Major PC, graphics and peripherals makers are rallying behind an industry-wide standard for customising high-performance PCs.

The Enthusiast System Architecture (ESA) is a royalty-free standard that allows users to monitor in real time the performance of a PC’s components, including power supplies, chassis and water-cooling systems.

ESA is backed by key PC makers and system integrators including Alienware, Dell, Falcon Northwest, HP and Maingear. NVidia is on board, as are motherboard providers Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI and XFX. Power supply and cooler makers including CoolerMaster and Thermaltake have voiced support.

ESA specifies an information protocol that system components use for communicating with each other to adjust operating parameters and report overall performance to users. It will allow PC makers and enthusiasts to fine-tune performance without proprietary tools.

It is the first ever standard communication protocol for reporting component performance to users. Data reported will include temperature, voltage and air flow.

Peripheral makers are expected to embed ESA-based digital and analogue sensors into their devices.

PC makers will be able to use ESA’s logging facilities to check quickly for system problems, leading to better and faster customer support.

“It enables a rich set of tools for tuning PC hardware performance,” said Kevin Kettler, chief technology officer of Dell.

“These tools offer users more flexible and granular control over primary system support components.

“For example, ESA is used in Dell’s LightFX architecture and will help accelerate development of deeply immersive ambient lighting in PC games,” said Kettler.

Rahul Sood, chief technology officer of global gaming business at HP, added: “ESA is a communication protocol that ties together all the key aspects of a system. Most significant to HP is the fact that we can potentially use ESA-enabled technology to create a unique and immediately noticeable benefit to our customers.”