Enthusiasts with some of the latest and greatest PC hardware (e.g., 12th Gen Intel Core processors) will be able to move files around faster than ever thanks to the availability of new NVMe SSDs that leverage the next-generation PCIe 5.0 standard for blazing-fast speeds in just a few years. That’s according to storage company Silicon Motion, which revealed in a recent earnings call that its first PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers for consumer SSDs are slated for release in 2024. Silicon Motion’s SM2508 controller enables read speeds of up to 14 GB/s and write speeds of up to 12 GB/s, around double the speeds of modern PCIe 4.0 solutions.
PCIe 5.0 SSDs promising up to 14GB/s of bandwidth will be ready in 2024 (Ars Technica)
- Other reports have suggested that these PCIe 5.0 consumer SSDs are coming later in 2022, but according to the call transcript, that only applies to the latest version of Silicon Motion’s PCIe 5.0 controller for enterprise SSDs—the products that end up in servers and data centers, not what typically ends up in the PC on your desk or lap.
- For 2022 and 2023, Silicon Motion will continue to focus on those PCIe 4.0 SSDs.
- Silicon Motion also says that PCIe 4.0 SSDs have only become common in pre-built PCs within the last year because of “extensive verification and testing” requirements.
Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (SIMO) CEO Wallace Kou on Q4 2021 Results – Earnings Call Transcript (Seeking Alpha)
- It is likely that PCIe Gen4 will last a few years since Intel, AMD both continue to bring new upgrade variant of CPU with PCIe Gen4 to the market.
- Similarly, we are preparing for the launch of our third-generation PCIe Gen4 controller next year before transitioning to PCIe Gen5 in the following year.
- We are going to sampling our PCIe Gen5 enterprise controller in the second half of this year. It will be production in second half of next year 2023.