Rejoice! PCI Express 7.0 hits 'final draft' status enabling bandwidth that you probably won't notice on devices that won't appear for years

The PCIe slot on an Asus ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi motherboard, showing the Q-release latch for GPUs. — (Image credit: Future)

Non plussed by PCI Express 5.0? Apathetic about its 6.0 successor? Then prepare to be even more underwhelmed by PCIe Express 7.0, which has just achieved 'final draft' status (via Overclock3D).

In really simple terms, final draft status means that PCIe 7.0 is a done deal unless a member company of the PCI-SIG organisation responsible for defining PCIe standards objects to the draft.

Delivering 128 GT/s raw bit rate and up to 512 GB/s bi-directionally via x16 configuration
Utilising PAM4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels) signaling
Focusing on the channel parameters and reach
Improving power efficiency
Continuing to deliver the low-latency and high-reliability targets
Maintaining backwards compatibility with all previous generations of PCIe technology

As for timing, if our math is correct, and assuming Gen 7 is indeed finalised this year, that means PCIe Gen 6 was updated after three years, with Gen 5 coming in three years before that.

Gen 4 was the shortest lived of any PCIe generation, being usurped in just two years, while PCIe Gen 3 was the longest lived, surviving for seven years. Of course, given that PCIe Gen 6 has been out for three years but doesn't seem to be threatening to appear in PCs any time soon, you might wonder what the point of it all is.

Well, standards need to be set well in advance of new hardware being introduced. It's typically several years before the beginning of work on, say, a new CPU or GPU, and that chip being introduced. So, definitions for interconnects need to be finalised in time to allow for that.

PCIe speeds and feeds table for each generation and number of lanes. — (Image credit: PCI-SIG)

You could more broadly question the need for so much bandwidth. It seems unlikely, for instance, that flash memory chips are going to be capable of saturating that theoretical 64 GB/s of bandwidth any time soon.

On the other hand, the appetite for bandwidth of modern PCs games only seems to be accelerating of late. So, laying the groundwork for plenty of throughput definitely seems like a good idea.

Moreover, we're probably looking at a date some time into the 2030s before actual PCIe Gen 7 devices are anything like commonplace. And who knows how much bandwidth we'll need for our 16K gaming by then, eh?

In the meantime, you can peruse some high-bandwidth action among our best SSDs of 2025 here. To be brutally honest, the fastest PCIe 5 SSDs bring little to no benefit for gaming. But what the heck, you might want to shunt some big video files around, in which case a quick drive will get that job done much faster.

Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.