Introduction

Team Group is a well-known Taiwanese hardware manufacturer with a long history of catering to the needs of enthusiasts and gamers from all over the globe. Their lineup includes DRAM memory and solid-state drives, and Team Group also offer various memory cards and USB thumb drives.



Back in May 2023, Phison was the first to introduce a PCIe Gen 5 capable controller, quickly establishing itself as the leader in the Gen 5 SSD market. Their E26 set the standard for what users could expect from this next generation of storage technology with speeds reaching up to 14 GB/s. However, the landscape is starting to shift with the arrival of Innogrit's IG5666 controller, the second client-oriented controller release in the Gen 5 space. In this review we will test the new controller and explore not only its raw speed but also its real-world performance and power consumption. Team Group ships the GE Pro without a heatsink, users are expected to install a heatsink of their choice—the drive is not designed to operate without good cooling. Unfortunately that means that there's no fair test to compare thermal performance, because the differences between heatsinks are so huge. How does Innogrit's new controller measure up, and what does it mean for the future of Gen 5 SSDs? Let's find out.

Today's review sample is provided by Team Group, who already have a successful Gen 5 lineup under the "Z540" product name. The drive in this review is called "GE Pro," which I think is a good choice that makes sure there's no confusion between drives powered by Phison and Innogrit. In terms of NAND flash, you're getting YMTC's 232-layer 3D TLC NAND, and the two DRAM cache chips are made by Micron.

The Team Group GE Pro is available in capacities of 1 TB (unknown), 2 TB ($260) and 4 TB ($470). The endurance is set to 700 TBW, 1400 TBW and 2800 TBW respectively. Team Group includes a five-year warranty with the Ge Pro SSD.