Thinkpads Forum

Which version of PCI Express does the X201S have? I'm particularly interested to know as this would determine the speed of the ExpressCard 54 expansion slot.

I'm thinking it's either v1.0 or v2.0 though likely to be the v1.0 out of these two. Small chance it could be v2.0 as I think this was available at the time of manufacture.

The v2.0 offers higher bus speeds - 5Gb/s (I think?) than v1.0 (2.5Gb/s, I think?).

I have a 2-port CalDigit ExpressCard 34 USB3.0 SuperSpeed card and the transfer speeds are definitely faster when using USB3.0 drives with this card inserted into the X201S. Even if the X201S has PCI Express v1.0, at 2.5Gb/s this is going to offer up to half of USB 3.0 5Gb/s spec, which is still up to 5 times faster than USB 2.0 at 480Mb/s. This would explain my noticeable speed improvements. But I'd still like to know which version it is.
Thanks!

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

According to Thinkwiki the X201s has: "The MiniPCI Express slot is a version of the PCI-Express x1 slot for Notebooks."

Neil wrote:Welcome to thinkpads.com!

According to Thinkwiki the X201s has: "The MiniPCI Express slot is a version of the PCI-Express x1 slot for Notebooks."

Thanks Neil and thanks for the welcome, though I'm not so much interested in the MiniPCI Express part of the machine but rather the overall internal Expansion Bus speed that connects all of the machine's internal peripherals. This internal Expansion Bus will be based on PCI Express standard (i.e. the physical spec, and protocol and bitrate) but I want to know which version, 1.0 or 2.0 (there is also 3.0 and beyond but this is very recent so it wouldn't be that.) So it's going to be either 1.0 or 2.0, probably 1.0 more likely than 2.0.

Sorry, but I don't know about that. I could research the chipset used in the X201s to find out, but I'm sure you are capable of that just as well.

Then again, someone well probably come along shortly that has the answer you're looking for.