Intel wants to further increase the speed of Thunderbolt technology by supporting the PCI-Express 3.0, something which they will do in the future, PC World reports. Macs currently use the PCI Express 2.0 protocol, which transfers data at 5 gigatransfers a second. PCI 3.0 can reach speeds of 8 gigatransfers.
If Thunderbolt isn’t fast enough already for you, the 30 second time it takes to transfer a full length movie to a storage device should be considerably reduced with the new PCI protocol, meaning that things really should be lighting fast.
PC World also writes that Intel has already started implementing the new PCI at chipset level:
Intel has already made progress at implementing PCI-Express 3.0 at the chipset level. The chip maker this week announced the Xeon E5 chip, which integrates PCIe 3.0 in the processor. The company’s upcoming Core chips for laptops and desktops, code-named Ivy Bridge, will support PCIe 3.0.