Impressive PCIe 5.0 performance

★★★★☆ Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 Review

• Fast and modern interface Gigabyte’s Aorus Gen5 12000 takes advantage of the PCIe 5.0 interface, making it significantly faster than its PCIe 4.0

predecessors. • Plenty of RAM A big chunky 4GB of LPDDR4 cache allows it to rapidly load games and transfer files. • Phison E26 Controller Gigabyte’s combined 232-layer TLC NAND with Phison’s latest and greatest E26 controller, to leverage some blistering performance numbers.

✔ Ridiculously quick in sequential file transfer tasks. ✔ Large DRAM cache, allows for rapid in-game loading. ✔ Solid heatsink, minimizes PCIe 5.0 heat woes

❌ Heatsink isn’t compatible with all motherboards. ❌ Random 4K performance not the best

You should buy if If you want one of the quickest drives out there today

The Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 is an incredibly speedy drive, with 12GB/s sequential reads easily achievable, it’s phenomenally fast, at least until the next generation of PCIe 5.0 You shouldn't buy if

You shouldn't buy if drives land. It also comes with a stellar heatsink, if your motherboard doesn’t have a decent solution for that, it’s a fantastic solution. At least, if you can find it in stock.

You’re after the best deal possible

PCIe 5.0 drives are still expensive at time of writing and the Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 is no exception.

The standard hasn’t got a huge amount of competition currently for the controller, plus the additional heat has created some engineering challenges that have made these drives significantly more expensive than their PCIe 4.0 counterparts.

Zak Storey Gigabyte’s Aorus Gen5 12000 is an insanely rapid PCIe SSD, and has topped pretty much all of the benchmarks I could throw at it. Compared to the Seagate FireCuda 540 or the Crucial T700, it’s faster and cheaper. Combine that with some impressive pricing, and, at 2TB this suddenly becomes an impressive value proposition, at least if you can find it in stock (it’s in seriously high demand). Read more