GIGABYTE Introduces the AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD with Full Body Copper Heatsink
GIGABYTE’s Gen4 SSD Promises High Performance, Improved Thermals
GIGABYTE teased their PCIe Gen4 SSD on Twitter a few days ago, and now we have all of the details of this very fast NVMe device. We had assumed it would be based on the Phison PS5016-E16 controller, and as this is the first available PCIe Gen4 NVMe controller it makes perfect sense, and we have already seen Corsair’s entry into the PCIe Gen4 SSD realm with this controller.
So what makes this AORUS drive stand out? For one thing its appearance, which is not just for show as its fully-body heatsink is made of copper for enhanced heat dissipation – with up to a 69% higher heat transfer capability compared to aluminum heatsinks, according to GIGABYTE.
"The Full Body Copper Heatsink takes into account the heat transfer from key components on both the front and back of the device, the controller, and NAND Flash. Full copper heatsinks have 69% higher heat transfer capacity compared to aluminum heatsinks giving AORUS NVMe Gen 3 SSD the best heat dissipation for read/write performance. Compared with a plated M.2 heat spreader, new efficient copper heat spreaders with 27 fins add more surface area which improve thermal transfer from heating sources to obtain thermal balance sooner."
Specifications and Performance
The heart of the AORUS Gen4 NVMe drive is of course the Phison PS5016-E16, a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 interface controller which offers 8 NAND channels and 32 CE targets, DDR4 RAM caching, LDPC and RAID ECC, supports AES-256 hardware data encryption with TCG OPAL 2.0 and Pyrite support, as well as wear leveling and over-provisioning.
GIGABYTE has opted to implement TOSHIBA’s BiCS4 96-layers 3D TLC NAND, and this SSD can take full advantage of the 800MT/s potential throughput of this high performance flash.
Specifications:
- Interface: PCI-Express 4.0 x4, NVMe 1.3
- Form Factor: M.2 2280
- Total Capacity: 1TB (GP-ASM2NE6100TTTD), 2TB (GP-ASM2NE6200TTTD)
- NAND: 3D TLC Toshiba BiCS4
- External DDR Cache: DDR4 2GB
- Power Consumption (Active): Average: R : 6.5W; W : 6.6W
- Power Consumption (Idle): 21.1mw
- Temperature (Operating): 0°C to 70°C
- Temperature (Storage): -40°C to 85°C
- Wear Leveling, Over-Provision technologies
- TRIM & S.M.A.R.T supported
- Fully Body Copper Heat Spreader
- Dimension (W x H x L): 80.5 x 11.4 x 23.5 mm
- Warranty: Limited 5-years
And what kind of performance can we expect from this AORUS Gen4 NVMe SSD? Apparently the only limit is the full throughput of the controller, with the max sequential 5000 MB/s read, 4400 MB/s write speeds of the PS5016-E16 listed:
Performance:
- Sequential Read speed: Up to 5000 MB/s
- Sequential Write speed: Up to 4400 MB/s
- Random Read IOPS: up to 750k
- Random Write IOPS: up to 700k
GIGABYTE did not announce pricing or availability of the AORUS Gen4 NVMe SSD.
Is it better to just cool the SSD controller and RAM, leaving the NAND to run hotter?
In the past there has been discussion about NAND temps and the usefulness of heatspreaders for that reason. But in this case the heatsink should get warm enough that the NAND will warm up as well, thus performance should theoretically not be impacted.
Interesting read here on NAND temps and endurance:
https://www.eeweb.com/profile/eli-tiomkin/articles/industrial-temperature-and-nand-flash-in-ssd-products
“NAND is subject to two competing factors relative to temperature. At high temperature, programming and erasing a NAND cell is relatively less stressful to its structure, but data retention of a NAND cell suffers. At low temperature, data retention of the NAND cell is enhanced but the relative stress to the cell structure due to program and erase operations increases.”
I see your copper and raise you water
https://slack-files.com/T026Y7VG4-FK22LBAVA-33ce0bbbf1” alt=”TeamGroup T-Force Cardea
and am testing the new comment system to see if I can still embed horribleness
Unfortunately the system did allow that very unsightly post. But I want an M.2 waterblock now anyway.
Thank you for the additional information. I appreciate it.