PCI Express (PCIe)

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe or PCI-E) is a serial expansion bus standard for connecting a computer to one or more peripheral devices.

You plug many things into PCIe:

• GPU
• NIC
• SATA Cards

Resources

• https://www.trentonsystems.com/blog/what-is-pcie
• https://blog.logicalincrements.com/2018/08/data-transfer-rates-bandwidth-cpu-ram-pcie-m-2-sata-usb-hdmi/

So how fast is PCIe?

• This is with 16 lanes, bidirectional bandwith

What is a PCIe lane?

PCIe lanes are the physical link between the PCIe-supported device and the processor/chipset.

PCIe lanes consist of two pairs of copper wires, typically known as traces, that run though the motherboard, connecting the PCIe-enabled device to either the processor or motherboard chipset.

Think of a PCIe lane as a highway where data travels in both directions at the same time.

Up to 32 of these bidirectional PCIe lanes can be allotted to a single device, enabling it to achieve a high-bandwidth, low-latency transfer of data.