Axiomtek is pleased to introduce the MANO560, an industrial Mini-ITX motherboard featuring the LGA1700 socket for the latest 12th Gen Intel Core processor (codename: Alder Lake S) to boost the performance of AI and IoT applications.

The industrial Mini-ITX motherboard MANO560 is based on the new Intel H610 chipset and features scalable CPU options with the 12th Gen Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3, Intel Pentium Gold or Intel Celeron processors. While the high performance is assisted by the two DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM with up to 64 GB of memory, it is equipped with one M.2 Key E 2230 for wireless module and one M.2 Key B in which the user can choose between the PCIe x2 signal, the USB 3.2 Gen1 for 3042/3052 5G module or SATA interface for 2242 SSD, making the embedded board much more flexible. Besides, it provides a full-size mini PCIe for wireless modules and a PCIe x16 for graphics cards.

Intel Tuesday introduced the new SSD 660p series M.2 NVMe solid state drives. At the heart of these drives is the new 64-layer 3D QLC (quadruple level cell, or 4 bits per cell) NAND flash memory by IMFlash Technology (an Intel and Micron joint-venture). This memory is mated with a SIlicon Motion SMI 2263 controller. This chip is a derivative of the popular SMI2262EN, built on a newer process, with support for QLC NAND flash, compacted to have a smaller PCB footprint, and is driven by a custom firmware by Intel. The drives use over 10% of the QLC NAND flash area as SLC cache. The 660p series comes in three variants based on size - 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. The prices are the biggest dividend of QLC: the 512 GB variant goes for USD $99.99, the 1 TB variant at $199.99, and the 2 TB variant for $399.99.

Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the SSD 660p series drives feature PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface. Intel's pricing puts these drives close to competing drives with PCIe x2 interface, but offering higher transfer rates thanks to the wider bus. It's also interesting to note here that the controller is cushioned by a DRAM cache (something PCIe x2 drives tend to lack, to keep costs down). Performance numbers differ by variant, and the 512 GB drive is the slowest, sequentially reading at speeds of up to 1500 MB/s, with up to 1000 MB/s sequential writes; up to 90,000 4K random reads, and up to 220,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The 1 TB and 2 TB variants both sequentially read and write at up to 1800 MB/s. The 1 TB variant offers 150,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 220,000 IOPS random writes; while the 2 TB variant has 4K random reads/writes numbers of 220,000 IOPS.

Phison has been working hard towards bringing to market a new, budget SSD controller in the form of its Phison E8 solution. The controller was designed with the purpose to try and dethrone Intel's 600p solutions from the budget, entry-level NVMe options, through offering increased performance at the same affordable prices. To do this, and so as to decrease power consumption, Phison opted for a PCIe 2x support for the E8 - this means the company is trading burst performance for decreased power consumption. E8-based SSDs are expected in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, with prices lower than the current 600p and Phison's own E7-based products like the MyDigitalSSD BPX.

The Phison E8 controller should still offer plenty of increased performance over a typical HDD, and has been designed to work with 3D NAND technology. even with the firmware in its non-final stages, Tom's Hardware is reporting that the Phison E8's performance is already higher than Intel's 600p and WD's Black PCIe solutions. As we all know, though, firmware optimizations are paramount to SSD controllers' performance, so we can only expect these performance numbers to go up. All in all, it seems we'll have yet another low-cost NVMe SSD solution in the market, though desktop users will likely opt for a PCIe 4x solution, since that environment doesn't care about power consumption as much as a mobile solution would.