PCI Express Developing Blazing-Fast External Standard

[Brink]

They say you can never have too much of a good thing. That theory's being put to the test by computer transfer technology. We've already got FireWire, USB, Ethernet, eSATA, et cetera, et cetera. Now, an old contender is entering the field sporting new technology; the PCI Special Interest Group recently announced that they're developing a new standard for an external, cabled version of the formerly internal-only PCI Express. Watch out, Intel – this tech's set to collide with Thunderbolt in the marketplace.

Read more at: Maximum PC | PCI Express Developing Blazing-Fast External Standard

 

[Maguscreed]

Sweet

 

[PwnFrnzy]

That is amazing, that would open a whole new world for people using computers sporting AGP x8, it would be a big seller to laptop users too.

 

[seekermeister]

The things that confuses me, is that I always thought that the only difference between an internal PCIe, and an eSTATA circuit was just the shape and location of the connectors.

 

[Andywoof]

havent seen a new development in that area for ages !!!!! Keento see somthing new come up

 

[alphanumeric]

That is amazing, that would open a whole new world for people using computers sporting AGP x8, it would be a big seller to laptop users too.

I'm not sure I get what you mean by that comment? I don't think this will be something you could easily add to motherboard that doesn't have a PCIe slot or a laptop that didn't come with it built in the first place. I have to admit though that I just summed though the posted article. It does sound interesting though.

 

[Phone Man]

The things that confuses me, is that I always thought that the only difference between an internal PCIe, and an eSTATA circuit was just the shape and location of the connectors.

They are two different bus types. The PCIe is the main peripheral bus from the CPU or motherboard chipset. The eSATA is a serial buss used in HDD and CD/DVD equipment. You may be thinking of the internal SATA bus.

Jim

 

[whs]

The things that confuses me, is that I always thought that the only difference between an internal PCIe, and an eSTATA circuit was just the shape and location of the connectors.

I think you confuse PCI-e and Sata. eSata and Sata are about the same which is 3Gb/sec or 6Gb/sec. But e.g. PCI-e 4x is 10Gb/sec and x8 and x16 are faster again. Here is some comparative performance data expressed in MBs: What is PCI Express? A Layman's Guide to High Speed PCI-E Technology-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com

 

[Maguscreed]

yeah but if you were going somewhere else you could just plug your graphics into another computer.
The whole thing could go in a handy little carry box. It would also put the video airflow seperate from the rest of the machine allowing it to run cooler.

 

[Phone Man]

It looks like they are planning a 4x (4 lanes) external interface but using PCIe-3 which will make it equivalent to todays PCIe-2 8x so it should work OK for a video card. I believe they had an external standard back in 2007 but it never really took off. Don't know what speed it was are how many lanes. Probably when it is released Thunderbolt may have its optical version out which can scale to 100Gbs. At present Thunderbolt using copper runs 2 lanes at 10Gbs each.

Thunderbolt - 2 lanes at 10Gbs = 20Gbs
Ext PCIe-3 - 4 lanes at 8Gbs = 32Gbs

Jim

 

[Dave76]

Bring on the speed, this will be even better with fiber optics.

SSDs will be moving to PCIe soon and this will make a great external device, with a portable OS option this would be very useful.

 

[MRValiant]

Man that is fantastic news.

 

[Lebon14]

Good news. This will probably open new lights for AMD and nVidia in the dedicated graphic cards options. The biggest market for this will be the nettops and laptops. I can see a GeForce GTX 580 attached to a laptop with this technology. I'm pretty sure though that if high-performance e-PCIe graphic cards will require external AC though... but better dedicated than on-board graphic cards could run with the power of the port itself (like USB), it would be good too... but high-performance? Not too sure.