The Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), the non-profit organization responsible for specifying PCI, PCI-X and PCI Express ( PCIe ) port specifications , announced the final version of the new PCIe 6.0 standard. To note, PCIe is one part of the computer motherboard that acts as a port or interconnection solution, to connect certain components on the computer. Released less than three years after PCIe 5.0 was introduced, PCIe 6.0 is claimed to deliver data rates of up to 64 GT/s (Gigatransfers per second) and transfer rates of 256 GB/s of bidirectional bandwidth in x16 slots (128 GB/s in one direction).

This PCIe 6.0 speed is twice the speed of the previous PCIe 5.0 standard (32 GT/s), in line with the current tradition, which doubles bandwidth in three years. To achieve speed while maintaining efficiency, PCI-SIG adopts Pulse Amplitude Modulation 4 Level (PAM4) signaling, Forward Error Correction (FEC), to Cycling Redundancy Check (CRC), so it is claimed not to affect latency. According to PCI-SIG, PCIe 6.0 is a cost-effective interconnect solution, especially for data-intense markets such as data centers, artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence), machine learning , High Performance Computing (HPC), automotive, IoT and military/aerospace.

"While protecting industrial investment by maintaining compatibility with previous generation PCIe technology," said Al Yanes, Chairman and President of PCI-SGI, quoted by KompasTekno from The Verge , Friday (14/1/2022). As quoted by Yanes, consumers in the future can use PCI 6.0 on devices that support PCIe 5.0, aka backward compatible , thus facilitating the transition process and the adoption of this new interconnection standard.

Given the complexity of PCIe 6.0, the adoption of this interconnection standard at an early stage will only be used on HPC and data centers ( data center ) only, then to wider devices, such as personal computers. Devices with the PCIe 6.0 standard are expected to only be available in the next 12 to 18 months, considering that SSDs with PCIe 5.0 were only introduced at CES 2022 earlier this January. While the implementation of PCIe 6.0 on servers is likely to start in 2023. As for general consumers, this new generation of interconnect devices is expected to be available in the market in 2024 or 2025. For now, PCIe 5.0 is sufficient for today"s needs. For example, Samsung"s latest SSD with PCIe 5.0 is capable of handling transfer speeds of 3,000 MBps, which is more than enough for casual needs.