What is PCle?

PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards. It is commonly used to connect graphics cards, storage devices (SSDs, HDDs), network cards, and other peripherals to a computer's motherboard. PCIe offers significantly higher bandwidth compared to its predecessors, enabling faster data transfer rates and improved system performance. Different 'generations' (e.g., PCIe 3.0, PCIe 4.0, PCIe 5.0) and 'lanes' (x1, x4, x8, x16) further define the bandwidth capabilities.