lanes of data to PCI-e to CPU visea versa, like 4 lane Hwy vs 8 lane road more volume/data moved.
PCIe lanes serve as the information highway through which data bits are transferred from the PCIe device connected to the motherboard to the CPU for processing. In the following text, we read more about what PCIe lanes are.
PCIe is a high-speed standard that allows you to add extra functionalities to your motherboard with the help of expansion cards. PCIe is one of two primary methods, the other being SATA, that allows you to add components to your PC.
Knowing what PCIe lanes are and how many you have is essential to building a PC that meets your current needs and is also future-proof.
The PCIe expansion cards get attached to PCIe slots found on the motherboard and thus add functionality such as video graphic processing, network capability, storage expansion, and more.
Different expansion cards have additional PCIe lane requirements. The more demanding an expansion card is, the more PCIe lanes it requires to cater to the expansion card’s higher throughput rate.
A card can have 1, 4, 8, or 16 lane requirements, one lane used by a weaker card like WiFi network cards, and 16 roads used by demanding cards that produce a lot of data like a graphics card.