The next-generation data transfer technology PCI Express 6.0, expected to be available on devices from March 2024, promises to provide twice the bandwidth of its predecessor, especially beneficial for SSDs.
According to Tech Unwrapped, although the new generation of PCI Express 5.0 SSDs only reached consumers earlier this year and are only supported by AMD Ryzen 7000 and 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs, the team behind the PCIe standard is PCI. -SIG has moved towards the next generation PCI Express 6.0 version
At the moment, the design phase of this technology is complete, but the devices using it have not yet been released. Instead, PCI-SIG believes that consumers have to wait until March 2024 to have access to products equipped with this technology.
The goal of PCIe 6.0 is clearly defined to double the bandwidth compared to the previous generation. For example, a 16-lane PCIe 6.0 slot, commonly used for graphics cards and usually the largest slot for most devices, will allow for a bidirectional data transfer rate of 128 Gbps. While the impact of PCIe 6.0 will be significant in various areas, it is particularly beneficial for solid-state drives (SSDs).
Currently, regular PCIe 5.0 SSDs use 4 lanes through the NVMe interface, achieving a bandwidth of 16 GB/s. With the arrival of PCIe 6.0, SSDs will benefit from an impressive 32 GB/s bandwidth. To make the most of this extra capacity, companies must also deliver on advances in storage technology. Therefore, the technology world hopes that next year, SSDs capable of exploiting the full potential of 32 GB / s will appear on the market.
Pending the arrival of PCI Express 6.0, PCI-SIG has also worked to define the next standard PCI Express 7.0. By 2025, the specifications for PCIe 7.0 will be finalized, with reports saying that the standard is expected to deliver data transfer speeds of 256 GB/s. There aren’t any applications that claim such transfer speeds right now, but that could change in a few years