• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

There is a non-consumer SSD that is faster than the PS5 SSD

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Sony and Epic Games have been describing the PS5 SSD as something that high-end SSDs cannot come close to. In fact, Epic Games’ CEO, Tim Sweeney, claimed that the PS5 SSD is far ahead of anything that you can buy in any PC for any amount of money right now. Well, apparently he was wrong as there is already an SSD that is way faster than the PS5 SSD.
Enter Liqid Element LQD4500 PCIe 4.0 x16 SSD. This SSD is based on multiple Phison PS5016-E16 controllers (with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface), featuring a custom firmware. And, in case you’re wondering, it can provide up to 24GB/s speeds, with up to 4M IOPS.
For reference, the PS5 SSD will provide up to 9GB/s speeds. So yeah, it won’t be the fastest SSD on the planet as some companies are presenting it.
Now obviously this SSD is not meant for you or me. This is an SSD for enterprises, and not for gamers. However, I want remind you Tim Sweeney’s comment.
“The PS5 SSD is far ahead of anything that you can buy in any PC for any amount of money right now.”
Well… nope. If money is no object, you can get a faster SSD on the PC. But then again, that wouldn’t make those lovely headlines. What Tim should have said was that the PS5 SSD is faster than any SSD PC gamers can afford right now. And he would be right.
 
Last edited:

YCoCg

Member
The difference is though, it will be consoles pushing to make developers actually design games for SSD in mind, unlike the majority of developers do on PC (And honestly outside of that Squadron 42 game, is there any PC Game which requires an SSD?).
 

Lanrutcon

Member
The difference is though, it will be consoles pushing to make developers actually design games for SSD in mind, unlike the majority of developers do on PC (And honestly outside of that Squadron 42 game, is there any PC Game which requires an SSD?).

No game will ever "require" an SSD to run. Or 4K to run. Or 60fps to run.

If your aim is performance (the whole point of an SSD), then almost every modern PC game wants an SSD.
 

Great Hair

Banned
1x SSD 825GB
PS5 up to 22GB, avg. 9GB per second

1x Raid Card for $200?
8x 4,000GB m2 a $1,000/ea = $8,200+
28GB/s divided by 8 = 3.5GB/s per m2
(the card has a price tag of $12,000 with the SSD i presume, see post below)


32,000GB harddrive space, 10+times more expensive, yet individually they're still slower, barely beating the SSD of the Xbox Series X.

Let's go one step further, and pretend that the ps5 also has a raid setup with 8x m2 each delivering 5.5GB to 9GB.

8 x 5.5 = 44GB per second
8 x 9.0 = 72GB per second

In other words the ps5 SSD is still faster, individually.
 
Last edited:
This xbox damage control is crazy. Are the TF's not enough anymore?

Well, I mean, if this SSD is faster than the PS5's then it is obviously much faster than the XsX's as well. It's not like this news changes that. The article title is definitely meant to be jab, as kind of a "Sweeney was wrong" kinda thing, but this doesn't change the SSD difference between the two consoles.

Some PS5 exclusives may

I would hope so.
 
He's quoting the article. The article is quoting Sweeney. Sweeney said PS5.
The PS5 SSD is twice as fast as the XSX SSD, so pointing out XSC here would be redundant.

I'm not trying to start console wars, i'm just saying, the PS5 and XSX SSD are both very fast in the console world. Making a thread to point out that PC has a better part than console is redundant. We all know what Sweeney said and we all know there's always a faster/better/stronger alternative.

It's like saying the Bugatti Veyron is the fastest car on Earth, it's not, the ones that broke the landspeed record is/are.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GHG

YCoCg

Member
No game will ever "require" an SSD to run.
Only because games are designed to run off 5400rpm/7200rpm Hard Drives, so data streaming rates have to take those into consideration, also, there is ONE game that requires an SSD so far, and that's Star Citizen/Squadron 42, you can even look it up now on YouTube, the game is a stuttery mess that slows down a lot when being played on a Hard Drive.
 

Rolla

Banned
I feel like there is a certain segment who are way too bogged down in the spec debate that they wouldn't recognize the bigger picture if it bitch slapped them in the face. XBSX, PS5, and PC sepcs don't matter. All companies will frame there marketing in whatever way is most advantageous to them.

The only thing that matters to the broad gaming market is still games.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
It could be designed with an SSD, and not having one would cause the game to literally completely stop mid-gameplay to wait for the world to load. I would consider that "requiring" it.

Which is exactly the same as someone requiring 60 fps: not an actual requirement to run, but a performance preference.

Some PS5 exclusives may

As opposed to a PS5 exclusive that doesn't? Is there a PS5 without an SSD? (actually asking: has something like that been announced or alluded to?)

I'm not trying to start console wars, i'm just saying, the PS5 and XSX SSD are both very fast in the console world. Making a thread to point out that PC has a better part than console is redundant. We all know what Sweeney said and we all know there's always a faster/better/stronger alternative.

It's like saying the Bugatti Veyron is the fastest car on Earth, it's not, the ones that broke the landspeed record is/are.

Gotcha.

Only because games are designed to run off 5400rpm/7200rpm Hard Drives, so data streaming rates have to take those into consideration, also, there is ONE game that requires an SSD so far, and that's Star Citizen/Squadron 42, you can even look it up now on YouTube, the game is a stuttery mess that slows down a lot when being played on a Hard Drive.

Again, that's not an actual requirement. If the game can run without an SSD then an SSD is not required by definition. A more accurate statement would be "Star Citizen requires an SSD to maintain <this> performance level". Many games are stuttery messes, and are still considered playable, plus "mess" is completely subjective. Some folks find anything less than 120fps to be an affront to God (or some shit).
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Oh god, this again.

The peak sequential speed isn't the only or even main point of the PS5 SSD, the IO complex was built around removing the things that make games gain less than they should from them - you may get 10x faster than a HDD, but a game only loads twice as fast, because of DMAs, check-ins, definitely decompression and other things putting a load on the CPU and limiting speeds. So this drive is 50x faster than your average SSD, will a game load 500x faster than a HDD? Not a chance. The IO complex is meant to remove all of these as bottlenecks. Hence where Sweeney said "far ahead" rather than "higher peak speed".

It's funny because Linus does eventually stumble into the point of this being CPU bound after thrashing Sweeney for his statement. Luke was even allowing for that 'far ahead' didn't mean 'fastest peak read speed' on that WAN show, but Linus was busy doing the "I know better than everyone because I use PC" bit.

Will this pay off in the long run? I don't know, we'll all see together! But pointing to multi thousand dollar PC drives as proof the IO complex isn't an interesting and novel creation is willfully missing the point for clicks.

Edit: Linus himself says he was wrong, so.

 
Last edited:

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but no. I think Star Citizen is the only game that requires SSD on PC right now. I would imagine that changes though, right? Next-gen consoles could push that bar higher for PC games as well?

I didn't even know SX required an SSD. Has it always been that way?
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I feel like there is a certain segment who are way too bogged down in the spec debate that they wouldn't recognize the bigger picture if it bitch slapped them in the face. XBSX, PS5, and PC sepcs don't matter. All companies will frame there marketing in whatever way is most advantageous to them.

The only thing that matters to the broad gaming market is still games.
Don't worry. Once we're in the middle of the generation and the consoles are nowhere near as powerful as most PCs, fanboys'll start saying again that games are what matters while pointing at A or B overrated exclusive.
 

YCoCg

Member
Again, that's not an actual requirement. If the game can run without an SSD then an SSD is not required by definition. A more accurate statement would be "Star Citizen requires an SSD to maintain <this> performance level". Many games are stuttery messes, and are still considered playable, plus "mess" is completely subjective.
I mean the game is legit in single digits when played from a HDD so err, yeah, I guess some people MIGHT be happy with that but I think the majority would say the game requires an SSD.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
It's funny because Linus does eventually stumble into the point of this being CPU bound after thrashing Sweeney for his statement. Luke was even allowing for that 'far ahead' didn't mean 'fastest peak read speed' on that WAN show, but Linus was busy doing the "I know better than everyone because I use PC" bit.
"Stumble"? Linus knew the point he was making from the beginning.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
A lot


Well. Shit.

I mean the game is legit in single digits when played from a HDD so err, yeah, I guess some people MIGHT be happy with that but I think the majority would say the game requires an SSD.

Haha. Fair point!
 
Last edited:

Damigos

Member
These things cost so much that are irrelevant. PS5 SSD really is the fastest right now. Quoting this as even faster means you are not in touch with reality.
The cheapest one is 1,5 TB and cost 3.000 $....
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Again, that's not an actual requirement. If the game can run without an SSD then an SSD is not required by definition. A more accurate statement would be "Star Citizen requires an SSD to maintain <this> performance level". Many games are stuttery messes, and are still considered playable, plus "mess" is completely subjective. Some folks find anything less than 120fps to be an affront to God (or some shit).
This hyper technical arms race is pretty pointless though. Yes, you can technically "run" the game on an HDD, but it doesn't matter because it is effectively unplayable. Just as the Honey Badger SSD is technically "faster" than the PS5's SSD but it doesn't matter because it's effectively unaffordable.
 

martino

Member
Sweeney is not omniscient....
But it's PR backfiring..
Is it relevant a product is the fastest if not available ?
Will it be the fatest when available ? is it important ?
All of this is PR and it triggers all the same people...
 
Last edited:

INC

Member
Until games take advantage like the xbx and ps5 are meant to be doing, still not worth it yet
 

Elog

Member
For anyone watching the video and actually looks at the screen. With a Threadripper 3990x at high core utilisation due to the amount of data that is read off the drive Linus averages around 1.5GB per sec with short spikes (up to around 5 GB/sec). Latency runs around 1000ms on average with a range from 100 to close to 5000ms.

As stated before. The Northbridge and the CPU overhead hits hard stops within the framework of the PC architecture.

If we now were to add that this information also needs to be written to VRAM from RAM (i.e. as in the Unreal 5 demo) with once again CPU overhead as well as the GPU driver overhead that is added to these numbers in terms of latency and reduces the actual speed even further.

If PS5 delivers on what has been stated and has been shown in the Unreal 5 demo - the set-up in the OP is not even close (both throughput and latency).

Final note - this is why they sit in BIOS to look at theoretical read-speed limitations towards the end of the video. That is a completely silly exercise since it can never be reached in reality on a PC today due to the reasons above.
 
Why though?

Xbox haven't tried to claim that their SSD is faster than anything on the market have they??


Also it's the title of the article lmao

If someone made a thread about "Hey, there's more tflops on PC than the XSX which is meant to have loads!" I would be saying the same thing.
 

Shin

Banned
People want a cheap box they'll get components that fits within that bill.
All things considered I am still more excited about the upcoming gen than I was with the current.
 
"On the market" as in openly available for use in a PC , and in effect meant to be used in a common computer are what
was essentially being implied and its correct. Cerny outright said by launch there will be PC drives matching PS5.
He said that outright.

Imagine a scenario where there is a car I dont know lets imagine its a Mustang and Ford calls it the FASTEST model of
mustang ever made.

Just because someone comes along (saleen ) and soups them up on a special order basis doesnt really negate that.

In this case they've literally taken , according to the article, "multiple Phison PS5016-E16 controllers " Its essentially
an on-card RAID... They've stuck together multiple instances of an existing technology slower than the one in the
Sony machine- and then slapped a 10k price tag on the whole magilla. My opinion is that its very very cool but
I highly suspect you may see.... a FEW people as in like the ultra rich, rich / famous people in the youtube community
etc using these for anything outside enterprise storage and thats it. Back in the day you used to be able to get
these "ram drives" that held ram in a PCI slot and was only held there technically until the card lost power.
You could install games to those and it was fast as HELL but it wasnt super practical. If you left your PC on all the time
you could do it. You wouldnt then say this is the "Fastest HDD on the market" would you?
 
Top Bottom