TeamGroup has announced one of the industry’s first SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 connection that is designed for client PCs. To maximize its compatibility with various systems, the T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen5 drive comes with two heat spreaders that users can install themselves: an aluminum heatsink for desktop PCs as well as a graphene heatsink for laptops and small form-factor desktops.
TeamGroup says that its T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen5 SSD is rated for maximum sequential read speeds of over 13,000 MB/s and write speeds exceeding 12,000 MB/s (performance levels that will probably make it one of the best SSDs when it hits the market later this year). Being aimed at premium PCs running AMD’s next-generation AM5 CPUs or Intel’s Alder Lake or Raptor Lake processors, the new drives will be available in capacities of up to 4TB.
TeamGroup didn’t disclose which controller it uses for its PCIe 5.0 SSD but says it’s NVMe 2.0 compliant. Meanwhile, the image of the drive features a small and square controller without a built-in aluminum heat spreader, which implies a chip made using a fairly advanced process technology that doesn’t generate much heat. However, the image might be for illustrative purposes only.
Perhaps, the most disappointing thing about TeamGroup’s T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen5 SSD is that it won’t be available until sometime in the third quarter (July – September), so enthusiasts building Alder Lake-based systems today will not be able to take advantage of this drive in the near term.
