Introduction

Acer is a world-leading manufacturer of computer hardware. The company was founded in 1976, in Taiwan. They are mostly famous for their laptops, desktop PCs, and monitors. They have now branched out into the field of solid-state storage with OEM partner BIWIN Storage, who is also helping HP produce their SSDs.



In today's review, we're taking a look at the Acer Predator GM7000 M.2 NVMe SSD. It is powered by an Innogrit IG5236 controller, a model we've recently seen on the ADATA Gammix S70 and S70 Blade. Acer has paired the IG5236 with 96-layer 3D TLC flash from Micron and 2 GB DDR4-2666 DRAM cache from Nanya. PCI-Express 4.0 x4 is used as the host interface; it doubles the theoretical bandwidth over PCI-Express Gen 3.

The Acer Predator GM7000 is available in capacities of 512 GB ($120), 1 TB ($180), and 2 TB ($350). A 4 TB variant is planned. Endurance for these models is set at 300 TBW, 600 TBW, and 1300 TBW respectively. Acer provides a five-year warranty for the Predator GM7000.

Packaging

The Drive

The drive uses the M.2 2280 form factor, which makes it 22 mm wide and 80 mm long. The Acer Predator GM700 is compatible with the Sony PlayStation 5. It fulfills all of Sony's requirements: below 110 mm long, width limited to 25 mm, and a maximum height of 8 mm above the PCB and 2.45 mm on the other side, plus 0.8 mm for the PCB itself.


While most other M.2 NVMe SSDs transfer data over the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, the Acer Predator GM7000 connects to the host system over a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 interface, which doubles the theoretical bandwidth.


On the PCB, you'll find the controller, four flash chips, and two DRAM chips.


The GM7000 comes with an interesting heatsink. I've seen claims of "graphene," but it seems these have been scrubbed from their website by now, probably because they figured out that these claims aren't true. Graphene is a single-atom thick sheet of carbon organized in a honeycomb pattern that conducts heats very well ALONG ITS PLANE. So not "upwards," away from the controller, just sideways, like a heatspreader. Multi-layer graphene sheets exist, but their thermal properties along the Z axis aren't significantly better than copper, for example.

I tested the foam, and it is not electrically conductive, so it can't be graphene, which is carbon, and carbon is conductive. On top of the foam, Acer installed a piece of plastic with the "Predator" logo on it. I double checked and it is plastic, not metal.

I'm also concerned that this foam design actually blocks heat transfer because it mostly consists of air, and air is an excellent insulator. Results are on our thermal testing page.

Chip Component Analysis

The Innogrit IG5236 is the company's first controller to support PCI-Express 4.0. It uses eight channels to maximize transfer rates and is fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC Taiwan.


The four flash chips are Micron 96-layer 3D TLC NAND. They have been rebranded by BIWIN. Each chip has a capacity of 512 GB.


Two Nanya DDR4-2666 chips provide 2 GB of fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables.

Test Setup