PCI-Express 4.0 Is Finally Arriving This Year

PCI-Express 4.0 to arrive in 2017

Many of you would surely agree that PCI-Express 3.0 has overstayed its welcome. The standard has been around for almost seven years now, and since technology must and will move forward, version 4.0 is about to enter the fold. The introduction of PCI-Express 4.0 is particularly welcomed since PCIe devices have evolved quite a bit in the last two years. We’re talking about M.2 NVMe drives, of course, but also multi-GPU machine learning, which is gaining more and more ground.

Bandwidth and frequency

The new standard will increase bandwidth to 64 Gb/s, which is double what 3.0 had to offer. Moreover, the interconnect frequency now reaches 32 GHz – another substantial improvement. Manufacturers are already preparing for the new standard’s launch, which means that it won’t be long now before we’ll see new hardware in stores. What’s interesting and somewhat puzzling, though, is that PCIe 4.0 will only be around for a little while. That’s because it’s set to be replaced by version 5.0 in about two years, at least according to PCI-SIG. This new variant will again double the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0. Therefore, we might finally get to see 400 Gb ethernet solutions. Multiple-GPU setups should also benefit greatly from PCIe 5.0, particularly when it comes to extra headroom.

The big question is: what are you going to do with this information? Will you upgrade immediately to PCIe 4.0 when it comes out? Or will you wait a couple more years and just make the switch to 5.0? Sticking to your current hardware is always a safe bet as well, as there’s no need to upgrade in the foreseeable future if you’re satisfied with your PC’s performance. Actual reviews and demonstrations will surely help when the new hardware rolls out. We’ll keep you in the loop as we gather more information on the subject.