit ethernet connections, and in the future for TV tuners and
other such peripherals. Since PCIe isn't currently much more expensive
than other options, I would say that if upgrading right now, PCIe
would be the way to go. It will be a way of future-proofing your
computer to at least some degree. But there is no need to hurry and
upgrade if it isn't already in your plans.