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Magma Introduces Thunderbolt PCIe Expansion Box

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Apr 12, 2001
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magmaexpress.jpg



For users who need a bit more expansion for their Thunderbolt equipped Macs, Magma has introduced the ExpressBox 3T. The 3T is an expansion chassis with three PCIe slots for "outside-the-box" expansion.

The 3T can be used to connect PCIe cards for video capture, audio processing, data storage or whatever other needs a user may have. It works with any Thunderbolt equipped Mac and daisy-chains with the new Apple Cinema Display with Thunderbolt that began shipping this week.

Magma has not announced details on pricing or availability, but has a form for interested buyers on its website.

Article Link: Magma Introduces Thunderbolt PCIe Expansion Box
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/07/magma-introduces-thunderbolt-pcie-expansion-box/
E

Eddyisgreat

macrumors 601
Oct 24, 2007
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Price is going to be just a hair out of the stratosphere if we go by their magambox expresscard 3/4 box price.
 
AAPLaday

AAPLaday

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Aug 6, 2008
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Id like to fast forward a few years to when i can buy a 13" Air and have a top of the range graphics card connected via thunderbolt expansion slot for when im at home. And be able to afford it :D
 
BC2009

BC2009

macrumors 68020
Jul 1, 2009
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You gotta admit that is cool. Usually a PCI-E card would be providing more ports to the computer rather than running off of one of the computer's ports. Oh have things have changed.

But you also have to admit that if Thunderbolt is that fast that we won't be needing PCI-E for much longer.

EDIT: I guess PCI-E will still be around for a while as it seems there is a slight problem for PCI-E cards that require additional power connections. Thunderbolt is not going to solve that.
 
Last edited:
jclardy

jclardy

macrumors 601
Oct 6, 2008
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I have a feeling this will be expensive. I'd like to use it to improve the graphics performance of my MBA when I am at my desk, but this doesn't say it has a PCIe x16 slot so I don't think it will work for that.

I can get 3 PCIe x1 slots and 1 PCIe x16 slots by buying a PC desktop for around $300. With that I also get a CPU, HDD, RAM, Motherboard, PSU and a copy of Windows 7. I'm guessing that this will also cost around $300, if not more.
 
S

Sjhonny

macrumors 6502
Feb 25, 2011
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The land of the cucumbers
when was Intel planning on releasing optical TB? 'cause if it's within a one year timespan, I'm waiting for a macbook pro with optical TB in it :)

----------
BC2009 said:
You gotta admit that is cool. Usually a PCI-E card would be providing more ports to the computer rather than running off of one of the computer's ports. Oh have things have changed.

But you also have to admit that if Thunderbolt is that fast that we won't be needing PCI-E for much longer.

EDIT: I guess PCI-E will still be around for a while as it seems there is a slight problem for PCI-E cards that require additional power connections. Thunderbolt is not going to solve that.
Click to expand...

Not exactly ... when TB reaches 100 Gb/s (optical), we'll be using PCI 3.0 . A 16x PCI 3.0 slot offers 256 Gb/s. But 100 Gb/s will probably suffice most needs.
 
I

iVoid

macrumors 65816
Jan 9, 2007
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Hmmm, so if I get the Mini Server i7 config and the video performance of the Intel video card doesn't quite do it for me, I can get this and add a video card later.

Tempting.
 
TMar

TMar

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Jul 20, 2008
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Ky
BC2009 said:
You gotta admit that is cool. Usually a PCI-E card would be providing more ports to the computer rather than running off of one of the computer's ports. Oh have things have changed.

But you also have to admit that if Thunderbolt is that fast that we won't be needing PCI-E for much longer.

EDIT: I guess PCI-E will still be around for a while as it seems there is a slight problem for PCI-E cards that require additional power connections. Thunderbolt is not going to solve that.
Click to expand...

Thunderbolt is PCI-e and display port over one cable. These external boxes will need their own power supply for high powered cards, that's a given.
 
M

mtbgtr

macrumors regular
Nov 12, 2009
143
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Nothing Thunderbolt compatible will be inexpensive. We will only get inexpensive peripherals attached to Thunderbolt ports thru adapters that allows us to connect non-Thunderbolt peripherals, i.e USB3, etc...

Negative rating, flaming fangirls can now commence. :p
 
K

kolax

macrumors G3
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
External GPU + 13" MacBook Air = awesome.

Hopefully in the next year these kind of setups will become more common (time to sort out driver issues etc) or if Apple releases their own external GPU configuration so we can get official support.
 
D

DJHonda84

macrumors member
Jun 11, 2009
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Looking forward to the day when ANY 3rd-party thunderbolt peripheral manufacturer announces their pricing.
 
MacSince1990

MacSince1990

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Oct 6, 2009
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AAPLaday said:
Id like to fast forward a few years to when i can buy a 13" Air and have a top of the range graphics card connected via thunderbolt expansion slot for when im at home. And be able to afford it :D
Click to expand...

That would be rather difficult.... for one thing, it only supplies 10W max, right..? So you'd need an external power supply for the PCIe card.. kinda messy. Also... you're only getting what, 2.5 GBps tops? Not much faster than AGP 8x, which while at the time offered loads of overhead, at this point in time would present itself as something of a bottleneck... and interface bottlenecks are kind of awful.
 
TMar

TMar

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Jul 20, 2008
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Ky
MacSince1990 said:
That would be rather difficult.... for one thing, it only supplies 10W max, right..? So you'd need an external power supply for the PCIe card.. kinda messy. Also... you're only getting what, 2.5 GBps tops? Not much faster than AGP 8x, which while at the time offered loads of overhead, at this point in time would present itself as something of a bottleneck... and interface bottlenecks are kind of awful.
Click to expand...

Where are you getting your numbers? TB is 10Gb per channel with 2-8 channels depending on device...
 
Richdmoore

Richdmoore

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2007
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I really don't need this, but I am always encouraged by more products that are going to use Thunderbolt. The more products that use it, the cheaper all products with thunderbolt should become.

The items I pretty much will purchase if/when them become available is a thunderbolt to USB 3, thunderbolt to SATA, and some kind of HDMI in to Thunderbolt display, so I can use a xbox/ps3 to play a game and use my iMac in target display mode (or at least full screen mode.)

EDIT: Wow, the current version is around $850, almost as much as another computer! Hopefully they can bring the cost way down on the thunderbolt version.
 
Prodo123

Prodo123

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Nov 18, 2010
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TMar said:
Where are you getting your numbers? TB is 10Gb per channel with 2-8 channels depending on device...
Click to expand...

He said 2.5GB/s. Which is 20Gbps. Which is 10Gbps bidirectional. Which is correct.
Multiple channels would greatly improve the usefulness of this device :D
 
BC2009

BC2009

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Jul 1, 2009
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TMar said:
Thunderbolt is PCI-e and display port over one cable. These external boxes will need their own power supply for high powered cards, that's a given.
Click to expand...

that enclosure does not support providing additional power to high-end graphics cards from what i read.
 
I

iVoid

macrumors 65816
Jan 9, 2007
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BC2009 said:
that enclosure does not support providing additional power to high-end graphics cards from what i read.
Click to expand...

I imaging you could jury rig an external power adapter for those. Won't be pretty, though.
 
C

cragmr

macrumors member
Jul 21, 2011
53
0
iVoid said:
I imaging you could jury rig an external power adapter for those. Won't be pretty, though.
Click to expand...

Won't be cheap either. I'd expect this thing to retail for at least $700 when it launches.

Can't wait for it to become cheaper, shame I don't see that happening for a year or two at least.
 
M

Mac American

macrumors newbie
Apr 12, 2011
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TMar said:
Where are you getting your numbers? TB is 10Gb per channel with 2-8 channels depending on device...
Click to expand...

GB=Gigabyte Gb=Gigabit
Video takes an enormous amount of bandwidth uncompressed HD (1920x1080) is roughly 5.0 Gb's. Internal PCIe cards are around 100gb's. So thunderbolt is a bit slow, for this application. Great for other things though.
 
Richdmoore

Richdmoore

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2007
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I was looking at the Sonnet Echo ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter, being sold by OWC, and noticed something....

This adapter only has one thunderbolt port, which means on the 21.5" iMac, macbook air, & Mac Mini (or any future mac with only one thunderbolt port) you can't daisy chain an external monitor/display port HDMI adapter.

I thought that having two ports would be mandatory in the spec, to allow legacy display port monitors, but I guess not. That could cripple some of these new thunderbolt products, at least on everything except the 27" iMac, until a thunderbolt hub, or other solution comes out.

As I have my iMac hooked into an external tv, anything peripheral that requires itself to be at the end of a chain is very limiting. I wonder if a cheap HDMI adapter with a thunderbolt pass thru will be available in the future....

Edit: I read about the daisy chaining, so it looks like the Magma Thunderbolt PCIe Expansion Box will be ok, as I assume it has two thunderbolt ports, but it will have to be a consideration when looking at all future thunderbolt devices.
 
baryon

baryon

macrumors 68040
Oct 3, 2009
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Oh. I thought this was a PCI card that allows thunderbolt for out-of-date Macs such as the ones released 6 months ago. But it's the opposite.
 
T

tech324

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2010
274
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Kilamite said:
External GPU + 13" MacBook Air = awesome.

Hopefully in the next year these kind of setups will become more common (time to sort out driver issues etc) or if Apple releases their own external GPU configuration so we can get official support.
Click to expand...

That is what I plan to do. I have the 13" MBA and I would love to put my Radeon card in something like this and play Battlefield 3 and Team Fortress 2. This would be sweet.
 
Rocketman

Rocketman

macrumors 603
Dec 2, 2001
6,191
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Claremont, The intellectual capitol of the world.
The olden days:

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/07/magma-introduces-thunderbolt-pcie-expansion-box/

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=395391&external+pci+expansion#post395391

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=3408029&external+pci+expansion#post3408029

and bullseye (time adjusted)

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=3448137&external+pci+expansion#post3448137

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=3516265&external+pci+expansion#post3516265

Even Logic is mentioned.

Rocketman
 
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