TheLostSwedeThings are starting to look really interesting when it comes to some actual gains in 4K performance with new SSD controllers.

bugI came here wondering about those 77MB/s. Would that hold if the drive is inserted in a PCIe3 slot? Because it's not about bandwidth, after all.

TheLostSwedeI guess we're going to have to wait for reviews, but it's possible, as that should have more to do with the controller than the interface, as you say-

okbuddyp4800x can do 200mb 4k single thread

bugYes, that's why I'd like Optane to happen. But even Intel has stopped hyping Optane, so we can rest easy for a few more years.

TumbleGeorgeHmm? Fot next year 2021 I read somewhere info for planned 144 layer layers flash nand chips...and for Optane Gen 2 too? Few years mean more than 2 if I'm not wrong?

TheDeeGeeYet at such speeds a game loads only 1 second faster than a traditional 550 r/w SSD.

TheLostSwedeYou got proof of that? Or you just wanted to add some alternative facts to this thread?

Yes, current PCIe 4.0 drives aren't a lot faster, but it's more than a second for a lot of games, even with current drives. These new controllers should improve upon this.
Keep in mind that a lot of this comes down to how well things are optimised to load from a drive as well, which doesn't seem to be a priority for game developers.
On top of that, a lot of this comes back to the weakness of NAND flash, it would be possible to do a much faster drive if you went wide enough, but 32 channels of NAND flash in a consumer drive is unlikely to happen, as no-one is going to be willing to pay $500 for a 500GB SSD.

MakaveliI think we will see greater gains once game dev's start using Direct I/O which the new consoles have and MS is going to add to windows sometime next year.

Tomorrow

I made a quick table of current Gen4 x4 controllers with DRAM. Their capacities, release dates and reported speeds and products based on these etc.
Please dont blame me for IOPS numbers. Only Samsung reports random QD1 numbers. Others are QD32.
Also. This is a list of Gen4 controllers. So flash type is not specified tho Micron and Intel options here are 3D Xpoint instead of NAND.

Based on this it seems E18 is leading the pack. Obviously we need independent reviews of products based on E18 to confirm that. SM 2264 is the runner up followed by IG5236. Others are around the 5GB/s mark. Most seem to be using TSMC's 12nm process with Samsung using their own 8nm and E16 based on older 28nm.

TheLostSwedeFingers crossed. It's sorely needed for some games, although in others it's not as if there's noticeable load times with any half decent SSD these days.


You're missing a few companies in that list, most obviously Realtek, although I doubt they'll be a performance contender. As Intel sold it's SSD business to SK Hynix, I doubt we'll see a Gen 4 controller from them.

TomorrowYep i missed Realtek. Im guessing they are catering to the low end like Marvell. Intel only sold it's NAND business to SK Hynix. They are still developing 3D Xpoint going forward and obviously that needs it's own Gen4 controller. That's why they're on the list.

TheLostSwedeSure, but Xpoint isn't NAND, so technically a slightly different category.
Fadu (Korean company) also has a 4.0 controller coming, but it looks pretty unimpressive too
www.flashmemorysummit.com/Proceedings2019/08-08 Thursday/20190808_Keynote12_FADU_Lee.pdf

TomorrowLike i said in my original statement. This table is about Gen4 controllers. Not what type of flash it uses.

lynx29samsung 980 Pro 4kq1t1 score regularly hits 90 instead of this 77. not a huge deal, but it is the most important score imo

MakaveliThat samsung drive will also have 1/3 the endurance which would matter more to me than that metric.