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PCI Express over Fiber [video]

by mmastrac177593369819 comments
Blog post for people who prefer reading: https://hackaday.com/2026/04/11/implementing-pcie-over-fiber...

While at a higher level, thunderbolt and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpEther can both of course work over fiber too!

(Q|O)SFP are basically just raw high speed serial interfaces to whatever - you see this a lot in FPGAs, you can use the QSFP interfaces for anything high speed - PCIe, SATA, HDMI…

by buildbot1776367209
This was a super interesting video to watch. I honestly thought SFP required more setup, but this explains why AliExpress is so ripe with USB3 and HDMI over SFP converters that are dirt cheap.
by mmastrac1776364482
How does this compare to something like RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE)?
by ahepp1776369412
Cool project! PCIe itself I think is likely to end up doing something similar soon, there are provisions in the spec now for optical retimers.
by fl4regun1776365735
There's a number of optical modules for TB3 and TB4, might be an easier (but less fun) route as TB3 and TB4 can carry PCIe.
by russdill1776366213
So you're saying I can put a handful of 4090's out in the middle of snowy Michigan with a handful of OM4 cables snaking into my basement to run legit arctic cooling with no noise?
by whalesalad1776366320
[flagged]
by dyheueiigd1776364017