Could you make your own PCIe extension?

[Lord Athetos]

So i recently got my hands on the legendary titan Z and i was wondering a way to show it off in a more spectacular way than having it just in a vertical mount on the case. So i thought: Why not have it literally above my monitor? and looking for PCIe extensions what i found is that they are ridiculously expensive! so if you have the pacience and soldering skills, could you rip apart a the slot from and old motherboard and the PCIe connector on a 5$ graphic card and wire it up yourself? i konw that it would be very time consuming to precisely solder 164 wires on both sides, but would it work? 

[W-L]

1 minute ago, Lord Athetos said:

So i recently got my hands on the legendary titan Z and i was wondering a way to show it off in a more spectacular way than having it just in a vertical mount on the case. So i thought: Why not have it literally above my monitor? and looking for PCIe extensions what i found is that they are ridiculously expensive! so if you have the pacience and soldering skills, could you rip apart a the slot from and old motherboard and the PCIe connector on a 5$ graphic card and wire it up yourself? i konw that it would be very time consuming to precisely solder 164 wires on both sides, but would it work? 

No it doesn't work that way. While it may work the possibility is it will be extremely low as the longer the cable the higher the potential for interference and signal degradation. The reason good quality PCI-E extensions cost more is because of the proper shielding and verification to ensure there is little to no loss and change in performance compared to being directly plugged into a PCI-E slot. Thermal take's Premimum PCI-E extension is pretty good, there are longer single length cables out there also if you want. 

 

http://www.thermaltake.com/Chassis/Accessories_/_/C_00003013/TT_Premium_PCI_E_3_0_Extender_300mm/design.htm

 

[emosun]

4 minutes ago, Lord Athetos said:

so if you have the pacience and soldering skills

you answered your question

[Murasaki]

Technically you can just get one extension and then extend the cables as long as you want.

Careful as it has limits though.

 

Just now, W-L said:

 

ya ninja

[emosun]

1 minute ago, W-L said:

No it doesn't work that way. While it may work the possibility is it will be extremely low as the longer the cable the higher the potential for interference and signal degradation. The reason good quality PCI-E extensions cost more is because of the proper shielding and verification to ensure there is little to no loss and change in performance compared to being directly plugged into a PCI-E slot. Thermal take's Premimum PCI-E extension is pretty good, there are longer single length cables out there also if you want. 

lol wait what?

 

[W-L]

1 minute ago, emosun said:

lol wait what?

It's not as simple as connecting point A to B, interference from other components or surroundings will affect the reliability of the data being passed through to the GPU. There is a reason why shielding for the whole cable and for very high end cables per individual wire is necessary. 

[Lord Athetos]

4 minutes ago, W-L said:

No it doesn't work that way. While it may work the possibility is it will be extremely low as the longer the cable the higher the potential for interference and signal degradation. The reason good quality PCI-E extensions cost more is because of the proper shielding and verification to ensure there is little to no loss and change in performance compared to being directly plugged into a PCI-E slot. Thermal take's Premimum PCI-E extension is pretty good, there are longer single length cables out there also if you want. 

 

http://www.thermaltake.com/Chassis/Accessories_/_/C_00003013/TT_Premium_PCI_E_3_0_Extender_300mm/design.htm

 

And what if you used shielded cables like cat 5 or cat 6? could that reduce interference?

[Murasaki]

Just now, W-L said:

It's not as simple as connecting point A to B, interference from other components or surroundings will affect the reliability of the data being passed through to the GPU. There is a reason why shielding for the whole cable and for very high end cables per individual wire is necessary. 

Is it that hard to shield it yourself though? Prolly look janky but still.

[emosun]

4 minutes ago, W-L said:

It's not as simple as connecting point A to B, interference from other components or surroundings will affect the reliability of the data being passed through to the GPU. There is a reason why shielding for the whole cable and for very high end cables per individual wire is necessary. 

so in your mind..... the only way this can be done is by buying cables , and not making them. If I ignore the fact that thermal take has to MAKE these cables before selling them to people..... then yeah sure that's true then.... lol

 

[W-L]

26 minutes ago, Lord Athetos said:

And what if you used shielded cables like cat 5 or cat 6? could that reduce interference?

In theory possibly but likely hood of it working would be low as your run would still be so long and interference from surrounding wires would be an issue. Ideally having each individual wire shielded would guarantee it's signal, a good example is the 3M PCI-E extension where it's a twin axial or coax type cable which prevents interference from surround wires and other external factors. 

26 minutes ago, Ross Scarlet said:

Is it that hard to shield it yourself though? Prolly look janky but still.

For reliability yes, there has been tests with foil and copper tape while possible you end up with usually half a dozen layers leaving it unwieldy to use. 

[W-L]

5 minutes ago, emosun said:

so in your mind..... the only way this can be done is by buying cables , and not making them. If I ignore the fact that thermal take has to MAKE these cables before selling them to people..... then yeah sure that's true then.... lol

It's not impossible to make one with the right tools and equipment to manufacture it. It just takes a lot more effort, time and money to do so than to purchase one of a fairly decent quality. 

[Unimportant]

9 hours ago, emosun said:

lol wait what?

 

 

9 hours ago, Lord Athetos said:

And what if you used shielded cables like cat 5 or cat 6? could that reduce interference?

@W-L is right, but for more reasons then just noise. At the speeds PCIe is using, 250MHz - 1.25GHz, things behave differently compared to your average LF circuit. You get transmission line effects , such as reflection . this requires careful matching of the transmission line's characteristic impedance . One way to achieve this is by using striplines .

 

Shielding isn't some magic bullet against noise, perhaps even the opposite if improperly used. In order to increase noise immunity differential signaling is used, which requires matching the lengths of the conductors in each differential pair so the loop lengths match and the noise pickup is equal between them. At these speeds even the speed electricity travels at plays a role. Matching the lengths of the conductors can be required to assure all the bits arrive at the same time. If you've ever seen traces on a motherboard snake around for no reason and wondered why, now you know.

 

I could go on but I think the point is made. Implementing these techniques is impossible with just plain wires, which is why most decent commercial extension cables come in some form of printed flat flex or similar.

 

Additional source for those interested: https://www.nxp.com/files-static/training_presentation/TP_HARDWARE_DESIGN_PCI_SMGIII.pdf

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, Unimportant said:

Implementing these techniques is impossible with just plain wires

unless you use the thermaltake ones......

I get the feeling people think these thermaltake extension cables are some sort of magic technology that just appear in our universe via black holes and that nobody has to manufacture them.

[Unimportant]

5 minutes ago, emosun said:

unless you use the thermaltake ones......

I get the feeling people think these thermaltake extension cables are some sort of magic technology that just appear in our universe via black holes and that nobody has to manufacture them.

Perhaps the problem lies with thinking all wires are equal ? It's bound to be impedance matched cable which explains the high price.

 

No-one is arguing it can't be done, just that it requires careful design and special materials, hence the high price.

[emosun]

4 minutes ago, Unimportant said:

No-one is arguing it can't be done

 

9 hours ago, W-L said:

It's not impossible to make one with the right tools and equipment to manufacture it.

then you say that , in your reply.

 

Sick of seeing "no you can't" responses. FOLLOWED by "well it COULD be if......."

 

I shouldn't have to tell people to do that. 

 

9 hours ago, Lord Athetos said:

so if you have the pacience and soldering skills

right here. they know it isn't easy.....

when you reply , you can elaborate on it not being easy , but don't pretend it's 100% impossible to do. Somewhere out there someone is using one of those terrible cheapo extension cables and is not having a problem with it. Are they crap? yes. do some of them work? also yes.

[Unimportant]

2 minutes ago, emosun said:

 

then you say that , in your reply.

 

Sick of seeing "no you can't" responses. FOLLOWED by "well it COULD be if......."

 

I shouldn't have to tell people to do that. 

 

right here. they know it isn't easy.....

when you reply , you can elaborate on it not being easy , but don't pretend it's 100% impossible to do. Somewhere out there someone is using one of those terrible cheapo extension cables and is not having a problem with it. Are they crap? yes. do some of them work? also yes.

It's not about soldering skills, it's about the materials used. The OP says:

 

9 hours ago, Lord Athetos said:

looking for PCIe extensions what i found is that they are ridiculously expensive!

and asking:

9 hours ago, Lord Athetos said:

could you rip apart a the slot from and old motherboard and the PCIe connector on a 5$ graphic card and wire it up yourself?

presumably using cheap cable. The answer is no for the reasons above.

 

Why don't you use cheap plain wire in stead of expensive 75ohm coax next time you have to hook up a television set? After all, wire is wire !

[emosun]

1 minute ago, Unimportant said:

It's not about soldering skills, it's about the materials used.

there's zero reason to argue with you , if you're not going to read I'm not going to type.

[straight_stewie]

9 hours ago, Lord Athetos said:

So i recently got my hands on the legendary titan Z and i was wondering a way to show it off in a more spectacular way than having it just in a vertical mount on the case. So i thought: Why not have it literally above my monitor? and looking for PCIe extensions what i found is that they are ridiculously expensive! so if you have the pacience and soldering skills, could you rip apart a the slot from and old motherboard and the PCIe connector on a 5$ graphic card and wire it up yourself? i konw that it would be very time consuming to precisely solder 164 wires on both sides, but would it work? 

There is still a way to do this, but it's not going to be DIY, it's going to be ugly, and it's gonna cost you.

The way around interference issues is to convert the PCI-e bus to another standard that's less prone to the effects of cable length, transmit the signal along that cable, and then deconvert it and send it down another PCI-e bus to the target card.

One Stop Systems, who sells probably some of the nicest of such equipment calls this tactic "PCIe over Cable".
More information about their offerings in general can be found here: https://www.onestopsystems.com/blog-post/pcie-over-cable-goes-mainstream
More specifically to your case: https://www.onestopsystems.com/pcie-expansion

[Lord Athetos]

2 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

There is still a way to do this, but it's not going to be DIY, it's going to be ugly, and it's gonna cost you.

The way around interference issues is to convert the PCI-e bus to another standard that's less prone to the effects of cable length, transmit the signal along that cable, and then deconvert it and send it down another PCI-e bus to the target card.

One Stop Systems, who sells probably some of the nicest of such equipment calls this tactic "PCIe over Cable".
More information about their offerings in general can be found here: https://www.onestopsystems.com/blog-post/pcie-over-cable-goes-mainstream
More specifically to your case: https://www.onestopsystems.com/pcie-expansion

Thats so cool! I was thinking of intsead having it above my monitor, this could be used to build like a vitrine and have it connected to the computer via one of this adapters. the problem is that they dont have any distributor in my country...

[W-L]

7 hours ago, emosun said:

 

then you say that , in your reply.

 

Sick of seeing "no you can't" responses. FOLLOWED by "well it COULD be if......."

 

I shouldn't have to tell people to do that. 

 

right here. they know it isn't easy.....

when you reply , you can elaborate on it not being easy , but don't pretend it's 100% impossible to do. Somewhere out there someone is using one of those terrible cheapo extension cables and is not having a problem with it. Are they crap? yes. do some of them work? also yes.

Well of course eveything in this world has to be manufactured one way or another but in the context of doing this yourself with a soldering iron and online sourced components it’s just not a reliable solution. It could be possible to do with exactly the right stuff but still extremely difficult.