Although the storage industry has already widely adopted PCIe 5.0, graphics card manufacturers have not yet released graphics cards with the new interface. However, progress in the development of its next generation has reached PCIe 7.0.
The PCI-SIG, the organization responsible for the development of PCI Express, has announced that the PCIe 7.0 specifications are now available in version 0.5. This comes after release of version 0.3 in June 2023. The initiative for the new standard was launched in June 2022.
PCIe 7.0 boasts 128GB/s data transfer rates and 512GB/s bandwidth for bi-directional interfaces across a 16-lane configuration. It utilizes PAM4 signaling and focuses on improving power efficiency. PCIe 7.0 is backward compatible with all previous generation PCIe specifications. This means that PCIe 7.0 graphics cards or drives are backward compatible all the way back to PCIe 1.0.
Characteristics and goals of PCIe 7.0
- Data transfer rates of 128 GB/s and up to 512 GB/s bi-directional via x16 configuration
- Use of PAM4 signaling (4-level pulse amplitude modulation)
- Focus on channel and coverage parameters
- Reduced latency and increased reliability
- Improving energy efficiency
- Support for backward compatibility
The consumer graphics card market is still waiting for PCIe 5.0 to be adopted by consumers, but data center accelerators already have this interface. Benchmarks comparing different PCIe specifications show that while the bandwidth doubles with each generation, the benefits for graphics cards are negligible. PCIe 7.0 is expected to be launched in 2025.
Source: VideoCardz