Who would have thought that Gigabyte - who don't manufacture controllers, nor memory - would be the first company to tease a PCIe 4.0-based M.2 SSD. In a blog post on its website that serves as a warm-up for the upcoming Computex, the company says that they'll be announcing the world's first PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD - with speeds up to 5000 MB/s at "low temperatures" - I guess that means that thermal throttling will become much more common with these new SSDs.

Any other details are currently unknown; however (and we're just speculating here), we know that Phison was preparing a PCIe 4.0 NVMe controller in the form of the E16. At the time (back in January of 2019), Phison paired their E16 controller with Micron's 96-layer TLC flash, but improvements in controller development as well as changes in the flash memory used could have brought up their - then - performance figures of expected 4.8/4.4 GB/s of read/write throughput on Toshiba's BiCS 4 flash. We'll just have to wait for Computex and see, but oh my - new PCIe 4.0 SSDs, new up-to 16-core CPUs on the 7 nm process, new 7 nm GPUs... Isn't this a great time to be a PC enthusiast? Read after the break for the rest of Gigabyte's Computex tease.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today announces that launch of the XPG SPECTRIX S40G RGB gaming SSD. With sustained read/write speeds of up to 3500/3000MB per second, customizable RGB lighting, and a slew of performance enhancing features, the XPG SPECTRIX S40G is a no brainer for those seeking amazing performance and exceptional reliability.

The S40G supports the NVMe standard and utilizes the high-speed PCIe Gen3 x4 interface to let users enjoy sustained read/write speeds of up to 3500/3000 MB per second. What's more, sporting next-generation 3D Flash memory it offers a leap forward in capacity, efficiency, and durability. Also with the M.2 2280 specification, it supports the latest Intel and AMD platforms. These capabilities make the S40G ideally suited for gamers, PC enthusiasts, overclockers, and graphics professionals. User can customize the SSD's look with programmable RGB lighting effects. They can set up patterns, pulse speed, lighting intensity, and more. Control is a snap with XPG's RGB control software.

AMD X570 is the company's first in-house design socket AM4 motherboard chipset, with the X370 and X470 chipsets being originally designed by ASMedia. With the X570, AMD hopes to leverage new PCI-Express gen 4.0 connectivity of its Ryzen 3000 Zen2 "Matisse" processors. The desktop platform that combines a Ryzen 3000 series processor with X570 chipset is codenamed "Valhalla." A rough platform diagram like what you'd find in motherboard manuals surfaced on ChipHell, confirming several features. To maintain pin-compatibility with older generations of Ryzen processors, Ryzen 3000 has the same exact connectivity from the SoC except two key differences.

On the AM4 "Valhalla" platform, the SoC puts out a total of 28 PCI-Express gen 4.0 lanes. 16 of these are allocated to PEG (PCI-Express graphics), configurable through external switches and redrivers either as single x16, or two x8 slots. Besides 16 PEG lanes, 4 lanes are allocated to one M.2 NVMe slot. The remaining 4 lanes serve as the chipset bus. With X570 being rumored to support gen 4.0 at least upstream, the chipset bus bandwidth is expected to double to 64 Gbps. Since it's an SoC, the socket is also wired to LPCIO (SuperIO controller). The processor's integrated southbridge puts out two SATA 6 Gbps ports, one of which is switchable to the first M.2 slot; and four 5 Gbps USB 3.x ports. It also has an "Azalia" HD audio bus, so the motherboard's audio solution is directly wired to the SoC. Things get very interesting with the connectivity put out by the X570 chipset.Update May 21st: There is also information on the X570 chipset's TDP.
Update May 23rd: HKEPC posted what looks like an official AMD slide with a nicer-looking platform map. It confirms that AMD is going full-tilt with PCIe gen 4, both as chipset bus, and as downstream PCIe connectivity.

Mushkin Enhanced MFG - An industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and high-reliability computer products, is excited to announce global availability of its much-anticipated Helix-L PCIe m.2 SSD (Solid State Drive) originally announced at CES 2019 and has available capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB.

Built using the latest Silicon Motion SM2263XT PCIe Gen 3 x 4 NVMe controller to generate super-fast sequential Read and Write speeds. The Helix-L offers extreme storage performance and capacities in a M.2 2280 form factor, fitting directly into a motherboard or notebook. Employing the ultra-high-speed PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 interface for maximum bandwidth, the Helix-L leaves traditional SATA III and even previous generation M.2 SSDs in the rearview. Loading everything from large video and image files to games, applications or the operating system faster than ever before.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced KC2000, its next generation M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD for enterprise and power users. Kingston's KC2000 NVMe PCIe SSD delivers powerful performance using the latest Gen 3.0 x 4 controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND. Offering superior read and write speeds up to 3,200 and 2,200MB/s, respectively, KC2000 delivers outstanding performance and endurance, and improves workflow in desktop, workstations and high-performance computing (HPC) systems.

KC2000 is a self-encrypting drive that supports end-to-end data protection using 256-bit AES Hardware-based encryption and allows the usage of independent software vendors with TCG Opal 2.0 security management solutions such as Symantec , McAfee , WinMagic and others. KC2000 also has built-in Microsoft eDrive support, a security storage specification for use with BitLocker.

ZOTAC Technology, a global manufacturer of innovation, today introduced the more capable ZBOX Q Series Mini Creator PC featuring the advanced NVIDIA Quadro GPU and powerful workstation focused Intel Xeon processor. The new addition to the ZBOX Q Series leverages the ZBOX Mini PC's sleek and minimal design without compromising the powerful hardware components inside. From stunning industrial design and advanced special effects, to complex scientific visualization and sophisticated data modeling, to creating and editing images and videos, the ZBOX Q Series enables limitless creations.

The new ZBOX Q Series features the industry certified NVIDIA Quadro with up to 16GB GDDR5 memory. It's a tested and certified fully compatible hardware on many major professional design applications. The new Q Series models come equipped with an Intel Xeon processor to deliver fast and responsive performance.

Klevv today announced the launch of the CRAS C700 RGB NVMe M.2 SSD, which dials RGB goodness up to at least 12. The new SSD makes use of the PCIe 3.0 4x interface through the NVMe 1.3 protocol, enabling up to read 1500MB/s read and 1300MB/s write speeds. Klevv have made this SSD available in 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB capacities. There's SLC caching on-board, which means performance will certainly be slower in more data-heavy operations, in the event that the SLC cache overflows. The RGB goodness is distributed through 8 individually-addressable LEDs behind a gem-like diffuser, which provides an even glow that's programmable through most motherboard RGB control software.

Klevv also announced that the CRAS C700 RGB NVMe M.2 SSD makes use of 10-layer PCB for "better data integrity", as well as a 27% reduction in operating temperatures for the SD due to KLEVV's heatsink design. An unannounced feature for the RGB power in these SSDs is the ability to illuminate even Game of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 3 from inside your PC case.

A report from technology market analyst Trendforce places SSD's pricing in sharp decline, with price per GB being projected to hit as low as $0.1 by year's end. Citing oversupply in the NADN flash market and an impending price war to allow manufacturers to sell out accumulating inventory, this is one of those clear cases of a win for consumers - which, after the shenanigans in the DRAM market, is about time. Trendforce further states that the price reductions should render 128 GB SSDs obsolete, as they mostly are by now, with 512 GB capacities becoming the mainstream choice for system integrators and DIY.

Pricing evolution in the market also places premium NVMe solutions at an only 6% premium over SATA offerings, showcasing the increased cost savings that manufacturers have achieved with the reduction in price for NVMe controllers, and the lower amount of physical materials needed to put an NVMe SSD together compared to a SATA-based alternative. Furthermore, Trendforce says that value PCIe-based solutions have a 0% price difference compared to SATA-based ones, so the option for the older form factor should only fall upon how many NVMe/PCIe sockets users' motherboards have available to populate.

Even as Intel banks on 10 nm "Ice Lake" to pull it out of the 14 nm dark ages, the company is designing a fascinating new monolithic processor SoC die that succeeds it. Codenamed "Tiger Lake," and slated to debut in 2020, this die packs "Willow Cove" CPU cores and an iGPU based on Intel's Xe architecture, not Gen11. "Willow Cove" CPU cores are more advanced than the "Sunny Cove" cores "Ice Lake" packs, featuring a redesigned on-die cache, additional security features, and transistor optimization yielded from the newer 10 nm+ silicon fabrication process.

Intel is already boasting of 1 TFLOP/s compute power of the Gen11 iGPU on "Ice Lake," so it's logical to predict that the Xe based iGPU will be significantly faster. It will also support the latest display standards. The "next-gen I/O" referenced by Intel could be faster NVMe, Thunderbolt, and USB standards that leverage the bandwidth doubling brought about by PCI-Express gen 4.0. Here's the catch: much like "Ice Lake," the new "Tiger Lake" chip will get a mobile debut as Tiger Lake-Y or Tiger Lake-U, and desktop processors could follow later, possibly even 2021, depending on how much pressure it faces from AMD.

PNY today rolled out the XLR8 CS3030 line of high-end SSDs in the M.2-2280 form-factor. Featuring M.2 PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, the drives take advantage of the NVMe 1.3 protocol. The company didn't mention which controller it is using, but that it's mated to 3D TLC NAND flash. Available in capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB, the XLR8 CS3030 has among the highest on-paper maximum sequential-read numbers, at up to 3,500 MB/s. The 250 GB variant writes at up to 1,050 MB/s, the 500 GB variant at up to 2,000 MB/s, and the 1 TB variant up to 3,000 MB/s. Endurance of the three variants is rated at 380 TBW, 800 TBW, and 1,650 TBW, respectively. The company did not put out random-access numbers. Available now, the XLR8 CS3030 series SSDs are backed by a 5-year warranty.

Update: April 29, 2019: A representative on behalf of Samsung contacted us to let us know that the company has not released a 2 TB version of the 970 Pro, and has no current plans to do so either. It appears that the retail leaks were not accurate after all. The original story is below for records.

A year after it has introduced the first versions of its 970 Pro NVMe SSD, Samsung is finally updating its lineup with a 2 TB SKU. Previous generation models always saw a 2 TB solution being made available, so the absence of such a model in the 970 Pro series was a bit amiss.

Two webshops (one German, one Chinese) have already listed the part with its own SKU number, so it really is incoming to the worldwide market. If you're looking for a solid storage option that replaces a hard-drive in terms of storage density, this could be the one for you. A price around the €940 mark is likely to be close to the actual number.

Micron Technology, Inc., today unveiled its new series of flagship solid-state drives (SSDs) featuring the NVM Express (NVMe) protocol, bringing industry-leading storage performance at higher capacities to cloud and enterprise computing markets. The Micron 9300 series of NVMe SSDs enables companies with data-intensive applications to access and process data faster, helping reduce response time.

"The introduction of our third generation of NVMe SSDs endorses our tradition of continued innovation for cloud and enterprise markets," said Derek Dicker, corporate vice president and general manager for Micron's Storage Business Unit. "The Micron 9300 is our flagship series of NVMe SSDs, which feature industry-leading sequential write performance and latency, increased capacities, and delivery of a 28% reduction in power over the previous generation."

If you aim for the top, don't skimp on your SSD drives! Check out Apacer's brand-new AS2880P4 M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD, which boasts stronger-than-ever performance at reasonable price. This SSD now brings reading/writing speeds of 3,200/2,000MB/sec and 360,000 operations per second (IOPS) within easy reach of eSports players! NVMe1.3-compliant, the AS2880P4 uses the latest 3D NAND TLC technology to make it an ultra-compact, high-capacity that frees up space for you to further modify and expand your gaming devices. Its max capacity of 480GB makes it perfect for hardcore eSports players, post-production CAD 3D modeling designers, and users demanding high speed and high capacity.

The M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 is definitely the top choice for high performance demands in ultra-thin notebooks, high-power computers, e-sports consoles, mini-PCs, and embedded devices. As a trend-defining SSD brand, Apacer has led the global market with its groundbreaking PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe 1.3 SSD and is now writing history again with its successor, the brand-new AS2280P4.

Optane Persistent Memory is being touted by Intel as the "hottest" storage medium between DRAM and NVMe SSDs in the short-term, and a successor to DRAM-based memory in the long-term, aided by its ability to hold data even in the absence of power. The company's latest Xeon Scalable "Cascade Lake" processors support Optane Persistent Memory, allowing data-centers to cram larger amounts of data accessible at DRAM-like speeds, even if at much higher latencies. It remains significantly faster than NVMe SSDs. Component retails began listing 512 GB modules of the Optane Persistent Memory, and its prices are nothing like your 512 GB NVMe SSD. CompSource lists the 512 GB module (model: NMA1XXD512GPSU4) for a whopping USD $7,816, although the product is out of stock.

GIGABYTE today rolled out the Aorus RGB AIC NVMe SSD series. Built in the full-height single-slot AIC form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, the card combines a Phison PS5012-E12 NVMe 1.3 controller with Toshiba BiCS3 TLC NAND flash, and comes in capacities of 512 GB and 1 TB, which are equipped with 512 MB and 1 GB of DRAM cache, respectively. The 1 TB variant offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 3,480 MB/s reads, with up to 3,080 MB/s writes; up to 610,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 530,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The 512 GB variant, on the other hand, gives you up to 3,480 MB/s sequential reads, up to 2,100 MB/s sequential writes; up to 360,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 510,000 IOPS random writes.

GIGABYTE deployed a passive cooling system, consisting of a thermal pad that makes contact with the controller, NAND flash chips, and DRAM chips on one side, and on the other side the card's top aluminium shroud that doubles up as a heatspreader. There's an equally thick aluminium back-plate which holds the card's acrylic RGB LED diffuser that runs along the top edge. You use GIGABYTE RGB Fusion software to control the lighting on this card. Both cards are backed by 5-year warranties, provided the card stays below their rated endurance of 800 TBW for the 512 GB model, and 1600 TBW for the 1 TB model. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Targeting to expand the capacity of our consumers' storage devices, Team Group today releases three new FLASH products. They are the MP34 M.2 solid state drive with PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 high speed interface and the latest NVMe 1.3 protocol, the ELITE A1 high-speed memory card which is specially made for ANDROID devices and 4K video recording, the C188 high-speed flash drive with elegant design and up to 130 MB/s of read/write speed. These products allow consumers to upgrade their PC or mobile devices at ease.

Today, Team Group releases the M.2 solid state drive MP34 that uses PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 high-speed interface and the latest NVMe 1.3 protocol. Connecting to the built-in controller of the chipset and processor through PCI-e bus provides transfer signal without any lag. The transfer performance is remarkable. The transfer speed of MP34 is up to 3000 MB/s, which is 5 times* higher than the SATA III interface. It supports S.M.A.R.T and has built-in smart algorithm, Wear-Leveling technology and Error Correction Code. In addition to bring the SSD to its maximum performance and prolong the service life, it also supports both Intel and AMD platforms. Whether it is installed on a desktop or a laptop, it will offer consumer the finest and smoothest gaming experience.

High-end M.2 NVMe SSDs are beginning to come with integrated heatsinks as overheating controllers impact sustained performance. The latest such drive is a new edition of the Hall of Fame (HOF) M.2 PCIe series from Galaxy, which come with a chunky aluminium heatsink, only this one isn't just another hunk of metal. This heatsink uses a flattened copper heat pipe to pull heat from the drive's hot components and spread it evenly along both sides of the aluminium block. The heat pipe makes direct contact with the drive's Phison PS5012-E12 8-channel controller and Toshiba-made 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash chips.

The heatsink wraps around sideways of the drive and so it may not be a perfect fit for NVMe RAID cards with multiple M.2 slots side-by-side, although for most applications, such as the M.2 slot on the motherboard, the design could click. The drive comes in capacities of 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. All three models offer sequential read speeds of up to 3400 MB/s. The 1 TB and 2 TB models write at up to 2800 MB/s, while the 512 GB writes at up to 2000 MB/s. 4K random access performance of the 2 TB and 1 TB models are rated at up to 400,000 IOPS reads with up to 600,000 IOPS writes; and up to 400,000 IOPS reads with up to 540,000 IOPS writes for the 512 GB model. The drive is initially being launched in China, and could make its way to western markets under the Galax and KFA2 brands later this year.

VIPER GAMING, a trademarked brand of PATRIOT and a global leader in performance memory, solid state drives and flash storage solutions, today announced the release of its ultra-performance Viper VPN100 PCIe m.2 SSD (Solid State Drive) and has available capacities up to 2TB . The VPN100 is built using the latest Phison E12 PCIe Gen 3 x 4 NVMe controller to generate super-fast sequential Read and Write speeds. The VPN100 has been developed with a built-in aluminum heatshield with 6 single thermal fins to provide splendid heat dissipation under fierce PC workload.

The quality build GPU and CPU are needed to get the most from a modern gaming PC. While the latest games are putting a significant demand on storage, a faster SSD indeed ensures smooth gameplay and faster data transfer. Read and Write speeds are critical metrics for computer performances, especially when directly booting up to a 4k video editing workload. The VPN100 delivers the perfect combination across ultimate performances, ultra-fast speeds, and enhanced multi-tasking capabilities. Blasting transfer speeds allow gamers to access their games and get back into the game much faster while accelerating the overall responsiveness of your system. 5 times faster than traditional SATA SSDs speeds, the VPN100 is a top-of-the-line reliability SSD for hardcore gamers, PC enthusiasts, content creators, and video rendering professionals who are looking into blazingly fast startup times and instantaneous access for better productivity.

Micron has curiously been releasing client-segment SSDs these recent weeks. The company's main brand was focused on enterprise products, while subsidiary brands Crucial and Ballistix catered to the client-segment. Following up on its late-February launch of the 1300-series client-segment SSDs, Micron unveiled the even faster 2200-series. These drives ditch Silicon Motion-sourced controllers in favor of a new controller Micron designed in-house. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, taking advantage of the NVMe protocol. This in-house controller is mated with Micron's 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash, cushioned by its own LPDDR4 DRAM cache.

Available in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, the Micron 2200 is rated to offer sequential transfer rates of up to 3000 MB/s reads, with up to 1600 MB/s writes, up to 240,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 210,000 IOPS 4K random writes, with an endurance rating of 75 TB, 150 TB, and 300 TB, for the 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB variants, respectively. Micron-exclusive features also make their way, such as native power-loss data-protection, and TCG Opal SED. The company hasn't revealed pricing or availability for these drives.

Western Digital Corp., a global data infrastructure leader, is accelerating the NVMe transition of value-PC storage by adding an NVMe model to its award-winning WD Blue solid state drive (SSD) portfolio, the WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD. The new SSD delivers three times the performance of its SATA counterpart while maintaining the reliability the WD Blue product line is known for. For content creators and PC enthusiasts, the WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD is optimized for multitasking and resource-heavy applications, providing near-instant access to files and programs.

Leveraging the scalable in-house SSD architecture of the highly acclaimed WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD, the new WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD is also built on Western Digital's own 3D NAND technology, firmware and controller, and delivers sequential read and write speeds up to 1,700 MB/s and 1,450 MB/s respectively (for 500 GB model) with efficient power consumption as low as 2.7W. Demands on storage are continuing to grow and client workloads are evolving, the WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD features high sustained write performance over SATA as well as other emerging technologies on the market today to give that performance edge.

Toshiba Memory America, Inc. the U.S.-based subsidiary of Toshiba Memory Corporation, announced availability of its XD5 Series NVMe SSD platform in a 2.5-inch, 7 mm low-profile form factor that is optimized for low-latency and performance consistency in read-intensive workloads. Developed for both data center and cloud environments, the new 2.5-inch form factor XD5 Series is ideal for NoSQL databases, large-scale-out data mining and analysis, and streaming applications. The XD5 Series is also well-suited for Open Compute Project (OCP) applications and systems.

Built on 64-layer BiCS FLASH TLC (3-bit-per-cell) 3D flash memory, and featuring a PCIe Gen 3 x4 interface, the new XD5 SSD 2.5-inch option delivers sequential read performance up to 2,700 megabytes per second (MB/s) and sequential write performance up to 895 MB/s with low active power consumption of 7 watts. At one drive write per day (DWPD), the XD5 Series can write nearly 4 terabytes (TB) of random data daily for five years at a consistent performance rate. Random read/write performance is specified at 250,000/21,000 Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) respectively, making the XD5 Series a predictable and reliable solution for read-intensive or heavy transactional workloads.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today officially launched the TS-2888X, an AI-Ready NAS specifically optimized for AI model training. Built using powerful Intel Xeon W processors with up to 18 cores and employing a flash-optimized hybrid storage architecture for IOPS-intensive workloads, the TS-2888X also supports installing up to 4 high-end graphics cards and runs QNAP's AI developer package " QuAI". The TS-2888X packs everything required for machine learning AI, greatly reducing latency, accelerating data transfer, and eliminating performance bottlenecks caused by network connectivity to expedite AI implementation.

Western Digital Corp. today announced two new additions to its broad portfolio of NVMe-based systems, platforms, SSDs, and memory drives for data center and cloud customers. With a full portfolio covering applications from edge-to-core, these additions are the Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN630 NVMe SSD and the Western Digital CL SN720 NVMe SSD. Each leverages the power of Western Digital's vertical integration capabilities, including internally developed controller and firmware architectures, and 64-layer 3D NAND technology. As a replacement for lower-performing SATA SSDs, these new NVMe drives meet the insatiable need for performance, scalability, endurance and low total cost of ownership (TCO) for public and private cloud deployments, hyperscale cloud environments, and next-generation workloads at the edge.

IT managers face challenges such as managing multiple workload types, scaling at optimal TCO, and controlling server sprawl. Due to its inherent scalability and performance benefits, NVMe is quickly becoming the de facto standard for everything from traditional scale-up database applications to emerging edge computing architectures.

The SD Association announced today microSD Express, offering the popular PCI Express and NVMe interfaces alongside the legacy microSD interface for backwards compatibility. Like SD Express, microSD Express uses the PCIe interface delivering a 985 megabytes per second (MB/s) maximum data transfer rate and the NVMe upper layer protocol enables advanced memory access mechanism, enabling a new world of opportunities for mobile devices.

microSD Express cards defined in the SD 7.1 specification will be offered in a variety of capacities such as microSDHC Express, microSDXC Express and microSDUC Express. "microSD Express gives the mobile industry a compelling new choice to equip mobile devices with removable SSDs," said Hiroyuki Sakamoto, SDA president. "SD 7.1 prepares consumers and mobile device manufacturers to meet ever increasing storage demands for years to come."

EK Water Blocks, the premium computer cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing a passive heatsink for the M.2 version of the Intel Optane 905P NVMe SSD. The passive heatsink ensures lower operating temperatures which expands the lifespan and improves the sustained performance of the drive. It ensures that the Intel Optane 905P NVMe SSD operates at its maximum possible performance by preventing thermal throttling during heavy workload cycles.

The 905P Intel Optane Drive uses around 9.35 W of power under load, which is challenging to dissipate without a dedicated cooling solution like the EK-M.2 Intel Optane Heatsink. The cooling performance of this solution by EK is achieved via thermal pads that transfer heat to the aluminum heatsink that is finned for a larger dissipation area. The design of the heatsink ensures that it is easy to install, it is low profile, easily reusable and aesthetically not intrusive.