PCI Express to take on Thunderbolt

In response to Intel’s thunderbolt, the PCI Special Interest Group has plans to produced a cabled version of PCI Express which could offer up to 32 Gbit transfer speeds.

The new standard would be based on PCI Express 3, packing four 8 Gbit lanes into a single cable. The initial propsoal is to use a copper wire giving a maximum transfer distance of 3m – which matches Thunderbolts. A future version would then be likely to use optical cabling and PCI Express 4 would potentially reach 16 giga-transfers per second. The cabling would then be thinner, flatter and have a longer transfer distance than that of the Thunderbolt.

Like USB 3.0, this new system will provide power for the peripherals and it is thought that it would provide up to 20W while Thunderbolt only provides 10W.

As is the case with all new proposed standards it is not finalised, and products are next expected till mid-2013 so USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt have a fair while to make a name for themselves.