Aorus nvme gen4 ssd review in Spanish (full analysis)

AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD is presented to us as one of the first M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market. The enormous impact that this new generation of Ryzen 3000 processors is having together with the new PCI bus are making manufacturers like AORUS, bet big with storage units with performances of up to 5000 MB / s and a size of 1 and 2 TB. And wait to see its sensational heatsink, made entirely of copper that keeps it below 40 ° C.

We are looking forward to testing this new PCIe 4.0 SSD and seeing what it is capable of. But first, we have to thank AORUS for their trust in us for giving us their product so quickly.

AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD technical features

Unboxing

The guys at AORUS know how to do things well, but also quickly, and at Computex 2019 they gave us a preview of these new PCIe 4.0 SSDs that are now on the market. And speaking of how they reach us, we are going to do this little Unboxing.

AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD comes in a thick solid black cardboard box that looks great and elegantly painted completely black, and has a smartphone-style sliding opening. But outside, and as a protection, we have a flexible cardboard lining where we are shown some other information about the product, as well as the model we are dealing with. In our case it is the 1 TB or 1000 GB drive.

As we can see, when uncovering we find a high-density black polyethylene foam mold that keeps the product immobile in the center of the bundle. In addition to the SSD, we only found a small installation manual that certainly has important information about the configuration of the product. Then we will see what it is about.

Design and performance

The AMD Ryzen 3000 and its new boards are already a reality, and accompanied by them, a powerful chipset compatible with the new PCIe 4.0 bus as well as the CPUs. Then the perfect scenario arises to bring to light the new SSD drives that exceed in every way the ones we currently had. And the truth is that it is one of the main applications of the new bus, so all users should take advantage of its capacity.

AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD is a unit that comes in two versions, the one in our analysis, with 1 TB of capacity, and another superior of no less than 2 TB, or what is the same, 2000 GB of storage space. Despite this large capacity, its format is 2280, with measurements of 80.5 mm long, 23.5 wide and 11.4 high. The reason for these somewhat larger than normal measurements is the fact of having a large built-in heatsink.

We are talking about a block divided into two parts built entirely of copper, and we must say that it weighs a lot. On the upper face we have a count of 27 fins not too high, but enough to increase the heat exchange surface. We must know that the more speed, the greater the warming that occurs, and these units are already reaching significant temperatures, to require somewhat more sophisticated heatsinks.

The AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD logo that we see in a diagonal configuration does not have LED lighting in this case, as it did in the AORUS RGB M.2. The way to uninstall this heatsink is by removing the 6 star screws from its sides. Inside, we have a double set of silicone- filled thermal pads glued on both sides to remove heat from the memory chips and controller.

We will have to do this maneuver if we want to install the unit on a motherboard that has its own integrated heatsinks, and these cannot be removed of course. But we must say that the effectiveness of the one that has been pre-installed is very good. So long as to keep the unit below 40 ° C most of the uptime.

And taking advantage of the fact that we have disassembled the AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD, we are going to talk about its technical characteristics. And how could it be otherwise, we have memories based on NAND 3D TLC technology (triple level for each cell). These specifically are a new specification from the manufacturer Toshiba, the BiCS4, which has 96 layers and capacities of up to 1 TB per chip, almost nothing. Specifically, the configuration we find is four chips, each with 256 GB to make a total of 1000 MG, while the other model uses 4 512 GB chips.

The controller that has been mounted is also a new generation Phison PS5016-A16, which is manufactured at 28 nm. This chip is intended for use in TLC and QLC configurations, offering 8 NAND channels with 32 chips enabled, reaching speeds of up to 800 MT / s and admitting capacities of up to 2 TB, as would be the case of the superior model we have. The controller supports AES-256, TCG OPAL 2.0, and Pyrite encryption, as well as TRIM and SMART management modes on top of a processing ECC engine to optimize controller performance on the new PHY on the PCIe 4.0 bus.

Extending further into these specifications, an optimized EGFM10E3 firmware is installed in the controller to reach the transfers that are handled in PCIe 4.0. In this model we talk about 5000 MB / s (750K IOPS) in sequential reading and 4400 MB / s (700K IOPS) in sequential writing theoretically. Note that we are practically doubling the performance in IOPS to the AORUS model of the previous generation (360K and 440K).

And how does this affect the consumption of the AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD ? Well, we have a standby consumption of 0.188 W, 6.6 W in reading and 6.4 in writing. They are practically the same values as the previous generation, so a lot of work has really been done on optimizing the firmware and driver.

The last aspect to be dealt with in this SSD is its connector, which is simply M.2 in M-Key format, that is, with the grimace on the right side of the unit. The manufacturer offers us a maximum of 5 years of warranty as usual in this type of hardware or an equivalent of 800 TB of writing on the unit. Do not be alarmed, it is stipulated that a normal user could reach 15 years of use with a similar unit.

Tol Box SSD Software

As with other SSDs, this AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD model also has management software, which we can download for free from the AORUS website and for free.

The program will allow us to monitor our unit over time. It offers a multitude of numerical records in terms of reading, writing, etc., and also makes an estimated calculation of the health of the SSD and its operating temperature in real time.

We also have the possibility to carry out maintenance with the optimization section, if necessary, and the possibility of safely deleting the content, using the last section. We believe that it is a good tool as a complement, it weighs little and does not consume any resources, so we recommend it to have our SSD controlled.

At the beginning of the analysis we commented that in the instructions there was important information about the configuration of the SSD in Windows. This information consists of going to the properties of the unit, and activating in the policy tabs the option of "Enable write cache on the device".

Test equipment and benchmarks

To be able to test this AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD to the maximum of its possibilities, we have used the new AMD platform, with a CPU and a new generation motherboard with X570 chipset. The test bench is made up of the following elements:

AMD Ryzen 3700XX570 AORUS MASTER16 GB G.Skill Trident Royal RGB 3600 MHzThe stock in SSD and CPU AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD Nvidia RTX 2060 FECorsair AX860i

Let's see then if this unit is capable of approaching those 5000 MB / s theoretical reading that it offers under the PCIe 4.0 bus under the NVMe 1.3 protocol. The benchmark programs that we have used are the following:

Crystal Disk MarkAS SSD BenchmarkATTO Disk BenchmarkAnvil´s Storage

All these programs are in their latest available version. Remember not to abuse these tests in your units, since the life time is reduced.

Well, in the first of the programs used, we have speeds of 4928 MB / s in reading and 4270 in writing, which is very close to the theoretical benefits that the manufacturer promises, and this is undoubtedly great. In programs like AS SSD or ATTO Disk these results drop a little, although they remain without any problem above 4200 MB / s and 3800 MB / s respectively. We are talking about 1, 500 MB / s more than the previous generation, which is a significant jump.

Anvil´s shows us an IOPS rate in blocks of 4K QD16 of 429K, which is not bad, and that they also double in numbers to the units tested in PCIe 3.0 as the AORUS RGB M.2. But not only in sequential mode, but also in the other measures we have a notable improvement in results, except in 4KB Q1T1 blocks where we have practically the same results as previous M.2.

Temperatures

We have made use of the thermal camera to check the temperature of the SSD with and without workload.

We see that in idle state we have records of about 23 to 25 ° C on the surface of the heatsink, taking into account that the ambient temperature is 21 ° C. When subjected to high stress, we go as high as 41 ° C at the connection interface, although the heatsink remains at over 34 ° C. Without a doubt an excellent job that does this heatsink and thermal pads.

Final words and conclusion about AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD

In this impressive way is how the new generation of high-performance SSD starts with the AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD, a manufacturer that always offers us top-of-the-line products on the market, as well as its AORUS MASTER motherboard, which has become a bank of testing today.

Without a doubt what we should highlight the most is the impressive speed of this SSD working through the newly released PCIe 4.0 bus. Read rates close to 5000 MB / s and write rates above 4200 MB / s, they are not bad to start squeezing the bus. We hope to see soon SSDs that are close to those 7.88 GB / s, and are practically RAM memory. And little is said about its large capacity, 1 and 2 TB for these models of only 2280.

We recommend our guide to the best SSDs of the moment.

As for the hardware that has been used, we have no objections, it is true that the Phison A16 uses an A12 inside, but with completely optimized firmware and elements to work spectacularly. As does its excellent pure copper heatsink, keeping this unit below 40 degrees all the time, which is no easy task.

We finish with the availability and price of this AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD, which will be on sale from practically now. The price will be between 290-300 euros for the 1TB unit and 500 to 520 for the 2TB unit. Its main rival for now will be the Corsair MP600, but they are undoubtedly exclusive products that are capable of giving use to this new data bus for users who want to move from platform. For our part, it is a highly recommended product.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ PCIE 4.0 A +5000 MB / S	- YOUR PRICE WILL NOT BE PRECISELY LOW
+ WITH HIGH QUALITY COPPER HEATSINK
+ LARGE CAPACITY 1 AND 2 TB IN 2280 FORMAT
+ 96-LAYER 3D NAND MEMORY AND OPTIMIZED CONTROLLER
+ IDEAL FOR THE NEW RYZEN 3000