PCI-SIG Announces PCI Express 6.0 Specification

[Tsing]

PCI-SIG is working on its promise to double the I/O bandwidth of the PCIe interface every three years. The organization announced its sixth iteration today, which will increase the data rate to 64 GT/s in 2021.

PCIe 6.0 Specification Features

• Delivers 64 GT/s raw bit rate and up to 256 GB/s via x16 configuration
• Utilizes PAM-4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels) encoding and leverages existing 56G PAM-4 in the industry
• Includes low-latency Forward Error Correction (FEC) with additional mechanisms to improve bandwidth efficiency
• Maintains backwards compatibility with all previous generations of PCIe technology

“PCI Express technology has established itself as a pervasive I/O technology by sustaining bandwidth improvements for five generations over two decades,” Dennis Martin, an analyst at Principled Technologies, said. “With the PCIe 6.0 specification, PCI-SIG aims to answer the demands of such hot markets as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, networking, communication systems, storage, High-Performance Computing, and more.”

“Continuing the trend we set with the PCIe 5.0 specification, the PCIe 6.0 specification is on a fast timeline,” Al Yanes, PCI-SIG Chairman and President, said. “Due to the continued commitment of our member companies, we are on pace to double the bandwidth yet again in a time frame that will meet industry demand for throughput.”

 

[Grebuloner]

Ye Gods!

Three years seems a little fast though. I'm all for improving, don't get me wrong, but historical time to implement (correctly), plus power vs. lithography issues says "slow it down a little" to me. That said, I wouldn't mind if there is a practical point when PCIe N x1 is enough for most extra/storage devices. 6.0 will be able to get 100Gb networking in x1, and x16 may be pushing beyond most in CPU RAM bandwidth (now there's a bottleneck for you!).

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

and x16 may be pushing beyond most in CPU RAM bandwidth (now there's a bottleneck for you!).

Totally agree. Even as a gamer I find it amusing reading posts about concerns of a GPU restricted by a CPU but I find it kind of hilarious when you pull up task manager and a major load or transfer event is causing a sustained major CPU spike. I think we'll also be seeing more thermal related issues then with anything able to populate those speeds.