Posted on Thursday, May 13 2010 @ 9:00 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Bit Tech
writes Netstor Technology has presented a new external PCI Express expansion box that enables you to connect a PCI Express x16 card to your laptop via an ExpressCard interface (which is limited to PCIe x1 bandwidth). The Netstor TurboBox-mini NA220A is expected to retail for around $400, but it won't be much good for gamers due to the limited bandwidth and a 80W limitation.
Built into a 25.4x19.8x5.8cm aluminium chassis, the Netstor TurboBox-mini NA220A - as it is known - is designed to allow a PCIe x16 card to be inserted within and from there connected to a host laptop via an ExpressCard interface - or, less excitingly, a low-profile PC via a special PCIe card.
Although Netstor state that the device can offer mobile gaming platforms a much-needed boost by allowing desktop PCIe graphics cards to be hooked up to a notebook, the current version is limited by an 80W dedicated power supply - enough for a low-range graphics card but unlikely to get a Fermi ticking over. That said, the company has promised a second model featuring a beefier 200W PSU and three PCIe slots which may fair better - although the ExpressCard interface does limit the bandwidth available to the card.
