PCI Express 7.0 is coming! But don't feel as though you need to start saving for a new motherboard anytime soon. Thehas just released the 0.5 version, with the final version set for release in 2025. That means supporting devices are not likely to land until 2026, with 2027–28 likely to be the years we see a wider rollout.
PCI Express bandwidth doubles every generation, so PCIe 7.0 will deliver a maximum data rate up to 128 GT/s. That's a whopping 8x faster than PCIe 4.0 and 4x faster than PCIe 5.0. This means PCIe 7.0 is capable of delivering up to 512GB/s of bi-directional throughput via a x16 connection and 128GB/s for an x4 connection.
In the years to come, a PCIe 7.0 x4 SSD could approach sequential transfer rates of up to 60GB/s. We'll need some serious advances in SSD controller and NAND flash technologies to see speeds in that range, but still, it's an attractive proposition. That's as long as such drives don't need cooling towers the size of the Burj Khalifa.As far as graphics cards are concerned, you'll be fine for years to come with PCIe 4.0. A PCIe 4.
It'll be a few years before PCIe 7.0 devices hit store shelves. PCIe 5.0 isn't yet ubiquitous, to say nothing about PCIe 6.0. Still, it's nice to speculate about what PCIe 7.0 will mean for gaming PCs as we approach 2030. We might actually be playing