HardwareStorageSSDsSamsung’s just started producing what is effectively its first proper PCIe 5.0 SSD and it’s faster than any currently on the marketWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
HardwareStorageSSDsSamsung’s just started producing what is effectively its first proper PCIe 5.0 SSD and it’s faster than any currently on the marketWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Samsung)
PCIe 5.0 SSDs haven’t quite taken off yet, especially for PC gaming. But the winds might soon change as Samsung’s just started producing some incredibly fast and supposedly very efficient PCIe 5 SSDs.
Samsung’s PM9E1 (viaTechPowerUp) is said to reach up to a whopping 14.5 GB/s sequential read and 13.5 GB/s sequential write speeds. For reference, its PCIe 4.0 predecessor has read and write speeds of 7 GB/s and 5.1 GB/s, respectively, which is why Samsung claims double the speed for this new one.
Also for reference, most fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs today max out at about 12 GB/s read and 10 GB/s write speeds, and standard ones max out lower than this. The current fastest PCIe 5.0 SSD apart from this new PM9E1 is theCrucial T705, which has the same 14.5 GB/s read speed but a slower 12,700 MB/s write speed.
With this SSD, then, Samsung really will have a claim to creating the industry’s fastest consumer SSD. Which is quite a feat for a company that’s barely stepped foot into the PCIe 5.0 market, currently having just one retailing in the form of the990 Evo.
In fact, we might as well consider the PM9E1 the company’s first PCIe 5.0 SSD, given the 990 Evo isn’t aproperPCIe 5.0 SSD. The 990 Evo runs at 5.0 2x2 speed and this is, for all intents and purposes, the same as running a PCIe 4.0 SSD over 4x4 lanes. The PM9E1, however, should run at true PCIe Gen 5 bandwidth.
The PM9E1 will likely be a more manufacturer-focused drive for OEMs, with those drives going into pre-builts and workstations, while a consumer-focused drive featuring the new Samsung controller will likely follow this with more of a fancy naming scheme.
The thing is, none of this means anything if it’s unattainably expensive or unreasonably hot, which is the main problem with PCIe 5.0 SSDs across the board and why almost all of our recommendations for thebest SSDs for gamingare PCIe 4.0 drives.
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Peak Storage(Image credit: Future)Best SSD for gaming: The best speedy storage today.Best NVMe SSD: Compact M.2 drives.Best external hard drives: Huge capacities for less.Best external SSDs: Plug-in storage upgrades.
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(Image credit: Future)Best SSD for gaming: The best speedy storage today.Best NVMe SSD: Compact M.2 drives.Best external hard drives: Huge capacities for less.Best external SSDs: Plug-in storage upgrades.
(Image credit: Future)
Best SSD for gaming: The best speedy storage today.Best NVMe SSD: Compact M.2 drives.Best external hard drives: Huge capacities for less.Best external SSDs: Plug-in storage upgrades.
On the other hand, the PM9E1 is said to have power efficiency improvements of over 50%, no doubt thanks to its new in-house 5 nm controller. If Samsung kicks the PCIe 5.0 controller game into some semblance of reasonableness—meaning it makes SSDs with controllers that don’t require stacks of active cooling to run—that would be promising. It might even make for PCIe 5.0 SSDs that can fit inside laptops and handhelds.
Perhaps this could signal the start of actually usable PCIe 5.0 SSDs, just in time for the new platforms that can really make use of them. Some x870 motherboards, for example,support up the three Gen 5 SSDs, and Z890 motherboards arerumoured to have more PCIe 5.0 lanesthan you can shake a very long NVMe drive at.
So, whilePCIe 5.0 still isn’t worth it for PC gaming, this Samsung drive might signal that this is beginning to change, meaning PCIe 5.0 drives aren’t worth it right now but soon might be.
Which would make sense, given the new AMD and Intel platforms, not to mention the onset of AI-era computing where NPUs and LLMs might make good use of faster drives. Let’s just hope any general SSD progress rises the gaming tides, too.
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