The next wave of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs is still not here yet, but ASRock is ready for them. The company has pulled the wraps off a swanky PCIe expansion card that holds four of them and theoretically supports the maximum bandwidth of 16GB/s for each drive. That could allow up to 64GB/s data transfers, though overhead will chew up some of that. Still, if you’re considering an HEDT setup with many PCI Express lanes, it could be a handy add-on if you’re working with large amounts of data.
ASRock calls it the “Blazing Quad M.2 Card.” It’s the latest in the company’s series of PCIe expansion cards for SSDs. Its PCIe 3.0 card was labeled the “ultra,” while its PCIe 4.0 model was “hyper,” according to Hot Hardware. It sports a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface and holds up to four SSDs. Each SSD is allowed access to an x4 connection with PCIe bifurcation, as there’s no CPU on board. Each SSD can be up to 110mm in length.
Early reports about PCIe Gen 5 SSDs indicated they will run a bit toasty. ASRock will tackle that with both passive and active cooling. There are thermal pads on both sides of the PCB. Once the SSDs are installed, an aluminum heatsink goes on top, with two small “variable speed” fans. It appears both fans are powered by a single four-pin power cable.
ASRock’s Blazing M.2 card features a six-pin power cable to ensure the SSDs have enough juice. (Image: ASRock)
Even though the PCI Express slot provides up to 75W of power, ASRock has added a six-pin connector for an additional 75W. Each SSD is installed at a 45-degree angle, which it says allows for the shortest signal traces. It says this helps improve signal integrity during data transfers.
On paper, it certainly sounds like a device with few drawbacks. The bad news is that it’s currently only available with ASRock’s recently announced W790 motherboard for Xeon workstations. As we wrote at the top, a card like this makes a lot of sense when you have up to 112 lanes of PCI Express to play with. Despite this expensive requirement, it’s assumed ASRock will sell it as a standalone product, eventually. However, the company has yet to reveal pricing or availability for the motherboard at this time.
PCIe Gen 5 SSDs are generally not available yet. There has been one drive for sale in Japan, but that’s an outlier. At CES this year, a handful of companies showed off Gen 5 SSDs, but none were ready to ship. None of the companies would commit to any specifics about them aside from theoretical performance. Therefore, it’s assumed they need a few more months in the labs before officially launching.
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