Lian-Li has silently prepared a new riser cable with the latest PCIe interface, which will also support the PCIe 6.0 devices.
Hybrid Riser Cable with PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 6.0 Interface Spotted; Gold Finger on Gen 6.0 is Slightly Smaller Than Gen 5.0
The popular hardware manufacturer Lian-Li has reportedly prepared a new riser cable for GPUs. But this isn't just a regular PCIe 5.0 riser cable but rather a hybrid one that supports both Gen 5.0 and the next-gen Gen 6.0 interface. At the moment, we don't have PCIe 6.0 devices, and it could take a long time before we see PCIe 6.0 graphics cards becoming the norm.
While PCI-SIG has already released official specifications for the PCIe 7.0, Silicon Motion predicts that the PCIe 6.0 devices won't likely come to the mainstream hardware market before 2030. Nonetheless, the PCIe 6.0 interface is already getting deployed in some devices like the latest Lian-Li PCIe riser cable, which the company hasn't yet introduced officially.
This was seen on a Korean website and we can see that the connector clearly mentions the "PCI-E5.0/6.0". As spotted by @RubyRapids, the Gold Finger of the Gen 6.0 interface is slightly shorter than the PCIe 5.0 and therefore, there isn't much difference between the two. Also, the PCIe 6.0 will be backwards compatible, meaning users will be able to install a PCIe 5.0 or PCIe 4.0 device in a PCIe 6.0 slot, and the devices will still work. However, they won't be able to run at the high bandwidth PCIe 6.0 has to offer.
The PCIe 6.0 interface doubles the transfer rate compared to PCIe 5.0, and we are seeing up to 8 GB/s of transfer speed per lane, which will unlock total bandwidth of up to 128 GB/s through the PCIe 6.0 x16 slot in each direction. For graphics cards, this is overkill and even the modern PCIe 5.0 graphics cards don't utilize the full potential of the PCIe 5.0 interface.
We likely have several years before we could transition to the PCIe Gen 6.0 interface since there is no competition and a lot of PC hardware manufacturers aren't even interested in talking about it. Lian-Li might be one of the handful to take this seriously, but again, this won't benefit users at the moment.
News Source: DC Inside
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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