The dawn of PCIe 7.0 could mean faster SSDs for everyone - but not just yet

So, PCIe 7.0 is almost here, with the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) stating that development on the new specification has reached version 0.9 and is now in the “final draft” stage. In other words, unless any members of the PCI-SIG submit amendments, it’s ready for launch.

A quick bit of history before we get into what this means for you: the PCI-SIG was founded in 1992 as a consortium of industry bodies collectively overseeing the development of the PCI connection specification. For the uninitiated, that’s an interface commonly used for the motherboard in your laptop or PC to communicate with other components, like your GPU or SSD. The PCI-SIG has more than 800 member companies, including industry giants like Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.

If you own a modern computer, it’ll use PCIe in some capacity. Most new-for-2025 systems will feature PCIe 5.0, the fifth (shocking, I know) iteration of the PCI Express format. PCIe 4.0 is still commonplace, though - my laptop uses it. Each new version brings various improvements, but the primary advantage is that each generation delivers double the available bandwidth compared to the previous iteration, which translates to improved data transfer speeds; a vital benefit for the best SSDs.

In other words, new versions of PCIe allow drive manufacturers to produce significantly faster storage for your PC. For example, PCIe 4.0 SSDs typically max out at the 7,000MB/s mark, while PCIe 5.0 SSDs can achieve up to 14,000MB/s or even higher - take the Crucial T705 SSD my colleague John Loeffler reviewed last year, which delivered data read speeds as fast as 14,400MB/s.

So, where’s PCIe 6.0?

Now we come to the big question: why should we get excited about PCIe 7.0 nearing completion when the computer hardware industry has yet to adopt PCIe 6.0 in any meaningful way? Well, for starters, these specifications need to be out in the wild for a while before they can become the norm. I remember the first time I got my hands on a mainstream PCIe 3.0 SSD for my own custom build, and being blown away by the speeds it offered compared to my comparatively sluggish old SATA drive.

Secondly, PCIe 6.0 drives are on the way. The PC hardware company Micron demoed such an SSD earlier this month, and while the drive in question is still a prototype right now, it achieved a monstrous 27GB/s sequential read speed in testing. As file sizes get larger and larger, faster transfer speeds become a necessity; 27GB/s might seem excessive, but somebody needs that bandwidth. PCIe 7.0 promises to take things even further, with SSD speeds that could theoretically reach above 50GB/s.

Still, it does beg the question about whether PCIe 7.0 is something we should care about right now. I’ll answer that: it’s complicated. Okay, that’s not a very satisfying answer, I know. On the one hand, consumers won't see PCIe 7.0 hardware in their PCs for a long time, so it’s hard to get excited about it today.

On the other hand, specification advancement like this is vitally important: simply put, it keeps PCIe at the forefront of hardware interface development. As long as the PCI-SIG continues to improve the specification, companies don't need to invest in their own (faster) interfaces, and everyone stays in the same boat - and as we’ve seen with the rise of USB-C adoption, connection standardization is always a good thing. As a seasoned PC builder, I can’t imagine how much it would suck if some components simply weren’t compatible with my motherboard because it didn’t use PCIe.

And hey, maybe I do need a 100GB/s+ SSD. That’s what the PCI-SIG is promising for PCIe 8.0…

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