PCIe 6.0 Specification finalized in 2021 and 4 times faster than PCIe 4.0
The PCI Express 6.0 specification announcement is apparently going viral again. Nothing changed really, the technology will double the data rate to 64 GT/s while maintaining backward compatibility. The first test products can be designed with pcie 6.0. 'Version 0.5' is not yet the final specification. The final version will be unveiled in 2021.
-- PCI-SIG -- has been starting 2020 with the release of version 0.5 of the PCI Express (PCIe) 6.0 specification incorporating the significant member feedback received on version 0.3. After momentous progress, we are proud to share that we are still on track to deliver the final PCIe 6.0 specification in 2021.
If you are a PCI-SIG member interested in voicing your feedback on future specification installments, we invite you to visit the members only section on the PCI-SIG website to learn more about how your company can become involved in work groups. If you haven’t yet joined PCI-SIG but are interested in shaping the future of the interconnect of choice, please visit the Become a Member page on our website for more information.
PCIe 6.0 Specification Features Overview
- Data rate of 64 GT/s speeds, doubling the 32GT/s data rate of the PCIe 5.0 specification
- PAM-4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels) encoding
- Low-latency Forward Error Correction (FEC) with additional mechanisms to improve bandwidth efficiency
- Backwards compatibility with all previous specification generations
By doubling the bandwidth and diligently maintaining our strict timeline, we believe that we will be able to deliver the industry’s needs for throughput in line with their timelines. Emerging data-hungry markets like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, High-Performance Computing and more, demand additional speed and capabilities that the newest PCI-SIG architecture will easily fulfill.
PCIe 6.0 Specification, Version 0.5 has been released - ready for first prototypes - 02/24/2020 09:46 AM
PCI Express 6.0 technology will double the data rate to 64 GT/s while maintaining backward compatibility with previous generations and delivering power efficiency and cost-effective performance. The f...
PCI-SIG Announces PCIe 6.0 Specification - 06/19/2019 07:35 AM
PCI-SIG today announced that PCI Express (PCIe ) 6.0 technology will double the data rate to 64 GT/s while maintaining backwards compatibility with previous generations and delivering power efficiency...
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We know that before AMD put it on his product...
On the diagram from this period it was shown as a short living standard... now it's confirmed

But even if you have PCIe 3.0 or even 2.* you can still use it, and so the 4.0
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Does it makes sense?
Todays CPUs are not able to fully saturate PCI 4 except is some specific situations. And today, there are very few PCI 4 products, mainly SSDs strictly for AMD. Intel plans, talks, about PCI 5 and uses it as excuse for skipping PCI 4.
Why PCI 6 already? PCI 5 will be, probably, out in 2021 and as with PCI 4 some time later we will have SSD. Before PCI 6 ends up in hardware we will have PCI 8. Makes no sense.
My bigger problem with PCI is too few lanes in consumer CPUs. Threadripper and Xeon have a lot but not consumer CPU, even expensive ones.
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Specs finalize, production and then from server to regular desktop and average consumer so I would expect 4.0 and 5.0 to both get a bit of time before 6.0 is common and then pricing and availability plus CPU and motherboard implementation and how these traces and lanes will be set up and utilized.
Will be interesting to see if the newer chipsets and motherboards plus upcoming processors tweak the current 4.0 support and then how Intel and AMD utilizes this.
Probably seeing 5.0 first though I have no idea if that's late 2021 or even 2022 for desktop hardware let alone 6.0 here.
Assuming it's still up and down compatible with earlier and current standards and hardware anyway so not really too critical and far as desktop / consumer hardware goes I don't see it being too critical although higher-end M.2 / NVME implementations might see some fun stuff depending on what happens here and on the OS in terms of actually utilizing this fully.

GPU's well that's where that backwards compatibility might be a bit problematic as it would be 3.0 or 4.0 based something like that but aside from AMD's 5500 I think it was (x8 based.) it shouldn't be too critical?
EDIT:
Eh too early to say I suppose but I don't think 3.0 x16 is struggling that much with current graphics cards still so probably a lesser issue.
(Probably other possible uses as speeds improve and maybe other benefits.)
EDIT:
Need to read up on this compatibility too, guessing sending more power through it and having GPU's fed above the current 75w something could be difficult but it'd be neat with lower-end cable-less as a possibility or less 8x-pin tripple connectors at least. :p
Eh as if, assuming the card can take it someones going to go it for ha ha.
(Well less extreme editions could still see some possible use of it too of course.)
EDIT: Nope PAM sounds more like sending more data nothing on voltage or wattage.
(Still nifty though along with some of these other features.)
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Don't get too excited. It has historically taken about 2 years for any major new tech standard to begin reaching consumers, so that 2021 date is actually 2023 at the earliest. We haven't even seen any solid indication that PCIe 5.x that was cleared early last year is coming, and the snail's pace that Intel pushes new tech out at means we will probably not see it until 2022.
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Actually SSDs are not that magical in terms of IOPs. Yes, SSDs moved IOPs from hundreds/thousands HDDs had to around 100k. And NVMe moved it even close to 500k.
But there is still space to grow.