Samsung's just started producing what is effectively its first proper PCIe 5.0 SSD and it's faster than any currently on the market

PCIe 5.0 SSDs haven't quite taken off yet, especially for PC gaming. But the winds might soon change as Samsung's just started producing some incredibly fast and supposedly very efficient PCIe 5 SSDs.

Samsung's PM9E1 (via TechPowerUp) is said to reach up to a whopping 14.5 GB/s sequential read and 13.5 GB/s sequential write speeds. For reference, its PCIe 4.0 predecessor has read and write speeds of 7 GB/s and 5.1 GB/s, respectively, which is why Samsung claims double the speed for this new one.

Also for reference, most fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs today max out at about 12 GB/s read and 10 GB/s write speeds, and standard ones max out lower than this. The current fastest PCIe 5.0 SSD apart from this new PM9E1 is the Crucial T705, which has the same 14.5 GB/s read speed but a slower 12,700 MB/s write speed.

With this SSD, then, Samsung really will have a claim to creating the industry's fastest consumer SSD. Which is quite a feat for a company that's barely stepped foot into the PCIe 5.0 market, currently having just one retailing in the form of the 990 Evo. 

In fact, we might as well consider the PM9E1 the company's first PCIe 5.0 SSD, given the 990 Evo isn't a proper PCIe 5.0 SSD. The 990 Evo runs at 5.0 2x2 speed and this is, for all intents and purposes, the same as running a PCIe 4.0 SSD over 4x4 lanes. The PM9E1, however, should run at true PCIe Gen 5 bandwidth.

The PM9E1 will likely be a more manufacturer-focused drive for OEMs, with those drives going into pre-builts and workstations, while a consumer-focused drive featuring the new Samsung controller will likely follow this with more of a fancy naming scheme.

The thing is, none of this means anything if it's unattainably expensive or unreasonably hot, which is the main problem with PCIe 5.0 SSDs across the board and why almost all of our recommendations for the best SSDs for gaming are PCIe 4.0 drives.

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