The latest material and process developments in powder metal (PM) gears have increased their load capacity. These new developments allow PM to fully compete with hardened machined wrought gears in a variety of power transmission applications. New grades of PM materials that can be case hardened using the same conditions as wrought materials improve their load capacity. Increased load capacity is also achieved by surface densifying gear teeth deeper than case hardened depth requirements. Since tooth Hertzian and bending stress gradients are within the fully dense layer@ PM gears are virtually equivalent to wrought gears. The performance is demonstrated by gear tooth bending and RCF data on prototype gears.