The WD Black SN8100 marks Western Digital's entry into the PCIe 5.0 SSD market, offering significant performance improvements over PCIe 4.0 models. Reviewers praise the performance and power efficiency, while noting the steep price and the need for compatible hardware to fully benefit from it.
The Arrow Lake disaster continues to bring bad news to Intel aficionados
Editor's take: It's no secret that Intel is in a tight spot. The company that invented the microprocessor doesn't seem to understand how to make great products anymore, and users are suffering significant performance issues as a consequence.
GPU gold fingers can get caught in Q-Release Slim PCIe slots, causing chipping
PSA: Asus and other PC hardware vendors have spent the last few years exploring ways to make installing and removing motherboard components easier and safer. Asus' latest method aims to eliminate release buttons and latches from PCIe slots, but recent reports indicate that the procedure risks chipping the gold fingers.
Forward-looking: Thunderbolt 5 doubles Thunderbolt 4's bandwidth, offering 80Gbps transfer speeds in either direction. However, Thunderbolt 5's alternate mode can transmit at 120Gbps while receiving data at 40Gbps upon detecting certain devices. The extra boost currently only supports cable lengths up to two meters.
Fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs that won't require active cooling
In context: Up until now, the only PCIe 5.0 SSDs on the market have been powered by the Phison E26 controller. They're certainly fast, with sequential speeds of over 12GB/s, but they also run incredibly hot and are power-hungry. We're talking active cooling requirements and over 11W of power draw under load, which is not exactly ideal for rigs.