Verdict
The Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 is nothing short of awe - inhale when it comes to utter grunt and serial carrying out . clock in at well over 12GB / s for sequential read is easy for this thing . Combine that with self-coloured all - orotund performance , an vastly potent heatsink , and a surprising Leontyne Price tag for the mental ability , and what you ’re left with is an astoundingly right time value drive , at the tailor edge of modern PCIe standards .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSD is the troupe ’s second iteration of its PCIe 5.0 parkway line . Initially when the measure first made its debut , back in early 2023 , a telephone number of manufacturers , including Gigabyte launch their PCIe 5.0 drives into the market , most of which took vantage of Phison ’s lineage heatsink . Gigabyte was one of the few that did n’t .
For those that do n’t experience , PCIe 5.0 , not only doubles the maximum bandwidth available for successive performance comparatively to PCIe 4.0 , but it also generates a significant amount of heat as it does so . To break up that , Phison advocate active heatsinks as standard ( ones incorporating tiny fan ) and on launch , the vast majority of manufacturers used the stock cooler in theirM.2designs .
Gigabyte was an exception to that dominion and instead launch with this rather telling , and somewhat iconic chunky heatsink that we see here , with the one bragging advantage being that it remained coolheaded , without impart a noise - generating bantam fan into your shape .
Fast forward a few quarters , and as the technology has mature , we ’re starting to see drives last break that 10 GB / s limit that the first campaign debut with . Gigabyte ’s Aorus Gen5 12000 then , succeeds its 10000 sib and represents one of the fastest drive out there right now .
Specs
What ’s quite surprising , however , is , at least , on the open , there ’s not a whole slew different between the Gen5 12000 and the 10000 . Both featured the Phison E26 accountant , both still apply Micron ’s former 232 - Layer TLC 3D NAND , and both feature an LPDDR4 DRAM cache on dining table . In fact dig profoundly , and even the TBW endurance figures are the same across the two private road .
No , in fact , the bulk of the performance seems to be coming from tweaked firmware , and potentially a larger DRAM hoard on theSSDitself ( although we ’re still waiting to hear back from Gigabyte on ratification on that one ) compared to the 10000 .
Full Specs
Hardware comparisons by , the big showpiece is that chunky heatsink . Gigabyte ’s call this thing its M.2 Thermal Guard XTREME . It sport duplicate heat pipes and is match with an aluminum baseplate , and thermal stamp pad on either side of the trapping as well . Better than that , it ’s also obliterable via the four pocket-size philips screws locate on either side of the caparison , so if you do pick up a heatsink version , and want to instead install it underneath your motherboard ’s integrate heatsink ( because let ’s be clear , some of thebest motherboardsout there , have pretty solid heatsinks as criterion ) , then you could do that with ease too .
One minor caution I will say however , is that thanks to that chunky heatsink , I did have trouble instal it in our test - bed motherboard , the Asus ROG Z790 Dark Hero , due to the top PCIe 5.0 slot being in such close proximity to the rearward I / group O cover . So do bear that in thinker .
Test Setup
Along with a huge number of its competitors , I ’ve put Gigabyte ’s Aorus Gen5 12000 through its paces in a number of different semisynthetic and existent - world scenario , try it over the course of a few calendar week , with and without an atomic number 8 put in on it .
This give us a fantastic all - around analytic thinking of how it do in the main outside of the advertizing stats .
To ensure we ’re make uniform result , I ’ve ensured we have a solid and stable psychometric test bed throughout the testing procedure . you may recover my full test layer below :
As for the tests themselves , I ’ve ran a mixture of synthetic and real - populace tests . CrystalDiskMark 8 is our default go - to for synthetic operation . This give us a good indicator on Sequential and Random 4 K amphetamine under load . I ’ve continue the queue profoundness and thread counts , bloodline ( successive at Q8 T1 / Q1 T1 , and Random 4 K at Q32 / T1 / Q1 T1 ) , so if you do want to test your own drives at family for comparing it ’s extremely easy to do so .
On top of that , we ’re using Final Fantasy XIV ’s benchmark test at 4 K on Maximum configurations as well , as this gives us a nice ordinary load time result for each drive . I ’ve also comprise PC Mark 10 ’s Quick System Drive benchmark , and Data Drive bench mark , and finally , a raw 120 GB real - human race file transcript psychometric test too . The latter of which involves copy Red Dead Redemption II onto the drive in interrogation , then copying it onto the drive a 2nd prison term , and then clock that to secure the last result .
I ’m also utilise a number of price - to - performance exponent metric unit . These are reckon based on the drive ’s performance or capacitance in a certain field of study , divided by the current USD retail price at time of recap , give us a good idea of how much of a time value suggestion it represents .
Performance
As you ’d probably expect with Gigabyte ’s Aorus Gen5 12000 , this affair rips when it come to sequential file transfers . CrystalDisk Mark report 12,328 megabit / s take and 11,497 MB / s write velocity , and the 120 GB File Copy test , finished in just 37.4 moment , quicker than any driveway we ’ve tested to particular date , admit the PCIe 5.0 Seagate FireCuda 540 , and the Crucial T700 .
Random 4 K performance however was somewhat lower than ask , with queue depth 32 , report just 805 M / s say and 592 MB / s write . Switch that to a Queue deepness of 1 however , and it once again beats the legal age of SSDs out there to the biff .
As for the pricing indices the 2 TB Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 does admirably here too , being relatively middle of the face pack in terms of G per $ , clocking in an 8.334 GB per $ , sequential landed it in the top four , with it only being stick by the P5 Plus , Adata Legend 960 Max , and WD Blue SN580 respectively , all of which are far slower PCIe 4.0 drives anyway .
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Should you buy it?
The Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 is an incredibly speedy drive , with 12GB / s consecutive show easy achievable , it ’s phenomenally tight , at least until the next generation of PCIe 5.0 drives land . It also comes with a astral heatsink , if your motherboard does n’t have a comme il faut resolution for that , it ’s a antic solution . At least , if you may find it in stock .
PCIe 5.0 drives are still expensive at sentence of authorship and the Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 is no exception . The standard has n’t get a vast amount of rivalry currently for the restrainer , plus the extra heat has created some applied science challenges that have made these drives significantly more expensive than their PCIe 4.0 counterparts .
Final Thoughts
Gigabyte ’s Aorus Gen5 12000 is an insanely rapid PCIe SSD , and has go past somewhat much all of the benchmarks I could give at it . Compared to the Seagate FireCuda 540 or the Crucial T700 , it ’s faster and tatty . Particularly when it comes to real - earth file written matter testing .
Combine that with some impressive pricing , and , at 2 TB this dead becomes an impressive value proposition , at least if you could find it in livestock ( it ’s in seriously high requirement ) . It ’s not the most affordable out there , the Adata Legend 960 Max very much fend for that title of respect for sequentials and the WD Blue SN580 for electrical capacity , but for the execution you ’re get , it ’s second to none , and arguably , the good SSDout there today .
Trusted Score
How we test
Each SSD we examine utilize a commixture of both synthetic and actual - world benchmark mental testing . On top of that , we also use a number of cost - to - performance metric , and monitor temperature and power - draw to decide the recollective - term stableness and cost - effectiveness of the drive .
FAQs
Yes , it ’s one of the warm we ’ve try out when it come up to load game , Final Fantasy XIV averaged a 7.26 second load fourth dimension .
Yes , if you have a PCIe 4.0 slot on your motherboard , it will also work in that . However , expect reduces file cabinet conveyance stop number as a issue .
