Gigabyte's New SSD Looks Like a Graphics Card
Gigabyte’s Aorus Xtreme Gen 4 may look like a graphics card but it is actually an extremely fast SSD. The Aorus Xtreme Gen 4 can reach speeds up to sequential reads speeds of 28GB/s and write speeds of 28.6GB/s. This is a high-end SSD that is targeting workstations or regular home PCs.
The Aorus Xtreme contains a bunch of 4TB Aorus Gen4 7000s M.2 SSDs, up to eight of them, on a card with Phison PS5018-E18 controllers. The solid-state drives can be configured in RAID to reach that reach read speed of 28GB/s. According to Gigabyte The Aorus Xtreme Gen 4 is the highest performance storage device among all consumer SSDs in the market.
The drive comes with twin fans on top to keep the Aorus Xtreme cool making it look like a graphics card. Underneath the fans is an expansive aluminum heatsink plus temperature sensors, 10 of them, ensures that the device stays cool. There are three fan operation modes to keep things quiet if the drive isn't being taxed and is just ticking along.
The Aorus Xtreme Gen 4 SSD requires a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot to reach its maximum speed, which, combined with a graphics card that also uses a PCIe x16 slot, will go beyond the available PCIe lanes on consumer processors. The Aorus Xtreme Gen 4 SSD will be backward compatible with PCIe 3.0, so can be used on older chipsets. Keep in mind that it's designed for PCIe 4.0, so you won't achieve the blistering speeds.