While many PC owners are still transitioning to PCIe 5.0, the PCI-SIG Consortium has already unveiled the specifications for PCIe 8.0, slated for release in 2028. This upcoming standard promises transfer speeds of up to 256 GT/s—twice that of PCIe 7.0 and eight times faster than PCIe 5.0—delivering a staggering 1 TB/s of total bandwidth.
This continues PCI-SIG’s long-standing tradition of doubling PCIe bandwidth roughly every three years, a pace it has maintained for over two decades since the standard’s debut.
Keeping up with rising demands
The announcement comes not long after PCIe 7.0’s specifications were revealed, and with PCIe 6.0 expected to roll out in 2025. Development hasn’t slowed, as the group works to stay ahead of industry needs.
“After launching PCIe 7.0 this year, PCI-SIG is pleased to announce that the PCIe 8.0 specification will double the data rate to 256 GT/s, maintaining our tradition of doubling bandwidth every three years to support cutting-edge applications,” said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG president.
Yanes noted that the surge in AI workloads and other data-intensive applications is driving the push for faster interconnects.
“With the growth of AI and other workloads demanding higher data transfer rates, there is still strong demand for high performance. PCIe will continue to provide an economical, high-bandwidth, low-latency I/O interconnect to meet industry needs,” he added.
Interestingly, PCIe 5.0 itself still hasn’t reached mainstream adoption, even though Intel’s 12th Gen Core processors and AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series—both of which support it—have been on the market for years.
