Key Takeaways
- PCIe 7.0 offers blazing-fast data speeds, but average users can stick with PCIe 5.0 for now due to heating issues in SSDs.
- No PCIe 5.0 GPUs yet; don’t expect PCIe 7.0 GPUs before 2030. Sky-high bandwidth in SSDs isn’t necessary for average users.
- Hardcore computing experts and data hoarders may benefit from new PCIe standards, but average users can stick with PCIe 5.0.
If you’re even remotely into building PCs, you may have heard of the PCIe slot. Designed to offer ultra-high bandwidth and transfer rates when connecting the GPU, Ethernet cards, SSDs, and other components to the motherboard, PCI Express has seen multiple revisions over the years.
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PCIe 7.0: Everything we know about the blazing-fast standard
If you think PCIe 6.0 is overkill, you’ll be amazed by the insane data speeds its successor seeks to bring to the table
With the PCI-SIG consortium releasing drafts of the technical specifications of PCIe Gen 7, we’ve seen the immense potential of the newest addition to the PCIe family. That said, the average consumer won’t need to leverage PCIe 7.0 or even its predecessor for more than a couple of years, and here are three reasons why you should be fine on PCI Express Gen 5 for the time being.
3 PCIe 5.0 SSDs have major heating issues
Makes you wonder what type of cryogenic coolant the PCIe 7.0 drives will need
When PCIe 5.0 motherboards and SSDs started making the rounds, many users (including myself) were thrilled to witness transfer speeds in the 10 GB/s range. Unfortunately, our dreams were quickly shattered once the actual benchmarks revealed their tendency to overheat within minutes of normal usage.
In fact, many high-end SSDs require dedicated heatsinks and cooling mechanisms to stop them from frying themselves. Heck, there’s even a variant of the infamous Corsair MP700 Pro SE that comes with a dedicated water cooling block, something that’s normally used for cutting-edge processors and faster-than-light GPUs, not mere SSDs.
With the way things are going in the thermal department, the newer PCIe 6.0 and 7.0 SSDs would turn your PC into a furnace all by themselves.
2 We haven’t even seen PCIe 5.0 GPUs yet
At this rate, there won’t be PCIe 7.0 GPUs before 2030
Although graphics cards can technically benefit from the increased bandwidth of the updated PCIe standards, the current-gen PCIe interface is nowhere to be found in the GPU landscape. As of writing, we have yet to see a single GPU in the consumer space that bears the PCIe 5.0 standard.
Looking at past data, PCIe 4.0 GPUs started appearing in the market as early as 2019, even though the interconnect standard was released just two years ago. However, things came to a screeching halt with PCIe Gen 5, as neither Nvidia, AMD, or Intel released a graphics card that could leverage the fast speeds offered by the interface. Seeing as how it has been over four years since the debut of PCIe 5.0, we probably won’t see GPUs utilizing its successor’s impressive speeds for more than a couple of years.
1 The average user doesn’t need sky-high bandwidth in SSDs yet
After all, what difference do a few milliseconds make?
There’s no doubt that transitioning from hard drives to SSDs can significantly cut down boot times and make your OS feel a lot more responsive. However, switching from a Gen 3 to a Gen 4 SSD wouldn’t provide a noticeable difference in performance. Sure, being able to reach beyond 10 GB/s in transfer speeds sounds cool, but for the average user, gaining faster speeds in synthetic benchmarks and reducing the load times by a few seconds (if not a fraction of seconds) isn’t really worth it.
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Speaking of games, the only real-world scenario where I can see PCIe 6.0 (or even 7.0) being worthwhile is if DirectStorage gains more prominence. Sadly, there’s a tiny library of games that supports this feature, even though the DirectStorage API has been around for two years. And it doesn’t look like DirectStorage is about to go mainstream anytime soon.
What about servers and hardcore computing experts?
Given the impressive specifications of the upcoming PCIe standards, I have no doubt the technology will be a massive hit in the data center industry. On the consumer end, data hoarders and NAS enthusiasts whose workloads consist of sequential writes involving hundreds of GBs would definitely see major improvement by switching to the newer PCIe interfaces for their network cards and SSDs. But for the average user, the fast standards won’t be worth shelling extra money on, and you’d be fine with remaining on PCIe 5.0 for a long time.