Some PCIe 5.0 SSDs Confined to 10 GBps; Others Hit 12.4 GBps

Gigabyte
(Image credit: Gigabyte)

At least three SSD makers — CorsairGigabyte, and Goodram — announced their SSDs based on Phison's E26 controller with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface over the past few weeks. Corsair's and Goodram's drives offer a maximum sequential read speed of 10 GBps, whereas Gigabyte's product is said to hit 12.4 GBps. There is a reason for that: No 3D NAND chips are currently fast enough to saturate the controller's capabilities.

Phison's PS5026-E26 controller has eight NAND channels, which is typical for client SSDs. These channels support different data transfer rates, but to saturate a PCIe 5.0 x4 (15.754 GBps in both directions), it needs 3D NAND memory with a 2400 MTps interface. Micron was first to announce such memory this July, SK Hynix followed in early August, then YMTC introduced its Xtacking 3.0 architecture enabling a 2400 MTps speed. All of Phison's E26 demonstrations were with SSDs featuring Micron's latest 3D NAND chips, and this is when those drives hit ~12 GBps sequential read speeds. Galax is also testing its HOF Extreme 50 SSDs with Micron's 232-layer 2400 MTps chips, according to ITHome.

Micron's 232-layer 3D NAND chips with a 2400 MTps interface are ahead of the rivals in mass production and maturity. But there is a problem. Yields of chips with 2400 MTps data transfer rates are low; they work perfectly at 1600 MTps, though. As a result, it will take the company some time to initiate mass production of chips that all work at 2400 MTps, which will presumably happen sometime early next year, according to Tom's Hardware sources.

In the meantime, SSDs based on Phison's E26 controller will only hit around 10,000 MBps. Gigabyte announced its Aorus Gen5 10000 SSD with a 12.4 GB/s sequential read speed with Micron's 2400 MTps memory, whereas Corsair and Goodram rated their drives at 10 GBps since they will have to use 3D NAND memory with a 1600 MTps interface.

Will Gigabyte be able to procure enough 2400 MTps chips for proper availability of its drive is something only time will tell. Corsair and Goodram are arguably more realistic with their performance targets, so expect their SSDs to be available widely, and these will be among the best SSDs this fall. Also, expect these companies to launch successors to their MP700 and IRDM Pro drives as soon as memory with a 2400 MTps interface is available widely. Finally, we have no idea when Galax plans to introduce its HOF Extreme 50 drive, but since it is testing it with Micron's 232-layer 2400 MTps chips, you can make some guesses.

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.

  • Geef
    will only hit around 10,000 MBps.

    Only...
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Wow, and here I thought the biggest problem about SSDs were the fact they still cost around 10¢/GB...
    Reply
  • jackt
    I just hope they are confined to 1000 watt !
    Reply
  • wifiburger
    so nothing new here, just like PCIE4 when it started, crazy expensive for just 1-2Gb/s more vs cheaper PCIE3

    have 3 PCIE4 nvme slots but honestly if I upgrade storage it will be for 2tb pcie3 cheap drives; don't care for 7Gb/s transfer speed

    of course we get rushed / hacks for PCIE5 drives for them to boost sales of their expensive mobos
    Reply
  • shady28
    Under normal use I still have a hard time telling the difference between my SATA SSD and the m.2 drive, only every once in a while where I'm transferring very large files (like > 50GB) can I note that the SATA drive slows that down.

    That is pretty much to say, almost never. It's really not even worth the price difference for PCIe 4.0 x4 vs 3 x4 right now, much less 5 x4. Maybe in a couple of years.
    Reply
  • Colif
    bet you can't tell difference between booting off an pcie 3 & 5 nvme. It will still be pretty much instant.

    when are they going to start scoring them on write speed and not read? they getting to point the gains are hard to notice.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    shady28 said:
    Under normal use I still have a hard time telling the difference between my SATA SSD and the m.2 drive, only every once in a while where I'm transferring very large files (like > 50GB) can I note that the SATA drive slows that down.

    That is pretty much to say, almost never. It's really not even worth the price difference for PCIe 4.0 x4 vs 3 x4 right now, much less 5 x4. Maybe in a couple of years.

    That is because the random IO is about the same. The sequential speeds don't really matter that much anymore as they are pretty fast for what most people do. Some game assets you can notice and if you work with really big video files etc.
    Reply
  • Colif
    The only time you notice a speed boost is if you go from hdd to nvme. Until games files get super big the time gained on an nvme over an ssd, won't be noticeable. Same applies between different generations of nvme. File sizes and or games need to get bigger to justify the speed.

    Guess they can sit on laurels now and not need to introduce PCIe 6 for a while... oh wait: https://pcisig.com/pci-express-6.0-specification
    Reply
  • escksu
    Bah, it doesn't matter. Here is yet another limitation. Those seemingly amazing read/write speeds... If you are reading a file at 10GB/s, you need another location that's able to write at same speed too. You only have 1 pcie 5.0 nvme drive. Only the ram can read/write faster than ssd.

    Only 1 ccasion where I could ever utilize full ssd speed.

    1. Transferring huge files from nvme drive to another . Do you do that all day?? Nope!
    Reply
  • jkflipflop98
    escksu said:
    Bah, it doesn't matter. Here is yet another limitation. Those seemingly amazing read/write speeds... If you are reading a file at 10GB/s, you need another location that's able to write at same speed too. You only have 1 pcie 5.0 nvme drive. Only the ram can read/write faster than ssd.

    Only 1 ccasion where I could ever utilize full ssd speed.

    1. Transferring huge files from nvme drive to another . Do you do that all day?? Nope!

    Thankfully, 99% of the time you are indeed writing to the system ram.
    Reply