AMD demos full-speed PCIe 6.0 with its next-gen server CPUs

AMD showcases PCIe 6.0 compliance using Keysight tech

At this month’s PCI-SIG Developer’s Conference, AMD demonstrated full PCIe 6.0 compliance with pre-production Zen 6 EPYC CPUs. Using some early access software from Keysight, AMD showcased a motherboard operating at 64 GT/s speeds. That’s a 2x performance boost over PCIe 5.0.

This demo showcases AMD’s readiness for the PCIe 6.0 era. AMD plans to launch its next-generation EPYC CPUs in 2026, boasting more memory bandwidth, higher core counts, and up to 1.7x gen-on-gen performance gains. With PCIe 6.0 support, AMD can add doubled CPU-GPU bandwidth to that list of improvements.

With PCIe 6.0, AMD’s next-gen server CPUs can support faster storage solutions and send data to GPUs and AI accelerators at a faster rate. It enables faster networking and will be critical for future AI applications. The faster hardware can communicate, the higher its maximum performance can be.

By using Keysight’s PCIe compliance test platform and early access software, AMD has been able to confirm and establish a stable demonstration of electrical compliance up to 64 GT/s. This early validation confirms market readiness for the signal-integrity health and electrical robustness of our forthcoming AMD server CPUs and reinforces our commitment to delivering reliable, high-speed I/O for next-generation platforms.

– Amit Goel, Corporate Vice President, Server Engineering, AMD

(Image from Keysight)

PCIe 6.0 is coming to EPYC, don’t expect to see it on Ryzen

While PCIe 6.0 support will be a big deal for the server space, we don’t expect to see it on consumer CPU platforms anytime soon. PCIe 5.0 adoption has been slow in the consumer market, and PC manufacturers have no immediate plans to move to PCIe 6.0. Simply put, the demand for PCIe 6.0 isn’t there. PCIe 5.0 is fast enough for consumer use cases.

PCIe 6.0 could enable the creation of faster SSDs. That said, many within the consumer market would prefer to see PCIe 5.0 SSDs become more affordable and cooler-running. While AMD could deliver PCIe 6.0 support with its next-gen Ryzen CPUs, the feature would not be beneficial for most users. Supporting it would add a lot of cost for minimal gains. As such, AMD’s better off waiting before bringing PCIe 6.0 to the consumer market.

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