Seagate Technology Holdings plc today introduced the new family of Star Wars Beskar Ingot Drives, the first release in a collaboration to bring designs inspired by the Star Wars franchise to its line of PC gaming storage devices, taking gamers' battle stations to the next level. The first release in the collaboration celebrates the legends of the Star Wars Mandalorian galaxy. These drives bring the iconic Star Wars "precious metal" aesthetic to the FireCuda line-up. The special edition designs will be available in M.2 NVMe, 2.5-inch SATA, and external HDD formats. Each drive resembles an ingot of Beskar, including its Imperial stamp featured prominently in the series, making these drives the ultimate collectible for Star Wars fans.

"We are thrilled to bring unique, iconic designs from one of the world's most popular franchises to the forefront of every gamer's battle station," said Jeff Fochtman, Senior Vice President of Business and Marketing at Seagate Technology. "This collaboration appeals to global audiences including gamers, PC builders, and Star Wars enthusiasts alike."

Micron Technology, today announced availability of the Micron 7400 SSD with NVMe, delivering industry-leading form factor flexibility, PCIe Gen4 performance, and leading-edge security to meet the storage needs of demanding data center workloads. With this portfolio, Micron is providing the broadest selection of mainstream data center SSDs available. Featuring seven form factors, the Micron 7400 SSD enables the transition to next-generation server architectures. Data centers continue to evolve thanks to the rapid growth of data and proliferation of applications that demand high performance. The need to process, analyze and secure data that provides valuable insights is fueling the modernization of the data center, requiring new levels of storage innovation.

XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces the latest evolution of its XENIA 15 KC gaming notebook platform, following the success of a series of collaborations between XPG and Intel. The all-new XENIA 15 KC comes equipped with an 11th Gen Intel i7 H CPU, an NVIDIA RTX 30 series GPU, and XPG's own hand selected memory and SSD.

Designed in collaboration with Intel, the new XPG XENIA 15 KC takes full advantage of the latest 11th Gen Intel i7-11800H processor, NVIDIA RTX 3070 graphics, and top of the line XPG memory and SSD, to deliver top of the line benchmarks, close to or even outpacing higher spec systems in gaming performance and pixel-perfect productivity. To strike a satisfying balance between fast-paced action and rich, detailed visuals, a spacious 15.6-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) 165 Hz IPS panel delivers the best of both worlds, perfectly tailored for its performance envelope. What's more, it achieves 100% sRGB color coverage for accurate color reproduction for content creation.

5G and AIoT need more speed and more capacity. And PCIe 4.0 delivers, doubling the speed of PCIe 3.0 and providing the much-needed performance boost to keep pace with innovation and industry trends. Not only speed and capacity, but tolerance of wide-range temperature is also crucial. Consumer-grade products aren't tough enough to withstand the high temperatures of outdoor and industrial settings, so Innodisk is introducing the first industrial-grade PCIe 4.0 SSDs built to handle those challenging conditions.

PCIe 4.0 increases the maximum capacity to 4 TB, doubles the bandwidth, and raises the speed to 16 GT/s which is twice that of PCIe Gen3. Although third-generation PCIe offered only modest speed increases over the popular SATA III for storage applications, it did provide the much sought-after advantages of full forward and backward compatibility. PCIe 4.0 retains that coveted compatibility while also adding noticeable speed increases.

be quiet!, the German manufacturer for premium PC components, is proud to announce that its MC1 M.2 SSD cooler is a perfect match for the brand-new PlayStation 5 SSD expansion capabilities.

For those running out of storage space on the built-in solid-state drive of the PlayStation 5, Sony has recently released a firmware update that unlocks the M.2 SSD expansion slot, allowing users to add an additional solid-state drive to the console. These drives can run very hot, which could cause SSD throttling, prompting Sony to recommend only using M.2 SSDs with a heatsink. be quiet! offers gamers the ideal solution with its MC1 cooler, which is compatible with any single-sided or double-sided 2280 M.2 SSD that does not feature a built-in heatsink. It is also one of the only M.2 SSD coolers on the market compact enough to perfectly fit inside the expansion slot of the PlayStation 5 and able to cool double-sided SSDs, protecting the memory modules on both sides of the PCB from overheating. The result is much lower and safer SSD temperatures, which translates into trouble-free gaming sessions and an increased lifespan of the drive.

The Chinese Electronics company Jingjia Micro have recently completed the tapeout of their JM9 GPU series almost 2 years after they first announced the lineup. The JM9 series will consist of two GPUs with the entry-level JM9231 targeting GTX 1050 performance while the higher-end JM9271 aims for the GTX 1080. The JM9231 is stated to feature a clock speed above 1.5 GHz, 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, and will provide 2 TFLOPS of performance within a 150 W TDP through a PCIe Gen3 x16 interface. The JM9271 increases the clock speed to above 1.8 GHz and is paired with 16 GB of HBM memory which should offer 8 TFLOPS of single-precision performance to rival the GTX 1080. The card manages to do this within a TDP package of 200 W and also includes PCIe Gen4 x16 support. The two cards both support HDMI 2.0 in addition to DisplayPort 1.3 for the JM9231 and DisplayPort 1.4 for the JM9271.

While the JM9271 may target GTX 1080 performance it only features OpenGL and OpenCL API support lacking DirectX or Vulkan compatibility greatly reducing its use for gaming. The cards were originally expected to be available in 2020 but after various delays they are now ready to enter production. These products are highly unlikely to make their way outside of the Chinese mainland and if they did we wouldn't expect them to have much impact on the global market.

CORSAIR, a world leader in enthusiast components for gamers, creators, and PC builders, today announced the launch of a new Gen4 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive - the MP600 PRO XT. Available in capacities up to an immense 4 TB, the MP600 PRO XT stores massive amounts of data in a convenient form-factor that neatly fits nearly any PC build. For those who need to run games, load applications, and transfer files at lighting speed, the MP600 PRO XT delivers incredible sustained performance with a pre-installed heatspreader, leaving standard M.2 SSDs in the dust.

The MP600 PRO XT boasts extreme performance paired with exceptional cooling and compatibility, breaking the 7,000 MB/sec barrier with up to 7,100 MB/sec sequential read and 6,800 MB/sec sequential write speeds (performance and endurance vary by capacity), as well as more than one million input/output operations per second (IOPS). The MP600 PRO XT is built with high-density 3D TLC NAND, delivering both great performance and endurance - up to 3,000 TB Written. Leading-edge PCIe Gen4 technology ensures that your drive achieves maximum bandwidth, and backward-compatibility with PCIe Gen3 gives you the versatility to bring fast storage to a host of systems (lower performance on PCIe Gen3).

Kioxia Corporation, a world leader in memory solutions, today announced two new solid state drive (SSD) series scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter of 2021. The EXCERIA PRO and EXCERIA G2 Series are the company's latest consumer-grade solutions for today's hardcore enthusiasts and mainstream DIY system builders. Kioxia's new SSDs, which are products under development, will be on reference exhibit at the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) in Shanghai from July 30th to August 2nd.

Using the next generation PCIe Gen4 x4 interface, the EXCERIA PRO Series is built for demanding PC environments. This brand new series will offer more than 2x the max sequential read speeds of the PCIe Gen3 based EXCERIA PLUS Series, delivering a high performance storage experience for content creators, gamers and professionals.

XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces the XPG XENIA 14 lifestyle ultrabook. The 14-inch XENIA 14 is geared towards users that require a lightweight and thin ultrabook that offers the performance they need for work and play. The XENIA 14 meets this need perfectly with 11th Gen Intel Core i7 or i5 processors with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, a Full HD IPS display with a 92% screen ratio, up to 10 hours of battery life, and more.

Made from lightweight magnesium alloy, the XENIA 14 is an ultra-portable device that users can take anywhere with ease. Weighing in at just 970 g (2.14lbs), the ultrabook is easy to carry around by hand or in a bag, ideal for business travel or running from meeting room to meeting room. Not only is the XENIA 14 lightweight, but it is also thin too, measuring in at just 15 mm thin.

The EVGA Z590 DARK once again strikes fear into the hearts of other Z590 motherboards by combining every ounce of power available to the Intel Z590 chipset and fine-tuning it to perfection. This armed and fully-operational motherboard is born from a 10-layer PCB and powered by a 21-Phase VRM. With support for PCIe Gen4 graphics cards and M.2 NVMe SSDs, overclockers have nothing to fear when shooting for the highest scores in any benchmark.

For everyone else, the Z590 DARK is loaded with over a dozen USB options, eight SATA ports, two 2.5 Gbps NICs + WiFi 6/BT 5.1, 7.1 Channel HD Audio, three M.2 Key-M slots, and two fan headers dedicated to AIO CPU Coolers. As a wise overclocker once said, "Once you start down the DARK path, forever will it dominate your destiny." and with the EVGA Z590 DARK, that destiny is sure to be filled with shattered records and countless victories on the battlefield.

MSI is announcing the launch of its solid state drive (SSD) product line with the introduction of SPATIUM. The initial product offering will include M480, M470, and M370, which are Gen4 and Gen3 PCIe NVMe SSDs in compact M.2 2280 form factors that can be installed into compatible desktop motherboards and laptops.

MSI continues to refine its identity as a high-performance PC brand and SPATIUM was envisioned to expand our ecosystem and cover the high-performance storage category. These SSDs are built with high-quality, high-density 3D NAND flash that deliver the best compromise of performance and endurance for professionals, content creators, and gamers. Among the performance improving technologies include a DRAM cache buffer for M480 and M470, and a SLC cache for all announced models.

TEAMGROUP unveils the T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe 4.0 SSD with two patented cooling modules, QLC Flash, and PCIe Gen 4x4 interface that supports the latest NVMe 1.4 standard and provides a massive capacity of up to 4 TB. Consumers can opt for different specs based on their preference and needs, and gamers can have everything from cooling, performance, and capacity in one SSD, and explore the infinite possibilities with T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe4.0 SSD.

Equipped with QLC Flash, the T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe 4.0 SSD supports the latest PCIe Gen 4x4 interface and NVMe 1.4 standards, meaning that it is compatible with PCIe Gen3.0 interface while offering up to 4 TB in capacity. The read/write speeds reach up to 5,000/4,000 MB/s, which are 10 times faster than traditional SSDs, making it a pioneer for the new TB M.2 era and the best choice for players in terms of cooling, speed, and capacity.

Seagate today announced its newest PC gaming SSD, the FireCuda 530, at the company's inaugural virtual gaming event, SG21. The new drive offers gamers the latest PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD technology and the fastest performance from the company's line of PC gaming storage products - bringing speed, endurance, and high capacity to the peak of PC performance.

Delivering sequential read speeds of up to 7300 MB/s, the FireCuda 530 catalyzes PCIe Gen4 power with transfer rates up to two times faster than PCIe Gen3 SSDs and 12 times faster than SATA-based SSDs. The drive is built with a Seagate-validated E18 controller and the latest 3D TLC NAND to provide the most advanced speed and durability for PC gaming. Seagate also offers a minimalist heatsink option, specially designed by EKWB that swaps out cooling fins for a more massive, high-grade aluminium block with a finely textured finish, maximizing cooling.

The EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2 has unmatched levels of upgradeability through the Mobile Supercomputer's modular slots, allowing the safe removal and replacement of important hardware components such as the laptop's CPU, GPU, Memory, Storage, LCD, and more. Having slots or sockets allows the Sky Z7 R2 to customized, upgraded and modified with compatible parts- giving this Eurocom Mobile Supercomputer the ability to run the most demanding applications and perform high level tasks for a very long time. As newer and improved technologies emerge within the same chipset, the EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2's hardware components such as the CPU, GPU, RAM, storage, LCD, to name a few, can all be upgraded and replaced relatively easy in order to acquire more power as desired. Having modular components greatly increases the laptop's lifespan for many years and prevents the cycle of having to buy new laptops every few years, which can be the case with most laptops that have non-upgradeable components.

Eurocom's Sky Z7 R2 is one of the few laptops that utilizes modular GPU technology based on the MXM 3.1 version 2.0 socket technology. This means the Mobile Supercomputer's high performance GPU can be replaced at any time as long as it is compatible in the chipset, allowing the EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2 to perform at an extremely high level throughout the duration of its long lifespan. This Mobile Supercomputer can be configured up to the GeForce RTX 3080 which delivers twice the performance as its previous generation counterpart (GeForce RTX 2080). The EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2 offers seamless and stutter-free 4K gaming at 60 FPS, as well as 8K video editing, rendering and gaming.

Today at its Flash Perspective event, Western Digital Corp. unveiled three new SSDs for its WD_BLACK portfolio of products, providing gamers around the world with fast, high-performance storage solutions to upgrade their PC and next-gen console gaming experience.

"Our WD_BLACK brand delivers a clear and simple promise to gamers - fast and reliable storage that enhances their gameplay," said Rob Soderbery, executive vice president and GM, Flash Business, Western Digital. "With today's new products, the WD_BLACK portfolio has diverse flash-powered solutions so that every gamer - whether they're just starting out or more advanced - can explore the rich worlds of today's most inventive games."

Phison Electronics Corp, a global leader in NAND flash controller integrated circuits and storage solutions, today announces shipping of its PS5018-E18 PCIe Gen4 controllers to manufacturer partners with new 176-layer replacement gate NAND.

The new E18 paired with 176-layer fills the crucial role in the Phison product stack as the highest performing E18 to date. The potent combination delivers up to 7,400 MB/s sequential reads and 7,000 MB/s sequential writes.

The largest gains arrive in random read latency where the new premium tier shows a 35% performance increase over previous models at low queue depth improving user experience in system responsiveness. The new E18 delivers the best game load times of any consumer SSD in its class.TPU had the chance to test this drive and we posted our review here.

MSI, a leading manufacturer of business, design and gaming technology, is proud to announce its new lineup of laptops powered by the latest 11th Gen Intel Core H series processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU. Having expanded to creators' terrain in recent years, MSI has perked up to materialize the concept where design is the bond between dreaming it and doing it through their upcoming virtual event "Tech Meets Aesthetic". The new laptops continue MSI's trend of producing top-tier, powerful machines with aesthetic touches that enhance user experience and unleash the inner gamer and creator spirits.

With a 30% performance upgrade over previous models, the high-speed combo of PCIe Gen4, Thunderbolt 4, and Wi-Fi 6E heighten increased enhancements. For the gaming lineup, MSI-exclusive features like "Discrete Graphics Mode" improve graphics performance, while MSI Center allows users to overclock the GPU with ease.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today presented two gaming systems of AMD X570 platform with AORUS MODEL X and AMD B550 platform with mini system AORUS MODEL S, which adopt the top-notch components and materials for extreme performance. Enhanced by the strict verification and leading technology, GIGABYTE provides the PC system of extreme performance with optimized heat dissipation and acoustic control. The system maintains cool and quiet even under the full operation, which balance the high performance and low temperature to keep the system acoustic under 40dB without throttling. Furthermore, the three-year warranty of full system offers an ease and comprehensive service for users.

"When tackling the uplift of PC performance, multi-core, high frequency, and copious storage become a must to the premium PC platform, as well as how to make the best components matrix to provide the optimized performance with reliability turns into more inevitable." indicated by Eddie Lin, Vice President of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions. "The new AORUS system is well-tempered by multiple verification and tuning of GIGABYTE's R&D team, which provide a perfect match of cool, quiet, and powerful performance with compatibility and three-year whole system warranty.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today presented two gaming systems of Intel Z590 platform with AORUS MODEL X and mini system AORUS MODEL S, which adopt the top-notch components and materials for extreme performance. Enhanced by the strict verification and leading technology, GIGABYTE provides the PC system of premium performance with optimized heat dissipation and acoustic control. The system maintains cool and quiet even under the overclocking, which balance the high performance and low temperature to keep the system acoustic under 40dB without throttling. Furthermore, the three-year warranty of full system offers reassuring and comprehensive service for users.

"When tackling the uplift of PC performance, multi-core, high frequency, and copious storage become a standard to the premium PC platform, as well as how to make the best components matrix to provide the optimized performance with reliability turns into more inevitable." indicated by Eddie Lin, Vice President of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions. "The new AORUS system is well-tempered by multiple verification and tuning of GIGABYTE's R&D team, which provide a perfect match of cool, quiet, and powerful performance with optimized compatibility, Expandability, and three-year warranty of whole system.

XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and peripherals for Gamers, E-sports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, announcesthe launch of the XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 2280 solid state drive (SSD). Sporting the latest PCIe Gen4 x4 interface and a host of other capabilities, this SSD delivers fast read/write speeds to meet the demands of gaming, graphics processing, and 5G applications. What's more, its unique heat sink design offers excellent thermal cooling for optimal performance and stability. Its compact M.2 2280 form factor makes it ideal for most laptop PCs, including Intel Evo certified laptops, and game consoles.

With the latest PCIe Gen4 interface, the GAMMIX S70 BLADE will help gamers dominate the competition with sequential read/write performance of up to 7400/6400 MB/s. This is up to two times faster than PCIe 3.0 SSDs and fifteen times faster than SATA SSDs. For ease of use, it is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0.The S70 BLADE is equipped with 3D NAND Flash for higher capacities (up to 2 TB) and enhanced efficiency and durability, and it is compliant with NVMe 1.4.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions, and high-performance storage, presents the CVN Z590M GAMING PRO micro-ATX motherboard for the 11th generation Intel Core processors. The CVN Z590M GAMING PRO features larger heatsinks and M.2 heatsink armor for improved heat dissipation. The motherboard supports PCIe 4.0 technology, enabling the motherboard to support the latest PCIe Gen4 solid-state drives.

The CVN Z590M GAMING PRO also features Resizable BAR technology that allows the processor to access graphics card memory to boost overall performance. The motherboard is equipped with a 10+2 hybrid digital power phase design, capable of delivering stable overclocks for up to an Intel Core i9 processor. It also comes equipped with metal-reinforced PCIe slots to support heavy high-performance graphics cards. The rear I/O includes a high-speed USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C port. The motherboard also has an integrated rear I/O shield.

TEAMGROUP's T-CREATE brand, which gives creators around the world the tools to express their creativity and inspiration, has updated its product lines again with today's launch of the EXPERT DDR4 OC10L desktop memory, CLASSIC PCIe 4.0 SSD, and CLASSIC DDR4 10L laptop memory. T-CREATE continues to launch diverse new products with improved specifications, producing powerful hardware to meet the needs of creators.

The T-CREATE EXPERT DESKTOP DDR4 OC10L not only has up to 32 GB of capacity per module but also an overclocking feature that automatically increases its frequency to 3600 MHz, providing worry-free overclocking with stable, high-frequency performance. It comes in a titanium grey finish that exudes the tasteful minimalism of the EXPERT product line. In addition, the memory uses a 10-layer PCB with a specialized anti-noise design for better processing capability, allowing creators to work on tasks simultaneously, whether it be producing animation, video editing, or converting large files. It substantially improves work efficiency and excels in multitasking during creative projects.

Transcend today announced the MTE240S, a mid-range SSD built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface, which boasts of some stellar manufacturer-rated endurance numbers. The drive uses an unknown 4-channel controller, and while its rated sequential speeds fall well below what the bus is capable of, they're higher than most PCIe Gen3 drives. The MTE240S is available in 500 GB and 1 TB capacity variants. Both come with graphene-coated copper heatspreaders.

The 500 GB variant offers sequential speeds of up to 3800 MB/s reads, with up to 2800 MB/s sequential writes, up to 190,000 IOPS 4K random-reads, and up to 540,000 IOPS 4K random-writes. The 1 TB variant, on the other hand, clocks up to 3800 MB/s sequential reads, with up to 3200 MB/s sequential writes; up to 370,000 IOPS 4K random-reads, and up to 560,000 IOPS 4K random-writes. Transcend claims that the 500 GB variant can handle 850 TBW endurance, and the 1 TB variant 1,700 TBW. The company is backing them with 5-year warranties.

Intel claims that its upcoming 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processors offer up to 11% higher storage performance than competing AMD Ryzen 5000 processors, when using the CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot. A performance slide released by Intel's Ryan Shrout shows a Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB PCI-Express 4.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD performance on a machine powered by a Core i9-11900K processor, compared to one powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark is used to evaluate storage performance on both machines. On both machines a separate drive is used as the OS/boot drive, and the Samsung 980 PRO is used as a test drive, free from any OS role.

The backup page for the slide provides details of the system configurations used for both machines. What it doesn't mention, however, is whether on the AMD machine, the 980 PRO was installed on the CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot, or one that's attached to the AMD X570 chipset. Unlike the Intel Z590, the AMD X570 puts out downstream PCI-Express 4.0, which motherboard designers can use to put out additional NVMe Gen 4 slots. On the Intel Z590 motherboard, the M.2 NVMe Gen 4 slot the drive was tested on is guaranteed to be the CPU-attached one, as the Z590 PCH puts out PCIe Gen 3 downstream lanes. A PCI-Express 4.0 x4 link is used as chipset bus on the AMD X570, offering comparable bandwidth to the DMI 3.0 x8 (PCI-Express 3.0 x8) employed on the Intel Z590. A drive capable of attaining 7 GB/s sequential transfers should be in a sub-optimal situation on a chipset-attached M.2 slot. It would be nice if Intel clears this up in an update to its backup.

Update 02:51 UTC: In response to a specific question on Twitter, on whether the drives were tested on CPU-attached M.2 slots on both platforms, Ryan Shrout stated that a PCI-Express AIC riser card was used on both platforms to ensure that the drives are CPU-attached. 11% is a significant storage performance uplift on offer.

CORSAIR, a world leader in high-performance gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the launch of three new CORSAIR Gen4 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drives - the MP600 CORE, MP600 PRO, and MP600 PRO Hydro X Edition. All MP600 SSDs store massive amounts of data with lightning-fast transfer speeds, leveraging PCIe Gen4 technology for incredible, sustained performance.

The MP600 CORE offers up to 4,950MB/sec sequential read and 3,950MB/sec sequential write speeds, while the MP600 PRO and MP600 PRO Hydro X can achieve a blazing-fast 7,000MB/sec sequential read and 6,550MB/sec sequential write speeds[a]. The MP600 CORE is available now in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. The MP600 PRO is available in 1TB and 2TB capacities immediately with a 4TB model coming soon, while the MP600 PRO Hydro X Edition comes in a 2TB capacity, complete with an integrated CORSAIR Hydro X Series XM2 water block that connects your SSD seamlessly into your custom cooling loop. The XM2 water block is also available for purchase as a standalone product, compatible with many existing M.2 SSDs.