PLX PCI-Express 3.0 Bridge Chip Shortage Causes Product Launch Delays

It would seem that alot of products enthusiasts have been waiting on have been delayed as of late, but its come to our attention thanks to Hardware.fr as to why that is. Simply put, there is a shortage of PLX PCI-Express 3.0 bridge chips, namely the PEX8747. This chip is used on Intel’s Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge-E platforms as well as NVIDIA’s GTX 690 and AMD’s upcoming 7990, not to mention HIS and Powercolor’s 7970×2 cards. The shortage of the PEX8747 chips is most likely directly responsible for the delayed launch of these products or lack of supply. With NVIDIA and AMD’s lack of a PCIe Gen 3.0 bridge chip they, like many motherboard manufacturers are stuck for the time being, at least until PLX gets more chips on hand to meet demand. That said if you were wondering why the 7970×2 hasn’t launched yet, or why boards like the ASRock X79 Extreme 11 which uses two PEX8747 chips are nowhere to be found, now you know. With this situation causing so many problems for so many vendors it may be time for NVIDIA and AMD to invest in their own PCI-Express bridge chips.