(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…
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mmastrac
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.
ahepp
How does this compare to something like RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE)?
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fl4regun
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.
russdill
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.
whalesalad
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?
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…
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.
How does this compare to something like RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE)?
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.
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.
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?