Gigabyte has introduced its next-generation Aorus high-performance PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs that offer up to 40% higher peak performance than its current-gen Aorus PCIe 4.0 drives. The Aorus Gen4 7000s SSD comes with a regular aluminum heat spreader with a backplate. Still, for those who want to have maximum sustained performance even in systems with limited airflow, Gigabyte is working on a version of the SSD with a gargantuan cooler featuring two heat pipes.
The Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s SSD is based on Phison's latest PS5018-E18 controller (three Arm Cortex-R5 cores, NVMe 1.4, eight NAND channels, 32 CEs, 4th Gen LDPC, RAID ECC) accompanied by 96-layer 3D TLC NAND memory with a 1200 MT/s data transfer rate as well as DDR4 SDRAM cache. The drive comes in an M.2-2280 form-factor and uses a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. At least initially, the new family will include 1TB and 2TB models.
The new Aorus Gen4 7000s SSD is rated for rather impressive performance. Gigabyte promises up to 7,000 MBps sequential read speeds as well as up to 6,850 MBps sequential write speeds for the 2TB version. As far as random performance is concerned, the drives are said to be capable of up to 700,000 random read IOPS as well as up to 650,000 random write IOPSs for the higher-end model.
As for endurance, the 1TB version is rated for up to 700TBW (terabytes written) over five years, whereas the 2TB model is rated for up to 1400TBW over a five-year period, which equals 0.38 drive writes per day (DWPD).
While Phison's PS5018-E18 controller is made using TSMC's 12 nm process technology, because it has three Arm Cortex-R5 cores and has to deal with very fast 3D TLC NAND (at 1200 MT/s) as well as a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface (at 16 GT/s), its peak power consumption at high loads is actually quite high. Gigabyte says that, on average, the Aorus Gen4 7000s 1TB consumes up to 6.6W, whereas the Aorus Gen4 7000s 2TB can consume up to 8.4W.
To ensure that the Aorus Gen4 7000s does not throttle under high load conditions, Gigabyte equipped it with a 7-mm thick aluminum heat spreader featuring nanocarbon coating as well as an aluminum baseplate.
For those who plan to use their Aorus Gen4 7000s SSD under high loads for long periods, Gigabyte is preparing a yet-unnamed version of the drive with a rather giant cooling system featuring two heat pipes. Also, this gargantuan cooler will be especially useful in liquid-cooled PCs that do not tend to have many fans inside the chassis.
"For those progressive M.2 users who prefer a more extreme thermal solution without installing SSDs between PCIe expansion slots, Aorus Gen4 7000s SSD comes in another version of heatsink with integrated heat pipes," a statement by the company reads.
Gigabyte did not announce MSRPs of its Aorus Gen4 7000s SSDs, but since we are talking about premium products here, they will be priced accordingly. In any case, since the drives are already listed on Gigabyte's website, their shipments will likely start shortly, and real-world prices will transpire.
