MSI Entering SSD Market with 7,000 MB/s PCIe 4.0 NVMe Drives for Gamers

Tsing

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During yesterday’s Tech for the Future product premiere event, MSI revealed that it would be entering the SSD market with two new gaming SSDs. Both are PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives that leverage TLC flash, offering read speeds of up to 7,000 MB/s and write speeds of up to 6,900 MB/s. They also feature heat sinks stylized with MSI’s dragon badge.



“I’m very excited to introduce MSI’s first Solid-State Drives or SSDs,” said Bryant Lin, MSI Product Manager. “Two of them in fact. Today, more and more games require large and high speed storage to get the best experience. Coming soon, MSI is about to redefine the Gaming SSD.”



“When designing the MSI SSD, speed and quality were our key objectives. Our new Gen4 SSD is built on top of a 10-layer HDI PCB for signal integrity and uses TLC flash with storage up to 4 TB read speeds up to...
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I've actually been hoping more companies would enter the SSD market. Not because innovation isn't there, but in order to increase competition and hopefully drive prices down. SSD's at 2TB and beyond are still absurdly expensive.

I'm not sure that companies like MSI will be able to do that, but its good to see anyway.
 
Nice, not sure I would notice the performance, but it's nice that moving forward, things will get speedier.
 
Dan_D said:
I've actually been hoping more companies would enter the SSD market. Not because innovation isn't there, but in order to increase competition and hopefully drive prices down. SSD's at 2TB and beyond are still absurdly expensive.

I'm not sure that companies like MSI will be able to do that, but its good to see anyway.
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Yeah, more the merrier I guess?

I suspect the main cost driver is Flash manufacturing capacity though, and I highly doubt that MSI is making their own. They are just buying from the same sources all the other integrator are, and attaching tot hem to a controller.
 
Zarathustra said:
Yeah, more the merrier I guess?

I suspect the main cost driver is Flash manufacturing capacity though, and I highly doubt that MSI is making their own. They are just buying from the same sources all the other integrator are, and attaching tot hem to a controller.
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just wait, it will be some sort of gaming branded drive in red and black that comes with an optional and gaudy heatsink. One day, perhaps with RGB lights on it too.
 
Impressive quoted transfer speeds. I wonder how realistic they are.

I bought a Sabrent Rocket 2TB PCIe 4.0 model in December 2019 to go with my Threadripper build. Not normally a brand I would have considered, but at the time people were raving about the Phison E12 controller, and it uses the next gen Phison E16, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Peak sequential transfer speeds are higher than Gen 3 models due to the PCIe Gen 4 interface, but in more real world performance metrics I probably would have been better served by a Gen 3 Samsung 970 EVO Plus.

The Sabrent unit is quoted in their specifications as being able to hit 4800MB/s read and 3600 MB/s write, but who knows if those numbers are accurate. There is always a fudge factor in there based on internal testing in highly favorable circumstances. The MSI unit is a huge increase over that. Then again, I just don't trust manufacturer quoted transfer speeds.

Will be interesting to see where these fall once tested.
 
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There's this new beast as well. The new crown holder of speed.

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Zarathustra said:
Impressive quoted transfer speeds. I wonder how realistic they are.

I bought a Sabrent Rocket 2TB PCIe 4.0 model in December 2019 to go with my Threadripper build. Not normally a brand I would have considered, but at the time people were raving about the Phison E12 controller, and it uses the next gen Phison E16, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Peak sequential transfer speeds are higher than Gen 3 models due to the PCIe Gen 4 interface, but in more real world performance metrics I probably would have been better served by a Gen 3 Samsung 970 EVO Plus.

The Sabrent unit is quoted in their specifications as being able to hit 4800MB/s read and 3600 MB/s write, but who knows if those numbers are accurate. There is always a fudge factor in there based on internal testing in highly favorable circumstances. The MSI unit is a huge increase over that. Then again, I just don't trust manufacturer quoted transfer speeds.

Will be interesting to see where these fall once tested.
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I keep wondering exactly what the hold up with why various things seem unable to take advantage of these new speeds too. I've noticed an improvement with mine as well but like others have said it's not that drastic. Meanwhile, throw it into Diskmark and sure the speeds are there. Seems strange since the change from platter to SATA III SSD seemed to show immediately. I admit I just don't understand what's holding things back here. Really feels like there's a bottleneck happening somewhere, even on very fast rigs.
 
Dan_D said:
I've actually been hoping more companies would enter the SSD market. Not because innovation isn't there, but in order to increase competition and hopefully drive prices down. SSD's at 2TB and beyond are still absurdly expensive.

I'm not sure that companies like MSI will be able to do that, but its good to see anyway.
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Never happen.

Too many typhoons, earthquakes, alien invasions, floods, and random 20 minute power outages for SSDs to be able to get competitive. There are just too few places that manufacture the NAND - everyone else is just slapping their sticker on commodity NAND and one of like 3 or 4 available controllers. That isn’t really competition unless more fabs open up.
 
I might get one.. maybe my x570-a pro will recognize an pcie 4 nvme drive.
 
Zarathustra said:
Why wouldn't it?
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I've been engaged with MSI on this... allow me to tell you what I've gone through...

I recently purchased and installed a Sapphire Nitro+ 6800xt video card. GREAT.

But with that card in the m.2 slot's native to the motherboard do not work. First nor second. At least with a PCIE 3.0x4 drive. I tried adjusting PCIE modes, when I swapped back to my 2080 it worked fine. So SOMETHING is forcing those bus paths to PCIE 4 even if I set them differently.

Thankfully I was able to get a NVME riser card (pcie card) and install my drive in that and the system will function.

Even opened a case and have tried a beta bios from MSI to no avail. Awaiting next steps at this time.

Part of me hopes if I put in an NVME PCIE 4.0x4 drive it will work. I kind of want MSI to send me one to test since they are making them now.
 
Grimlakin said:
I've been engaged with MSI on this... allow me to tell you what I've gone through...

I recently purchased and installed a Sapphire Nitro+ 6800xt video card. GREAT.

But with that card in the m.2 slot's native to the motherboard do not work. First nor second. At least with a PCIE 3.0x4 drive. I tried adjusting PCIE modes, when I swapped back to my 2080 it worked fine. So SOMETHING is forcing those bus paths to PCIE 4 even if I set them differently.

Thankfully I was able to get a NVME riser card (pcie card) and install my drive in that and the system will function.

Even opened a case and have tried a beta bios from MSI to no avail. Awaiting next steps at this time.

Part of me hopes if I put in an NVME PCIE 4.0x4 drive it will work. I kind of want MSI to send me one to test since they are making them now.
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That is strange.

I don't have much experience with PCIe Gen 4 yet, thus far the only conpatible device I own is my Sabrent Rocket NVME SSD, but evryy time I have used it it had just worked in the proper Gen 4 mode.

That had been limited to the Gigabyte TRX40 Aorus Master and the Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha though.
 
Grimlakin said:
But with that card in the m.2 slot's native to the motherboard do not work. First nor second. At least with a PCIE 3.0x4 drive. I tried adjusting PCIE modes, when I swapped back to my 2080 it worked fine. So SOMETHING is forcing those bus paths to PCIE 4 even if I set them differently.
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Ouch.

On the board I'm using right now, I can only use two of the six native SATA ports if I use all of the NVMe slots. All PCIe 3.0 on this platform, and I have all three NVMe slots and both working SATA ports filled.

At this point I'm looking forward to the next HEDT releases. I also have a 10Gbit ethernet card (got tired of issues I was having with the onboard Aquantia, so got an Intel card), and at least one USB card.
 
LazyGamer said:
Ouch.

On the board I'm using right now, I can only use two of the six native SATA ports if I use all of the NVMe slots. All PCIe 3.0 on this platform, and I have all three NVMe slots and both working SATA ports filled.

At this point I'm looking forward to the next HEDT releases. I also have a 10Gbit ethernet card (got tired of issues I was having with the onboard Aquantia, so got an Intel card), and at least one USB card.
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My board has five total 4x Gen 4 NVME slots. Three on the board itself, and one on an Asus proprietary riser up near the RAM that looks like a DIMM slot.

Of the three on the board, one of them switches lanes with the SATA ports. I forget exactly how.

<reading manual>

Alright, on my board, if the second on board M.2 slot is used in PCIe mode, the second 16x PCIe slot (normally in 8x mode) is downgraded to 4x mode.

If the third on board M.2 slot is used in PCIe x4 mode, SATA6G E1-E4 are disabled. That still leaves 4 SATA slots though.

Not a big deal to me though. I haven't used a SATA drive in my desktop in 5+ years. I'd rather they do away with the SATA controller all together and give me some PCIe lanes back. Heck, I have all on board features of my board, except the USB controller, disabled.

  • SATA: Disabled
  • On board Gigabit Intel Ethernet: Disabled
  • On Board Aquantia 10G Copper Ethernet: Disabled
  • On Board Wifi: Disabled
  • Bluetooth: Disabled
  • On Board Audio (Some Asus Sabre implementation): Disabled
  • On Board RGB Christmastree lights: Disabled


I don't use that ****. I'd prefer a barebones board that maximizes the number of available PCIe slots available instead and gives me full control over what I want to use. I hate on board features. Give me a board that has only the chipset USB ports on it, and redirects all other PCIe lanes to slots, and I will buy it.

I also don't use any of the software bundled with the board. I don't want some Asus ROG apps assaulting me every time I boot, and secretly monitoring everything I do. It's bad enough I get assaulted with the embarrassing "Republic of Gamers" logo every time the monitor turns on or I go through POST.

I bought my Threadripper because I wanted a subtle professional workstation, not some childish "gamer" light show.
 
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