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AMD Prepares To Ship Gaming SSDs

Posted by samzenpus on from the time-for-an-upgrade dept.

Lucas123 writes An AMD website in China has leaked information about the upcoming release of a line of SSDs aimed at gamers and professionals that will offer top sequential read/write speeds of 550MB/s and 530MB/s, respectively. AMD confirmed the upcoming news, but no pricing was available yet. The SSDs will come in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities and will use Toshiba's 19-nanometer flash lithography technology. According to IHS, AMD is likely entering the gaming SSD market because desktop SSD shipments are expected to experience a 39% CAGR between now and 2018.

17 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Gaming SSD ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You game will load 0.2 seconds faster than a standard SSD but you'll pay $150 more for it. Enjoy.

  2. What is the expected edge? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Assuming the spec sheet is accurate, the drive will use Toshiba flash and a 'Barefoot 3' controller(Indilinx, formerly OCZ, deathbed acquisition by Toshiba).

    Unsurprisingly enough, Toshiba also sells SSDs with Toshiba flash and Indilinx controllers(the only surprising part is keeping the 'OCZ' brand to do so). Where does AMD come in? I assume they aren't hoping to lose money by doing this; but I am having some trouble figuring out how.

    1. Re:What is the expected edge? by Nemyst · · Score: 2

      What it feels like is that you'll be able to get the AMD branded ones or get the same ones straight from Toshiba for less money. Perhaps some AMD models will be OEM-only in their Toshiba designation to reduce competition. Regardless, I don't remember OCZ's Vector drives (using the Barefoot 3 controller) making waves, and the 19nm lithography is going to push reliability down. Let's just hope they stick to MLC.

      For most gamers, a Crucial MX100 would most likely be a better purchase, or if you want something fancier then Samsung's 850 Pro or even a PCI-E/SATAe/M.2 option instead.

  3. For gamers? by hooiberg · · Score: 2

    So what would be the difference between SSDs for gamers and those for non-gamers? The specs appear to be fairly normal high end for the current SSD market, but nothing exceptional. Maybe a sticker on it displaying a demon wielding an oversized SF gun?

    1. Re:For gamers? by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 4, Funny

      A sticker with ultraviolet reflectance so the black lights in your case make it look right wicked and totally worth the extra $80 you paid for commodity hardware with F4tal1ty's name on it.

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
    2. Re:For gamers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The specs appear to be fairly normal high end for the current SSD market, but nothing exceptional.

      You mean capped at the SATA bus speed. It's hard to make something significantly better than that without connecting the drive directly to a PCIe connector.

    3. Re:For gamers? by AvitarX · · Score: 4, Informative

      Female razors have the handle at a different angle (one more comfortable for legs and crotches vs faces).

      I learned this when I thought they were the same and god lady ones on sale, definitely not as easy to use on a face as a man's razor.

      --
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    4. Re:For gamers? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

      You're holding it wrong.

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    5. Re:For gamers? by Score+Whore · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I test drove one of these for a couple of months: http://www.violin-memory.com/p...

      It delivered way more than is advertised here and wasn't connected via PCIe. We're talking 2 GB/s BW and more than 250,000 IOPS with an average response time under 200 microseconds in my testing. It is kind of spendy and heavy as fuck.

      Also I have a very large penis.

  4. Gaming? by Mr_Silver · · Score: 2

    Seems odd to call them "gaming SSDs" when they sound like just really fast SSDs. I'm actually surprised they are marketing them that way - especially since they'd reach a wider market if the didn't just target gamers.

    Plus are games really that much faster? When I bought my Samsung 840 I put everything on there. However as soon as I found out that the load times in HL2 weren't noticeably different (probably because the longest part of the "please wait" wasn't disk access) I quickly shifted the entire "steamapps" folder to my HDD.

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    1. Re:Gaming? by jawtheshark · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Gaming" means: "Fast, overpriced and we don't care about reliability".

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    2. Re:Gaming? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Informative

      Seems odd to call them "gaming SSDs" when they sound like just really fast SSDs. I'm actually surprised they are marketing them that way - especially since they'd reach a wider market if the didn't just target gamers.

      They're not even really fast SSDs.

      550MB/s is the limit of SATA3. Something we've hit with SSDs from last year. Yes, we hit the limit of SATA3 just after SATA3 stuff started coming on the market.

      It's why Apple went PCIe with their SSDs (hitting 750MB/sec easy) - the bottleneck is no longer with the SSD or controller, it's the SATA interface.

      It's really more of a name thing since there's zero advantage going AMD SSD over going with anyone else. A Samsung 840 Evo already maxes SATA3 and comes in up to 1TB capacities. (Hint: when you see or hear 530+ MB/sec, that's the limit of SATA talking).

      It's almost pointless to measure these days - the last metric left is IOPS and that's at the point of diminishing returns when you're getting 20K, 40K IOPS.

      Now, if AMD really wanted to make a splash, they'd use PCIe and make sure you can boot off of it.

  5. Re:harddrive speed by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

    How long ago and what were the games? On startup, The Witcher 2 (which isn't even a very recent game anymore) seems to read several hundred MBs and then loads more for each environment. Fast random reads would seem to be a benefit there - the CPU in my laptop isn't at 100% even reading the data from SSD...

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. Sure, 39% CAGR, but what about... by dohzer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sure, 39% CAGR, but what about the 390ppm ADGG on the CKOI? What does IHS think about that?

  7. Re:harddrive speed by Shinobi · · Score: 2

    That depends ENTIRELY on what game. SWTOR is highly dependant on the HD. Loading into fleet on a normal HD can take a few minutes. Use a SSD, and it takes 30s. And CPU barely registers a blip until you actually fully get into the game.

  8. SSD to rule the world. by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I recently added a 64gig SSD To a Panasonic Toughbook CF-18. yes a billion year old PATA laptop and it made an insane difference. Enough that the laptop was useable again for emergency services tasks. So instead of spending $4500 per truck again for new toughbooks, we are just upgrading all of the old laptops to SSD drives.

    Dirt cheap too if you use mSATA and mSATA to PATA adapters.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  9. Re:details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's all to do with the CAGR. In the face of a 39% CQGR AMD are facing a 62.3% CHRP next year, so need to offset that by developing a product line with at least a 22.5% QRPD.