PCIe 7.0 specs finalized at 512 GBps bandwidth, PCIe 8.0 in the pipeline

The PCI Special Interest Group (PIC-SIG) just released official specs for PCIe 7.0, doubling the bandwidth again for high-performance kit such as network cards, while hinting that PCIe 8.0 may not achieve the same.

The headline figures in this release are a doubling of the bandwidth to deliver a raw bit rate of 128 GTps (gigatransfers per second). This translates as up to 512 GBps bi-directionally in an x16 lane configuration.

PCIe 6.0, which was finalized in 2022, supported 64 GTps for up to 256 GBps with 16 lanes.

This increase in capacity is needed for throughput-heavy devices such as 800 Gbps Ethernet adapters and data-intensive applications, including High Performance Computing (HPC) and machine learning. But as with previous versions, there tends to be a lag of at least 12-18 months between the release of the final specifications and products hitting the market.

For example, few PCIe ...