The world of external graphics cards moves one step closer to us as the PCI Special Interest Group completes their first version of the "PCI-Express External Cabling 1.0 spec".

Coverage on it can be found at the Dailytech, Tech Report and The Inquirer folks.

Several years ago when PCI-Express was being developed, the technology was also being designed to support devices outside of the traditional computer enclosure. While "internal" PCI-Express took off, development and support for external devices was slow. This week, the PCI Special Interests Group (PCI-SIG) announced the availability of the PCI-Express external cable specification revision 1.0.

With the new specifications fully defined, cables will be developed for all PCI-Express link widths including: x1, x4, x8 and x16. This allows for devices such as external high-speed storage controllers, network or fabric interfaces and graphics adapters to use the technology.