As PCIe 6.0 prepares to arrive on the first devices, the PCI-SIG unveils the outlines of PCIe 7.0.
We haven't yet seen consumer hardware compatible with the PCIe 6.0 standard arrive on the market, but the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), which is responsible for establishing the PCI Express standards, has already announced its successor, PCIe 7.0. As a reminder, this is a connectivity technology that allows very fast data transfers between the different components of a device. PCI Express is an important factor in the performance of storage solutions, networking equipment, and GPUs, among other things. As with every new generation, PCIe 7.0 aims to double the bandwidth of the previous standard. So this time we're promised speeds of up to 512 GB per second (bidirectional), compared to 256 GB per second for PCIe 6.0, 128 GB for PCIe 5.0, and so on, reports VideoCardz.
PCIe 7.0 will have to wait for PCIe 6.0 to become established
In detail, PCIe 7.0 provides up to 16 PCIe lanes, each of which supports a speed of 16 GB per second in one direction. 16 lines at 16 GB per second gives us 256 GB per second, which we multiply by two since the transfer can be done in both directions, and we reach the 512 GB communicated.
PCIe 7.0 will help improve the performance of our PCs and other electronic devices using this technology. But it won't be right away. Currently, the most common PCI Express standard on modern components is PCIe 5.0. PCIe 6.0 was unveiled in 2022, and its development is still ongoing today. The first PCIe 6.0-compatible hardware is expected to hit the market by the end of 2025 at the earliest, or possibly early 2026.
Suffice it to say, the PCIe 7.0 standard is still far from ready. The PCI-SIG shared a statement of intent formalizing the new standard, but it won't be available for about three years. The organization also confirmed that it's already working on the PCIe 8.0 standard. See you in six years for that one?
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