What version of PCIe do I need?

Because PCIe is so gloriously cross-compatible, you very rarely need to worry about which precise version of the interface your hardware supports. However, if you’re shopping for a new PC, you might be concerned about future-proofing. While mid-price systems often still use PCIe 4, PCIe 5 has become standard on high-end motherboards – and it may not be long before PCIe 6 boards start to appear. How much this matters depends on exactly you want to connect. Surprisingly, a high-end graphics card won’t necessarily benefit from a top-speed PCIe interface. Once a game’s assets and code have been loaded onto the card, the GPU mostly works locally, using its own dedicated graphics memory and display outputs; adding a faster connection to the CPU and system RAM makes little difference to…

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PC Pro (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025

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