We're getting closer to the launch of Gigabyte's Aorus Gen5 10000 SSD, as evidenced by popular online retailers listing the flagship model on their websites. Amazon and Newegg currently have the Aorus Gen5 10000 2TB listed, though Amazon's listing shows the SSD as "temporarily out of stock." Newegg, however, lists the Aorus Gen5 10000 2TB as available for backorder, priced at $339.99.
If you recall, Gigabyte's previous generation Aorus Gen4 7000s Prem also launched at $339.99 but can be had for $281.99 from Amazon and Newegg. It's a nearly $60 premium for the new Gen5 model, but it comes with a significant uplift in performance. The Aorus Gen4 7000s Prem delivers maximum sequential reads of 7,000 MBps, with sequential writes topping out at 6,850 MBps.
On the other hand, the new Aorus Gen5 10000 2TB cranks sequential reads and writes to 10,000 MBps and 9,500 MBps, respectively. Also, while the previous gen has 2GB of DDR4 cache, the new Gen5 doubles that figure with 4GB of LPDDR4 cache.
With PCIe 5.0 unlocking another level of performance for SSDs, Gigabyte also includes its beefy M.2 Thermal Guard Xtreme dual-heatpipe cooling solution. Gigabyte claims that this cooling solution helps stabilize thermal performance and prevents the SSD from throttling prematurely under load.
Unfortunately, we still don't have a concrete availability date from Gigabyte on the Aorus Gen5 10000 2TB (or its cheaper 1TB sibling). But the drives will likely arrive sometime this year, and, given that Newegg is already showing pricing and allowing customers to preorder, we hope it comes sooner rather than later.
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Brandon Hill is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware. He has written about PC and Mac tech since the late 1990s with bylines at AnandTech, DailyTech, and Hot Hardware. When he is not consuming copious amounts of tech news, he can be found enjoying the NC mountains or the beach with his wife and two sons.
So 2TB of PCIe Gen 5 storage for $340 doesn’t seem like too bad of a premium over a Gen 4. Yet a 2TB Xbox Expansion card that is 4.0x2 is listed at $399.99. Looking at you Seagate and Microsoft.
