But networks are getting faster and disks are transferring data at faster rates. The bus has to get faster to support that bandwidth, which is where PCIe 3.0 becomes relevant, Brookwood said.

"We don't need it yet, but we will need it soon," Brookwood said. "Otherwise the bus becomes the bottleneck."

Graphics applications like games will benefit as they are one of the biggest users of computer bandwidth, Yanes said. PCIe 3.0 may also be valuable in servers as they continue to run bandwidth-hungry applications and networking technologies advance, Yanes said.

The products may go into servers and desktops, but graphics products for laptops could also be released, Yanes said.

Some functional enhancements in the specification include smarter data transfers. The TLP processing feature can judge possible data transfers ahead of time, which could allow for faster data transfers. "It's a hint to allow better system performance," Yanes said.