News Silicon Motion's PCIe 5.0 SSD Controller is Reportedly Faster and Draws 30% Less Power Than Phison's E26

[Admin]

Silicon Motion shares more information on the SM2508 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller at Memory Trend Seminar 2023.

Silicon Motion's PCIe 5.0 SSD Controller is Reportedly Faster and Draws 30% Less Power Than Phison's E26 : Read more

 

[Order 66]

Pretty soon, water cooling our SSDs will be a necessity if we don't get more efficient controllers like this one.

 

[cyrusfox]

Pretty soon, water cooling our SSDs will be a necessity if we don't get more efficient controllers like this one.

As this is 30% more efficient than the other PCIE gen 5 controller on the market, this actually means we will see much better power/performance.

Also highest power draw is only 15W. a passive heat sink is more than sufficient, WC is Overkill

 

[USAFRet]

"30% less" can be misleading.

30% less than 50 watts is significant.
30% less than 5 watts (as seems to be the case here)....not so much.

5W -> 3.5W does not really matter to your PSU or cooling situation.

 

[williamcll]

"30% less" can be misleading.

30% less than 50 watts is significant.
30% less than 5 watts (as seems to be the case here)....not so much.

5W -> 3.5W does not really matter to your PSU or cooling situation.

Pretty important for laptops when every watt matters.

 

[bit_user]

"30% less" can be misleading.

30% less than 50 watts is significant.
30% less than 5 watts (as seems to be the case here)....not so much.

5W -> 3.5W does not really matter to your PSU or cooling situation.

In an era when fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs need bulky heatsinks and active cooling to avoid throtting, 30% is definitely significant. Even if it's a max of 1.5W savings, that's still significant even for a drive using 10 W. It could mean the difference between throttling or not. It could mean using a cheaper, passive heatsink (or an even smaller active one).

Heat also shortens the life of NAND. So, there's that benefit, as well.

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, I get that.
Its just that 30% sounds soooo dramatic.

 

[dolfinator]

Those BSOD-colored slides tho...

 

[Order 66]

As this is 30% more efficient than the other PCIE gen 5 controller on the market, this actually means we will see much better power/performance.

Also highest power draw is only 15W. a passive heat sink is more than sufficient, WC is Overkill

That is true right now, but if future (PCIE gen 6+) drives get faster (which they will) they will probably require more power until a more efficient controller comes out for those drives, meaning that WC may be necessary in the future. My point is that the trend has been somewhat worrying, we went from not needing any cooling (or very little) for PCIe 3 and 4 drives to now needing active cooling for some PCIe 5 drives.

 

[bit_user]

That is true right now, but if future (PCIE gen 6+) drives get faster (which they will) they will probably require more power until a more efficient controller comes out for those drives,

I don't foresee PCIe 6.0 coming to consumer platforms any time soon. Although it doesn't increase the clock frequency, it does require a higher signal-to-noise ratio, which increases board costs.

IMO, we're likely to see CXL first. If & when that happens, maybe client devices will eventually get PCIe 6.0 / CXL 3.0, which share the same PHY standard. That's a long ways off - I think the next generation of server CPUs don't even have those technologies, yet.

My point is that the trend has been somewhat worrying, we went from not needing any cooling (or very little) for PCIe 3 and 4 drives to now needing active cooling for some PCIe 5 drives.

Yes, it's not a good trend. However, SSD performance has been increasing a lot faster than power consumption. If there's a pause on performance improvements, then efficiency can (mostly) catch up.

 

[Order 66]

If there's a pause on performance improvements, then efficiency can (mostly) catch up.

The PC industry is (generally) obsessed with things going faster, I highly doubt (at least for now) that SSD manufactures would pause on gen 5 performance since they haven't been on the market for even 6 months yet.

 

[bit_user]

The PC industry is (generally) obsessed with things going faster, I highly doubt (at least for now) that SSD manufactures would pause on gen 5 performance since they haven't been on the market for even 6 months yet.

I meant if there's like 5 years before PCIe 6.0 hits client platforms.

BTW, if you personally want a power-efficient SSD, just buy one designed for laptops.

 

[cyrusfox]

BTW, if you personally want a power-efficient SSD, just buy one designed for laptops.

This, P31 peerless for low power usage and efficiency. Keep it gen 3, not aware of any workload that actually benefits from the wider bandwidth gen 4 provides let alone gen 5. Is there even a laptop out there that supports gen 5 m.2 ssds yet?

 

[bit_user]

This, P31 peerless for low power usage and efficiency.

Yeah, I bought a P31 Gold a few months ago (the 2 TB model was only $95, on Prime Day). Anyone interested should keep an eye on it for Black Friday & Cyber Monday.

However, I'd expect that one of the more power-efficient PCIe 4.0 drives should also be pretty efficient when run at PCIe 3.0 speeds.