ADATA XPG PCIe Gen 5 SSD with Active Cooling Pictured

[btarunr]

Here are some of the first pictures of the yet-unnamed PCIe Gen 5-based NVMe SSD by ADATA XPG. Built in the M.2-2580 form-factor, the drive features a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface and NVMe 2.0 protocol. At its core is a Silicon Motion SM2508 series controller, coupled with the latest generation 3D TLC NAND flash over a large number of flash channels; and a faster DRAM cache. The drive offers sequential transfer rates of up to 14 GB/s reads, with up to 12 GB/s writes. and 2 million IOPS 4K random transfers. It comes in capacity-based variants, with 8 TB being the largest one.

The most striking aspect about this drive is its active cooling solution. A ridged aluminium monoblock heatsink is used to cool the SM2508 controller. nestled in its center is what appears to be a miniature 10 mm lateral fan. The heatsink has surface-crystallization treatment to increase surface area for heat dissipation. A die-cast aluminium top-plate and 3-sided backplate sandwich the fan-heatsink and the main PCB. The fan is tightly controlled by temperature, and ADATA claims you should barely notice it. To use the drive to its fullest, you'll either need an AMD Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" platform that has dedicated PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slots wired to the processor, or an Intel 700-series chipset motherboard that puts out a Gen 5 M.2 slot by subtracting lanes from the Gen 5 PEG slot.



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[watzupken]

All the heat, for practically 0 improvement for most users. What is the point of chasing after these PCI-E 5.0 SSDs just to see some higher benchmark numbers...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Still not on Amazon.

 

[Chaitanya]

All the heat, for practically 0 improvement for most users. What is the point of chasing after these PCI-E 5.0 SSDs just to see some higher benchmark numbers...

Epeen contest for largest sequential numbers is going to get worse in coming days.

I hope we get 1x and 2x PCI-e 5.0 drives for consumers with decently low power consumption figures and high capacities.

 

[thestryker6]

I hope we get 1x and 2x PCI-e 5.0 drives for consumers with decently low power consumption figures and high capacities.

I was really hoping we'd see the same with PCIe 4.0, but this time it'd be an even bigger deal. This is very much what we need to have happen as it'd allow for plenty of performance and a lot more storage on consumer products.

 

[AusWolf]

I was really hoping we'd see the same with PCIe 4.0, but this time it'd be an even bigger deal. This is very much what we need to have happen as it'd allow for plenty of performance and a lot more storage on consumer products.

I wouldn't mind more storage cheaper on PCI-e 4.0 or even 3.0 drives. I don't care about 5.0 speeds, at all. Not to mention a fan on an SSD now? Ugh.

 

[thestryker6]

I wouldn't mind more storage cheaper on PCI-e 4.0 or even 3.0 drives. I don't care about 5.0 speeds, at all. Not to mention a fan on an SSD now? Ugh.

That's why companies releasing PCIe x1/x2 drives instead of only x4 would be such an important change. Imagine those PCIe 5.0 x4 storage lanes on AM5 being able to be used for 4x SSDs doing PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds, because that's exactly what you could have with PCIe 5.0 x1 drives. They'd also cost less to manufacture and run a lot cooler, but it's a route nobody seems to want to go because they sell based on "speed" which is just sequential and largely meaningless.

 

[Wirko]

I expect PCIe 5 SSDs to run cooler than older SSDs, as long as you're not pushing them to the limits of sequential speed.

That's why companies releasing PCIe x1/x2 drives instead of only x4 would be such an important change. Imagine those PCIe 5.0 x4 storage lanes on AM5 being able to be used for 4x SSDs doing PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds, because that's exactly what you could have with PCIe 5.0 x1 drives. They'd also cost less to manufacture and run a lot cooler, but it's a route nobody seems to want to go because they sell based on "speed" which is just sequential and largely meaningless.

But which platforms can actually bifurcate lanes to x2 or x1? I know about Epyc but what about Ryzen and Core?

 

[thestryker6]

But which platforms can actually bifurcate lanes to x2 or x1? I know about Epyc but what about Ryzen and Core?

It's a chicken/egg type problem as the vast majority of consumer motherboards don't support any bifurcation even though it's possible on all platforms. The lanes direct from the CPU on ADL/RPL are limited to x8+x8/x16 AFAIK, but you can pretty much do whatever you want with those lanes using PLX chips. I'm not sure how AMD's extra lanes for storage work, but I'd assume they're similarly restricted where they work in x4 only. Chipsets for both AMD and Intel are far more flexible, but those don't have PCIe 5.0 yet (if they ever really will) though they could do PCIe 4.0 x2 for example.

The problem is one of those things where there are lots of solutions, but if nobody pushes to make narrower lane count storage devices platforms won't change either because why support something that doesn't exist.

 

[TheLostSwede]

@thestryker6 x8/x4/x4 is also an option, which is why some motherboards support two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots.
Anything more granular isn't supported.
PLX chips are too costly now, but ASMedia and Microchip have equivalent parts, but none make anything as simple as ane eight lane PCIe switch (4 in 4 out that is).

 

[Zareek]

@thestryker6 x8/x4/x4 is also an option, which is why some motherboards support two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots.
Anything more granular isn't supported.
PLX chips are too costly now, but ASMedia and Microchip have equivalent parts, but none make anything as simple as ane eight lane PCIe switch (4 in 4 out that is).

That would make too much sense... I still don't understand why the PLX chips are so insanely expensive now. They must be filling some niche market segment.

 

[TheLostSwede]

That would make too much sense... I still don't understand why the PLX chips are so insanely expensive now. They must be filling some niche market segment.

Because they were bought out a couple of times and the new owners wanted to make more money per unit made? Business decisions don't always make sense to us mere mortals.