Backwards compatible with PCIe 2.0, but twice as fast as its predecessor to be PCIe 3.0. The PCI-SIG to the specification for PCIe Base 3.0 released. The architecture of PCIe 3.0 is a 128b-/130b-Encoding-Schema and a bandwidth of 8 Gb Transfers per second (GT / s), according to PCI-SIG, the optimal compromise between manufacturability, cost, power consumption, complexity and compatibility. By improving the 5 GT / s PCIe 2.0 to 8 GT / s to a PCIe 3.0 and the conversion of the encoding scheme.

The new generation to be twice as fast as PCIe 2.0 and bandwidths of nearly 1 GByte / s in a direction of a PCI Lane reach. Just by the new encoding scheme, the speed increased by about 25 percent. The new specification also includes some extensions to the protocol used: This includes instructions for data reuse (Data Reuse Hints), atomic operations, a dynamic adjustment of power consumption and the free arrangement of transactions. It is PCIe 3.0 but backward compatible with its predecessor.