Gigabyte has just launched the fastest SSD on the planet in the form of the Aorus Gen4 AIC 2 TB and 8 TB, with read/write speeds of up to 15,000 MB/s (15 GB/s). Technically speaking, these are a set of SSDs installed on an add-in card (AIC), but the system detects it as a single drive. For the 2 TB drive, you are basically getting 4x 500 GB NVMe SSDs installed on the AIC while the 8 TB variant consists of 4 x 2 TB drives.
Gigabyte is pairing these drives with Phison’s new PS5016-E16 controller as well as a cooling fan to keep the drives functional. For the 2 TB drive, the read speeds are a full 15 GB/s while the writes are limited to 9.5 GB/s. The 8 TB variant features 15 GB/s for both reads and writes. Here are the basic specifications:
- Form Factor: PCl Express Card
- Interface: PCI-Express 4.0 x16, NVMe 1.3
- Total Capacity: 8,000GB
- Seq. Read Speed: up to 15,000MB/s
- Seq. Write Speed: up to 15,000MB/s
- Warranty: Limited 5-years
Keep in mind that unlike normal NVMe drives, this AIC SSD will leverage all the PCIe lanes on your motherboard to achieve the 15 GB/s target, and that means your GPU and SSD will be competing for resources and it’s unlikely you’ll get the actual rated speeds all the times.
There’s no word on pricing or availability, but considering the earlier models, they’ll sure cost a fortune. If you are looking for a fast single-M.2 slot SSD, Sabrent has some good options:
