CFD’s PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD With Monstrous Active Cooler Coming in November

CFD
(Image credit: CFD)

Extreme aftermarket cooling systems for the best SSDs have become quite common in the last few years, but it looks like such designs are also gradually migrating to off-the-shelf SSDs. This week CFD introduced its PG5NFZ-series drives featuring a PCIe Gen5 x4 interface that come equipped with a large aluminum heatsink with a small high-speed fan on top. 

CFD Gaming's PG5NFZ-series drives feature Phison's PS5026-E26 controller paired with Micron's 3D TLC NAND B58R memory, reports Hermitage Akihabara. The manufacturer says that the drives offer up to 10 GBps sequential read speed and up to 9.5 GBps sequential write speed. Random read/write performance can achieve 1.5 million/1.25M million input/output operations per second (IOPS). The M.2-2280-D2-M (double-sided) SSDs will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB configurations. 

One of the interesting wrinkles in CFD's announcement is the availability timeframe of the drives, as so far, no other PCIe Gen 5 SSD maker has released a firm release date. By contrast, CFD says that the 2TB model will be available this November, whereas other SKUs will come later. We are unsure whether CFD's November launch can be extrapolated to other companies. Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that PCIe Gen5 SSDs rated for ~12 GBps sequential read speed will likely hit the market only in 2023

(Image credit: CFD)

One of the key selling points of CFD's PG5NFZ is, of course, the cooling system called Phnix (phoenix, an immortal bird from Greek mythology). This 20mm tall (including the bottom cover) aluminum cooler incorporates a high-pressure high-speed fan to ensure the best possible cooling for the controller and 3D NAND devices under high loads. Given the name of the cooler, it is probably also meant to prolong the lifespan of CFD's SSDs, which are covered with a three-year warranty.  

All solid-state drives featuring Phison's E26 controller with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface introduced over the past few months (1234) are equipped with a fairly large heatsink to ensure consistent performance under high loads. Yet, CFD's Phnix goes above and beyond when it comes to off-the-shelf SSD cooling. CFD is not the first with a factory-installed active SSD cooler, but it is the first to launch an actively-cooled PCIe Gen5 client drive. 

However, there is one catch with CFD Gaming. CFD is a Japan-based retailer that sells products from well-known brands like AMD and Crucial, and hardware under its own trademark. CFD does not have its own manufacturing capacities and outsources production to third parties. Meanwhile, Phison provides product development, firmware and hardware customization as well as manufacturing services to clients, and this might be the case with the CFD PG5NFZ drive.  

While the particular design is probably exclusive for CFD and therefore may never make it outside of Japan, Phison might offer something similar to its other customers, which is when we will see actively cooled PS5026-E26-based drives sold by other suppliers in the U.S. and Europe.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • hotaru251
    these bulky active cooelrs wont work on a lot of MB.

    many have "covers" to hide the slots and are 1large piece meaning u'd have rmeove it to use one..

    and more importantly most m.2 are aroudn GPu area..and with new GPU's being MASSIVE these will not work with them.
    Reply
  • rluker5
    Even if I had pcie5 for SSDs I wouldn't be able to fit this without removing my soundcard.
    I guess it is an either/or proposition.
    Reply
  • RichardtST
    ngl.... This is exactly the kind of cool overkill that I tend to buy! To be fair, I do have some rather large VMs that I copy around, and I have indeed suffered with heat-throttling on a number of occasions. Not enough to really justify a cooler of this sort, but what the heck... :)
    Reply
  • ezst036
    This is really ridiculous. This really just needs to be a full size PCIe card that sits in a slot and attaches with a screw to the back wall of a computer case. Like those Revodrives. That would leave a lot more room for cooling solutions. This is going to block GPUs and not fit on some boards all sorts of other problems.

    https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ocz-revodrive-x2-pci-express-ssd,2802.html
    Reply
  • jackt
    thats exactly what i feared... if this pcie5 is just overclock, ill buy a pcie4 ssd
    Reply
  • TechieTwo
    The Gen 5 consumer SSD announcements have pretty much been a bad joke in that these drives by major manufacturers were suppose to be available in the U.S. by now seeing as though there are plenty of Intel and AMD PCIe 5 mobos being sold. It's no wonder anyone actually trust the press releases by PC hardware makers any more. Few companies actually deliver on time. That could prove costly.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    When the heatsinks become so outrageous that U.2 makes so much more sense...
    Reply
  • Thunder64
    Since when are disk transfers measured in bps and not BS/s?
    Reply
  • KraakBal
    Getting ridiculous. Give me 5000 read but 2M IOPS any day. The Samsung 990 pro looks better than this and still on pci4
    Reply
  • The whole hardware industry is going in a direction that I just don’t care for and I won’t be participating in. Super high prices and ridiculous configurations. Sorry not interested not buying it.
    Reply