NVMe PCIe Gen 3 vs Gen 4 Bandwidth Visualizer

An interactive educational tool to compare real-world transfer capabilities and bandwidth limitations between PCIe generations.

Configuration

Calculations assume 100% bus utilization efficiency. Real-world performance may vary based on NVMe controller overhead and OS file system overhead.

Why Bandwidth Isn't All

Bandwidth determines how fast a large single file moves. However, IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) is the true king for OS responsiveness, gaming, and application loading speeds.

PCIe Gen 3.0

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Estimated Transfer Time
Throughput -- GB/s

PCIe Gen 4.0

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Estimated Transfer Time
Throughput -- GB/s
Metric PCIe Gen 3 PCIe Gen 4
Max Theoretical (x4) ~3.9 GB/s ~7.9 GB/s
Efficiency Gain Baseline +100%