The era of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs has just begun and the focus is now on high performance drives that push the boundaries. Just this week we reviewed the Crucial T700. It promises sequential read and write speeds of 12,400 MBps and 11,700 MBps respectively, while the 2TB model costs a whopping $339.
Over time, all 5th Gen SSDs will become cheaper, especially as NAND prices drop. But one surefire way to get a Gen 5 SSD at an affordable price is to go with a DRAM-less configuration. There are many PCIe Gen 3 and Gen 4 drives without DRAM, and while they can’t reach the same speeds as more expensive SSDs with DRAM cache, they offer a lot more for their price.
At Computex 2023, Patriot Memory showed a prototype of its DRAM-less Gen 5 SSD, which is still far from launch. A company representative said it could take up to a year for the unnamed drive to hit the market.
We don’t know the speed or specs of the unnamed drive, but we do know it uses a Maxiotek branded controller, and Patriot expects amazing performance. The person in charge said, “We are making great efforts to bring DRAM-less drives closer to DRAM drives.”
Speaking of SSDs with DRAM, Patriot also announced the Viper PV553, a PCIe Gen 5 drive with a full 4GB of DDR4 cache memory in 2TB capacity. The drive uses the Phison E26 controller and fast 2400 MT/s NAND and will be available in 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 GB capacities within the next month.
The PV553 uses an active fan for cooling, but its very thin profile compensates for potential noise. Patriot said it’s still adjusting fan speeds to keep the heatsink plastic from degrading from the heat.
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Designed to compete with the best SSDs, the Patriot PV553 has a sequential read speed of 12,400 MBps and a write speed of 11,800 MBps, which is roughly on par with the T700. This makes sense since we are using the same controller.
The power cable on the unit we had on display was thin and unattractive, but Patriot says it’s black and has a sleeved connector that plugs into the motherboard’s fan header. . An extension cable is also provided if you need to connect the SSD to her PSU.
Pricing for the PV553 hasn’t been announced yet, but we’ll find out soon as it’s due out next month.
