Connect up to three external PCI Express add-on cards

Sep 8, 2011 13:24 GMT  ·  By

Magma, a company specialized in developing and manufacturing PCI & PCI Express expansion systems for servers, desktops and portable platforms, has recently announced the introduction of an external PCI Express expansion chassis that connects to the computer via a high-speed Thunderbolt interconnect.

The stylish aluminum enclosure is equipped with three PCI Express 2.0 slots as well as with a 220W internal power supply and a cooling fan, in order to expel hot air out of the case.

Thanks to this configuration, users can install a wide series of add-on cards for performing tasks such as video capture, media transcoding, and/or audio processing, while an extra Thunderbolt port available on the back allows them to daisy chain a DisplayPort monitor to the ExpressBox 3T.

“ExpressBox 3T is the first Magma expansion product specifically made for Thunderbolt-equipped computers. Now, with Thunderbolt technology, mobile, and all-in-one customers have easy access to the fastest I/O technology available today,” says Randy Jones, CEO and President at Magma.

“ExpressBox 3T is a “must-have” expansion solution for media creators. Magma retains its leadership position by continuing to introduce cutting edge technology for media production and other computing professionals,” concluded the company's CEO.

The Thunderbolt technology was developed in order to provide a unified interface with enough bandwidth to replace all the current connection buses, such as SCSI, SATA, USB, FireWire or PCI Express.

Although this first iteration of Thunderbolt is far away from reaching that goal, it still manages to join together the PCI Express and the DisplayPort interfaces and can provide, in theory, 20Gbps of upstream and 20Gbps of downstream bandwidth (via two 10Gbps bidirectional channels).

No word on availability or pricing just yet, but Magma is actively working with development partners such as Apple, Avid, AJA, Red, ATTO, Fusion-io and Promise Technology to validate application performance with ExpressBox 3T in broadcast video and pro audio environments.