PCI-SIG, the consortium that determines the specifications for Peripheral Component Interconnect or PCI for short, recently drafted and settled on the specifications for PCIe Gen7. If all things go well, then the next-generation interface is expected to support double the bandwidth of its still unreleased predecessor, four times the bandwidth of PCIe Gen5, and eight times that of the PCIe Gen4.

While it may seem that the PCI-SIG is getting ahead of itself, this is actually standard practice for the body to plan ahead. As it stands, PCIe Gen6 was finalised early last year, but both interface still use PAM4 signalling. When that happened, it began working and developing the next generation PCIe Gen7, and is aiming for the standard to be ready for release by 2025. In regards to the performance you can expect, the new standard should bring the speed of a single lane can hit 16GB/s of bidirectional bandwidth, while a popular x16 slot could hit 256GB/s, going in all directions.

Mind you, those are just theories and as it stands, these settled specifications are still just early drafts, which means that they are subject to change at any given times. However, As AnandTech’s Ryan Smith says, the completion of the first draft for the specification of PCIe Gen7 is important, as it indicates that the group are in agreement with what the standard’s core technological underpinnings are, and that is by no means an easy feat.

And that’s more or less all there is to the current state of PCIe Gen7. Again, it is still in its first draft and we’ve still got a couple more years before anything substantial is finalised. And even then, that’s the just for the specifications to be completed. If all things go according to plan, PCI-SIG intends to get the standard out in the open and compliance ready by 2027.

(Source: Anandtech, Videocardz)

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