PCI-SIG Provides CopprLink Cable Specs For PCIe 5.0 & PCIe 6.0

[phoronix]

Phoronix: PCI-SIG Provides CopprLink Cable Specs For PCIe 5.0 & PCIe 6.0

Last November the PCI-SIG announced CopprLink as the PCI Express cable name for both internal and external cabling. Today the embargo has lifted on the CopprLink cable specifications for both PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 6.0...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/PCI-SIG-CopprLink-Specs

[Psyord]

I will be so happy if we finally get a more accessible connector in motherboards for NVMe drives. The M.2 slot, while quite good for small builds, has always been a pain to use. Just a few weeks ago, I had to replace an NVMe drive, and it was so tedious. I even had to remove the GPU to get to it. The old SATA cable would have been so much faster and simpler. And yes, U.2 exists, but it's not really a common solution. Not to mention that these drives get hhhot, setting up proper cooling is tricky if they are bolted directly into a MB.

[dlq84]

I will be so happy if we finally get a more accessible connector in motherboards for NVMe drives. The M.2 slot, while quite good for small builds, has always been a pain to use. Just a few weeks ago, I had to replace an NVMe drive, and it was so tedious. I even had to remove the GPU to get to it. The old SATA cable would have been so much faster and simpler. And yes, U.2 exists, but it's not really a common solution. Not to mention that these drives get hhhot, setting up proper cooling is tricky if they are bolted directly into a MB.

You'll likely not see this in consumer hardware anyway. The CPUs barely have enough lanes for the 16x slot for GPU and the 2-3 m.2 slots.

[Psyord]

You'll likely not see this in consumer hardware anyway. The CPUs barely have enough lanes for the 16x slot for GPU and the 2-3 m.2 slots.

Sure the lanes are rather used up right now. But why keep the M.2 slots if you have the link. It's not really a lane problem, just a decision problem what features to offer. And I don't think it needs to be that complicated either, you potentially could have both by connecting the cable into M.2 slot. With current design it would be awkward, but that's rather poor argument for what future should be.

[dlq84]

Sure the lanes are rather used up right now. But why keep the M.2 slots if you have the link. It's not really a lane problem, just a decision problem what features to offer. And I don't think it needs to be that complicated either, you potentially could have both by connecting the cable into M.2 slot. With current design it would be awkward, but that's rather poor argument for what future should be.

They could've done that with u.2 but they didn't. This Cable and connector looks even more to be aimed at storage servers: https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21...%20Deck_05.png

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

This won't happen anytime soon on the consumer side, but there could be interesting use cases here for our ever more monstrous and power hungry GPUs. Today you can do a vertical GPU mount using a riser bracket in some cases. I can imagine some future new standard that incorporates a dedicated GPU location with this cabling and its own power and cooling.

[and.elf]

This won't happen anytime soon on the consumer side, but there could be interesting use cases here for our ever more monstrous and power hungry GPUs. Today you can do a vertical GPU mount using a riser bracket in some cases. I can imagine some future new standard that incorporates a dedicated GPU location with this cabling and its own power and cooling.

Threadripper still (kind of) counts add a consumer platform, which could make use of this and more.
It would be very good to not not require Thunderbolt (or any of the company-specific cables that exist) for external GPUs.

[zir_blazer]

So CopprLink is the successor to OCuLink which stalled at PCIe 4.0 speeds. No word about connector backwards compatibility or anything?

[stesmi]

So CopprLink is the successor to OCuLink which stalled at PCIe 4.0 speeds. No word about connector backwards compatibility or anything?

I'd say it's a bit apples and oranges.

OCuLink is PCIe 4.0 x4 and CopprLink is PCIe 5.0/6.0 x16, so double or quadruple the bandwidth just from 4.0 to 5.0 or 6.0, and then quadruple that again for x16. Result being 8x or 16x as much bandwidth.

Not saying it can't be done, or that someone won't do it. Slap in a bridge chip and you can do it.

[EphemeralEft]

It would be very good to not not require Thunderbolt (or any of the company-specific cables that exist) for external GPUs.

Imagine being able to build an eGPU with just an mITX case and SFX PSU.

Retail eGPU and enclosure prices would plummet down to what they always should have been.