So you just migrated towards a PCIe gen 3.0 based motherboard right ? Well, technology keeps on advancing as the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI SIG) has promised that in the second half of this year they will complete drafts specifications for PCI Express 4.0. At 16GT/s bit rate, the interconnect performance bandwidth will be doubled over the current PCIe 3.0 specification.

Products based on PCIe Gen 4.0 will start appearing somewhere late 2015 and entail devices like high-speed drives, graphics cards, processors and other devices that require high bandwidth.

Based on PCI-SIG feasibility analysis, the bit rate for the PCIe 4.0 specification will be 16GT/s per lane. The PCIe 4.0 architecture is compatible with prior generations of this technology, from software to clocking architecture to mechanical interfaces. That is to say PCIe 1.x, 2.x and 3.x cards will seamlessly plug into PCIe 4.0-capable slots and operate at the highest performance levels possible. Similarly, all PCIe 4.0 cards will plug into PCIe 1.x-, PCIe 2.x- and PCIe 3.x-capable slots and operate at the highest performance levels supported by those configurations.