PCI Express 5.0 spec released by PCI-SIG - before PCIe 4.0 has even gone mainstream

PCIe 5.0 will offer twice the bandwidth of PCI 4.0 while providing backwards compatibility

PCI-SIG has announced the release of Express 5.0 specification just two years after launching the fourth-generation version - which still hasn't gone mainstream, yet.

The organisation claims that PCIe 5.0 will offer twice the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0, promising 32GT/s transfer rates.

According to PCI-SIG, the fifth-generation specification offers high speeds "while maintaining low power and backwards compatibility with previous technology generations".

Al Yanes, chairman and president of PCI-SIG, said that the new data-intensive applications are driving demand for unprecedented levels of performance.

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He said: "Completing the PCIe 5.0 specification in 18 months is a major achievement, and it is due to the commitment of our members who worked diligently to evolve PCIe technology to meet the performance needs of the industry.

"The PCIe architecture will continue to stand as the de facto standard for high performance I/O for the foreseeable future."

The new specification is aimed at increasing performance in high-performance computing applications such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, gaming, visual computing, storage and networking.

Its release comes as PCIe 4.0 is yet to even turn up on home PCs, with AMD only recently announcing support for the specification for its forthcoming Ryzen 3000 CPUs.

Highlights of 5.0 include:

Nathan Brookwood, research fellow at Insight 64, added: "PCI-SIG has continually delivered new versions of I/O standards that enable designers to accommodate the never-ending increases in bandwidth required for next-generation systems while preserving investments in prior generation interfaces and software.

"Over that period, peak bandwidth has increased from 133 MB/second (for the first 32-bit parallel version) to 32 GB/second (for the V4.0 by16 serial version), a 240X improvement. Wow! The new PCIe 5.0 standard doubles that again to 64 GB/second. Wow2.

"We have come to take this increased performance for granted, but in reality, it takes a coordinated effort across many members of the PCI-SIG to execute these transitions so seamlessly."

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