PCIe 5.0 is coming

When Intel released the Core 12, it also officially brought PCIe 5.0 to the PC.

However, this high-speed interface is still relatively embarrassing, that is, there are very few devices, including mainstream graphics cards, and all PCIe 4.0... The most promising NVme solid-state drive for large-scale application has not had much sound. , fortunately now there is finally a product.

PCIe 5.0 solid state already

At this year's CES, Samsung officially announced a PCIe 5.0 SSD with a capacity of up to 8T. However, this pioneering product in the industry is not for home use. The high price and special interface determine that it will only be applied to high-end servers and workstations.

Its performance is 13000MBPS for reading, 6500MBPS for writing, and 2500K iops for random performance. It can be said that it is almost double the current SSD ratio.

The high-speed solid-state drives we can currently buy are all PCIe 4.0 products. Currently, the advanced products on the market are generally characterized by reading about 7000MBPS, writing more than 5000MBPS, and random reading and writing 1000Kiops.

In theory, the solid state of PCIe 5.0 should improve performance, but civilian products should be slightly different than those used in servers.

Only Samsung and Corsair have news

Not long ago, news from South Korea showed that Samsung registered the 990pro, and the official social media of Samsung Semiconductor also showed that the "Champion Maker" is on the way to be released soon. However, there is no reliable information on how the Samsung 990pro performs.

Coincidentally, Corsair has also released PCIe 5.0 solid-state drives. Corsair's products have pictures and performance. The solid state drive of the corsair in the picture reads 10000MBPS and writes 9500MBPS! And you can see that the solid state drive comes with a large heat sink...

Confusion about solid state drives

Now there are not many M.2 interfaces. For example, many motherboards actually have only one, which determines that many people buy solid-state drives, which are generally used as "system disks", which makes 512GB-1TB products more popular.

PCIe 4.0 2T has only recently become cheaper, and more than 1,000 yuan is still acceptable, but high-end products, such as Samsung's 980Pro or Western Digital's SN850, are still priced at more than 2,000 yuan all year round.

But not long ago, the news showed that the manufacturing process of NAND has been improved again, and it can reach 232 layers, which means that the capacity of a single chip can be larger. Now it is a pity that the capacity of solid-state is generally capped at 2T, and the PCIe slot is used. The price of high-capacity products is also touching, even if it is DIY, the interface card is not cheap.

But we seem to be able to see some clues, and that is the current predicament of high-speed solid-state. For example, products that expand the capacity of PS5, whether it is Samsung or Western Digital, generally come with a heat dissipation vest... Maybe the heat dissipation of PS5 is really not as good as that of PC.

Corsair's PCIe 5.0 SSD comes with a vest, which may also indicate that this generation of products should have their own heat dissipation. The more layers the higher the temperature, there seems to be no good way to avoid it.

Products with a lot of space such as PC and PS5 are actually fine, but notebooks and gaming notebooks are different, especially office products with long battery life. Originally, the power of the entire system is 65W enough. PCIe 5.0 may be the overall power consumption of solid state. higher.

Moore's Law still exists. Our prediction is that when PCIe 5.0 solid-state is common and mass-marketed, perhaps common products will increase the capacity to 4T, although the price is more expensive than the current 2T products.

But the cost per terabyte should drop, which is an irreversible law of the semiconductor industry and our expectation of speed.