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[NX Gamer] PS5 SSD Expansion - Beta 2.0 M2 In-Depth Technical Review

GHG

Gold Member
Yes max speed is only for bursts . Maybe it’s 2000 - 3000 region that’s a save bet . That’s probably why ps5 loads faster in its loading . In actual game play it could be closer , series has a sustained speed of 2400.


That's not how these faster drives perform at all but if you need to believe that then let it be so.
 
That seems normal to me. A slightly faster drive will move more data and a slightly slower drive will move less data. Which would lead to differences in I/O performance.

What you need to ask if they max out the internal drive what will happen to the NVMEs?

My guess is that there would be a difference in performance but if a drive is extremely slow it could affect the playability of a game.
A faster drive won't load any faster if the slower drive isn't getting pushed.
Games are already taking advantage of the faster IO, we don't need to wait 6 years to see the benefit. The major benefit is to game developers, to the end user you might not notice anything other than super fast, seamless and more detailed games. How will that lead to disappointment? I really do not understand. There is a serious lack of understanding of the benefits of fast IO as it pertains to game development. This is not the fault of Sony or Microsoft but of people not understanding what they are being told. Nobody oversold the importance of fast IO. If we rewatch the Mark Cerny Presentation or look at Microsoft's marketing material they underlined few key things that having fast IO enables.

For developers they underline

1. More available RAM for render budget. You don't have to keep a lot of assets in RAM as a buffer for what might be needed, you only have what you need in the next few seconds of rendering and load as you go. This frees up lots of active RAM and means you don't need to increase RAM. (also means less cost for Sony & Microsoft).

2. No need to design to hide loading. Developers spend lots of time adding sections to artificially hide loading. A recent example of that is Ghost of Tsushima, they added pre-rendered cutscenes to hide transitional loading between environments. On PS5 all cutscenes are now rendered in engine because the SSD is fast enough to stream in the new environment as needed.

3. Less assets duplication to hide seek times and latency. Keeps games sizes down and again we can see that game sizes have not really ballooned significantly, accompanied by really good compression technology.

These are 3 quality of life changers for games developers as they spend less time trying to optimize around slow storage. For example of how that hampers game development see Postmortem GDC talk on Spiderman. How that may lead to some really cool new game mechanics will be interesting to see. It also benefits cost of development in small ways.

For Gamers they underline little to no load times. This is self explanatory and we are seeing more games have less than 3 seconds of loading. And more detailed games.

That is literally it. I challenge someone to find anything from Microsoft or Sony that oversold what fast IO enables.


You won't.
I agree with all that and hadn't said anything to the contrary.
So you believe that MS created a machine that a safe of throttling while Sony have one that most likely will throttle?

Mother of God lol



Hummm… Séries SSD isn’t a well know retail SSD? SN530?

“Read speeds up to 2,400 MB/s and low power consumption leverages both the PCIe Gen3 x4 interface, as well as sophisticated NVMe power management”

It is already working at max specs it was designed.
It's reasonable to think that if one is saying peak speeds while other is sustained. I've no clue how they worded it though. Also the drive in the series is gen 4 2x so technically it's good for up to 4gbs and custom so the 530s specs are really irrelevant. I do believe it's only the stated 2.4gbs but not due to your sleuthing.
 
A faster drive won't load any faster if the slower drive isn't getting pushed.

Why wouldn't it? It just means it can load the same amount of data more quickly. Which is why the 980 Pro is edging out the internal drive ever so slightly.

If one 1GB of data is being loaded the faster drives will load it more quickly than a slower drive. There wouldn't be an equal amount of performance between both.



Now this game isn't taxing the slowest SSD due to the fact that it was designed for HDDs. But you can still see how the drives extra speed has an influence in the load times.

Now if your talking about streaming assets during gameplay that's going to be a little different. I know that I/O stutters can result if the data isn't being streamed in fast enough.



Star Citizen on a HDD is an example of what I/O stutters look like.
 
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Md Ray

Member
They can If they cap it below max spec , which they probably have.
2.4 GB/s is max.

It's basically a Western Digital SN530 Gen3 drive, which caps out at 2.4 GB/s if you look at the specs sheet on WD's website. MS made is Gen4 likely to save on PCIe lanes coming from the CPU.

The stock Gen3 SN530 uses x4 lanes whereas Microsoft's custom SN530 (as well as Seagate expansion) uses just x2 lanes due to it being Gen4. Xbox's Zen 2 supports x8 PCIe lanes for the I/O hub. x4 lanes are used for the primary internal SSD and the external proprietary SSD (x2 lanes each), and the rest of the x4 lanes is used for things such as USB ports and other communications.
 

ethomaz

Banned
A faster drive won't load any faster if the slower drive isn't getting pushed.

I agree with all that and hadn't said anything to the contrary.

It's reasonable to think that if one is saying peak speeds while other is sustained. I've no clue how they worded it though. Also the drive in the series is gen 4 2x so technically it's good for up to 4gbs and custom so the 530s specs are really irrelevant. I do believe it's only the stated 2.4gbs but not due to your sleuthing.
PCIe speeds has nothing to do with the drive speeds lol
PCIe can be up to 9GB/s but if you put a 2.4GB/s drive you will be limited to 2.4GB/s.

MS can in the future launch external drivers up to 4GB/s but for now it is limited to the 2.4GB/s of the internal and external options.

And it is inded the SN530 in some consoles... they just modded the PCIe controller to support PCIe 4.0... WD confirmed it.
 
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Why wouldn't it? It just means it can load the same amount of data more quickly. Which is why the 980 Pro is edging out the internal drive ever so slightly.

If one 1GB of data is being loaded the faster drives will load it more quickly than a slower drive. There wouldn't be an equal amount of performance between both.



Now this game isn't taxing the slowest SSD due to the fact that it was designed for HDDs. But you can still see how the drives extra speed has an influence in the load times.

Now if your talking about streaming assets during gameplay that's going to be a little different. I know that I/O stutters can result if the data isn't being streamed in fast enough.



Star Citizen on a HDD is an example of what I/O stutters look like.

While I appreciate the work you are putting in, I don't think we are on the same page. I'll take the blame as my explanation probably only makes sense in my head.
PCIe speeds has nothing to do with the drive speeds lol
PCIe can be up to 9GB/s but if you put a 2.4GB/s drive you will be limited to 2.4GB/s.

MS can in the future launch external drivers up to 4GB/s but for now it is limited to the 2.4GB/s of the internal and external options.

And it is inded the SN530 in some consoles... they just modded the PCIe controller... WD confirmed it.
PCIe speeds literally is half the speed equation. Toss a 7gbs drive in a PCI 3 board and see if you still get the 7gbs.
Like I said it's 2.4gbs but your sleuthing was not necessary since that's the advertised speed.
 
Xbox Fanboys.

The source for this nonsense is this shitty Bloomberg article:



Claiming that Sony needs to ramp the fanspeed up because the SSD in the expension bay generates so much heat and without a fancurveupdate the console will overheat.

Ah, so rabid lunatics... gotcha 👍

Yeah, it's pretty pointless trying to rationalise the behaviour of such.
 
While I appreciate the work you are putting in, I don't think we are on the same page. I'll take the blame as my explanation probably only makes sense in my head.

I wasn't trying to be an asshole or anything but I fail to see how it isn't normal when a faster driver outperforms a slower one.

My mind is set on the speed. The higher the speed the more data can be loaded in a given period of time. And that was something that was proven in the video. I honestly not understanding how a slower drive will perform the same as a faster one. If that was true then we would still be stuck with cheap HDDs instead of expensive HDDs.
 
I wasn't trying to be an asshole or anything but I fail to see how it isn't normal when a faster driver outperforms a slower one.

My mind is set on the speed. The higher the speed the more data can be loaded in a given period of time. And that was something that was proven in the video. I honestly not understanding how a slower drive will perform the same as a faster one. If that was true then we would still be stuck with cheap HDDs instead of expensive HDDs.
I honestly wonder if some games rated for the internal 5.5GB/sec drive will be even better on a 7GB/sec drive. Like, I wonder if you're bound by the I/O speed or by the CPU at that point.

Also, I don't think any current games max out the internal SSD yet.
 
I honestly wonder if some games rated for the internal 5.5GB/sec drive will be even better on a 7GB/sec drive. Like, I wonder if you're bound by the I/O speed or by the CPU at that point.

Also, I don't think any current games max out the internal SSD yet.

It should be better but your right that how much better could depend on the other parts of the hardware. But when it comes to basic loading there should always be an improvement even if small. Which is what we are seeing from these results.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
I honestly wonder if some games rated for the internal 5.5GB/sec drive will be even better on a 7GB/sec drive. Like, I wonder if you're bound by the I/O speed or by the CPU at that point.

Also, I don't think any current games max out the internal SSD yet.
Theoretically yes but in reality it would depend on how a game is accessing data. With the beta we have seen 7GB/s SSD perform better and worse in some games by a couple of milliseconds. The advantage PS5 SSD has is the greater IOPS and more IO queues for IO arbitration request, than most consumer SSD. In that sense a game that constantly requests lots of IO will perform a fraction better. Games are not yet pushing the boundaries of PS5 or XSX IO yet in my opinion. The gen just started.
 
Theoretically yes but in reality it would depend on how a game is accessing data. With the beta we have seen 7GB/s SSD perform better and worse in some games by a couple of milliseconds. The advantage PS5 SSD has is the greater IOPS and more IO queues for IO arbitration request, than most consumer SSD. In that sense a game that constantly requests lots of IO will perform a fraction better. Games are not yet pushing the boundaries of PS5 or XSX IO yet in my opinion. The gen just started.
This is exactly why I bought a 7GB/sec drive. I wanna be prepared for when games are really pushing things to the max. You know it's coming.
 
I wasn't trying to be an asshole or anything but I fail to see how it isn't normal when a faster driver outperforms a slower one.

My mind is set on the speed. The higher the speed the more data can be loaded in a given period of time. And that was something that was proven in the video. I honestly not understanding how a slower drive will perform the same as a faster one. If that was true then we would still be stuck with cheap HDDs instead of expensive HDDs.
I can tell we aren't on the same page because you still think I'm in any way doubting the benefits. From a user point of view, I think we have peaked already. Obviously there will be plenty of new optimization, but that will be all encompassing as it always is.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
This is exactly why I bought a 7GB/sec drive. I wanna be prepared for when games are really pushing things to the max. You know it's coming.
To honest even though I also bought a 7GB/s SSD, I don’t think getting something that is 5GB/s is going to hurt performance that greatly outside of if you’re doing side by side comparison. A couple milliseconds or seconds at most.
 
To honest even though I also bought a 7GB/s SSD, I don’t think getting something that is 5GB/s is going to hurt performance that greatly outside of if you’re doing side by side comparison. A couple milliseconds or seconds at most.
I agree. 5GB should be the baseline, but faster can't hurt 😉
 

ethomaz

Banned
I honestly wonder if some games rated for the internal 5.5GB/sec drive will be even better on a 7GB/sec drive. Like, I wonder if you're bound by the I/O speed or by the CPU at that point.

Also, I don't think any current games max out the internal SSD yet.
From the tests made until now there are hints that the I/O complex is limited to lower than 7GB/s speeds but we need more tests (and games for conclusion).

But right now except for writing speeds there is no difference in speeds in a 5.5GB/s and 7GB/s on PS5.
 
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From the tests made until now there are hints that the I/O complex is limited to lower than 7GB/s speeds but we need more tests (and games for conclusion).

But right now exactly for writing speeds there is no difference in reading speeds in a 5.5GB/s and 7GB/s on PS5.
For me, it's more about the read speed, but I agree. We need to see more games that take full advantage of the IO speeds. Even R&C runs fine on a 3.5GB/sec drive which makes me think that 5.5GB/sec hasn't even been utilized yet.
 

ethomaz

Banned
For me, it's more about the read speed, but I agree. We need to see more games that take full advantage of the IO speeds. Even R&C runs fine on a 3.5GB/sec drive which makes me think that 5.5GB/sec hasn't even been utilized yet.
I don’t think PS5 supports any 3.5GB/s drive… I believe the slowest is 3.9GB/s but I can be wrong.

Said that Insommiac said that about lower than 5.5GB/s drives:

 

Mithos

Member
There is no PCIe 4.0 SSD below 3.9GB/s in the market I'm afraid... well maybe there is some not know brand but I really don't know of any.
The WD Black SN750 SE series is a bit slower, 3200MB/s for the 250GB version and 3600MB/s for the 500GB/1TB versions.

 
I can tell we aren't on the same page because you still think I'm in any way doubting the benefits. From a user point of view, I think we have peaked already. Obviously there will be plenty of new optimization, but that will be all encompassing as it always is.

Im pretty sure we didn't peak with HDDs. And even if we are peaking with the current technology there's still a massive improvement from HDDs. If we are not seeing this yet it's because games are not being built with just fast storage in mind.

I honestly don't believe we already maxed out the I/O just yet. We still need to see games that built for it exclusively.

And by exclusively I mean SSDs in general not just the PS5s I/O for example.
 

ethomaz

Banned
The WD Black SN750 SE series is a bit slower, 3200MB/s for the 250GB version and 3600MB/s for the 500GB/1TB versions.

That could be an interesting test but it not an available SSD yet.

Edit - Weird it is the same SN750 SSD but they just upgraded the PCIe controller to 4.0 a month ago.

"Western Digital have announced they've got a new gaming-focused NVMe SSD on the way, the WD Black SN750 SE. Rather confusingly, it's a PCIe 4.0 version of their flagship PCIe 3.0 drive, the WD Black SN750, which isn't going to cause any problems figuring out which one is which in the slightest, no sir."

BTW WD reason.

"What we've done with the Gen 4 controller allows us to optimise on the affordability of the product and the construction of the product. It's a single-sided design, there's just the controller and a block of NAND, it's DRAM-less, so that again allows you to reduce the cost. A Gen 3 solution like the SN750 was also using 8 lanes from the controller outbound to the NAND. The Gen 4 controller uses four lanes out to the NAND, but because they're Gen 4, they're higher power and higher bandwidth lanes. That allows us to get about 3650MB/s on the reads over the 3500MB/s on the SN750. So you're getting slightly better performance, and actually better performance on the IOPS, which is very important when you're doing all the [game] level load stuff, so you'll get a bump in load speeds. So you're getting better performance than Gen 3 by virtue of using a Gen 4 controller, you're getting lower power because it's optimised, and the affordability, is really what it comes down to in the end."

They did the same they did with Series X SSD.... it is a Gen3 SSD with a new Gen4 controller.
 
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The WD Black SN750 SE series is a bit slower, 3200MB/s for the 250GB version and 3600MB/s for the 500GB/1TB versions.

Oh, BURN!

Just kidding hehe
 

ethomaz

Banned
I just checked more about the SN750.
It should be a an really interesting benchmark when it releases... actually more interesting than any test made until now.
I hopes WD put it on market soon to people test it.
 
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Im pretty sure we didn't peak with HDDs. And even if we are peaking with the current technology there's still a massive improvement from HDDs. If we are not seeing this yet it's because games are not being built with just fast storage in mind.

I honestly don't believe we already maxed out the I/O just yet. We still need to see games that built for it exclusively.

And by exclusively I mean SSDs in general not just the PS5s I/O for example.
No, I'm saying the consoles, especially the ps5 have peaked.
 

assurdum

Banned
No, I'm saying the consoles, especially the ps5 have peaked.
I really don't understand why you continue to spread so many nonsense in this thread. I don't follow you at all. You can peaked the hardware specs even with shitty graphic and performance anyway.
 
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Because it's the only one with any games to actually use a faster io beyond reducing load times.
Edit and actual "next gen" games Beyond being prettier.

Still doesn't mean they couldn't do anymore with it. As developers become more familiar with the hardware they will be able to take advantage of it better. I've never seen a generation where a console was maxed out in the beginning.
 
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Mithos

Member
I just checked more about the SN750.
It should be a an really interesting benchmark when it releases... actually more interesting than any test made until now.
I hopes WD put it on market soon to people test it.
The online retailer (where I first saw them) say its will take 5 weekdays to get the SN750 SE series nvme's delivered if you place an order.
So should show up next week in other stores or at the beginning of September I guess.
 
I really don't understand why you continue to spread so many nonsense in this thread. I don't follow you at all. You can peaked the hardware specs even with shitty graphic and performance anyway.
Quote one and show me how it's nonsense. With facts and not bullshit please
Still doesn't mean they couldn't do anymore with. As developers become more familiar with the hardware they will be able to take advantage of it better. I've never seen a generation where a console was maxed out in the beginning.
That's pretty much every gen actually. Software just gets better.
 

TLZ

Banned
So much hoopla about fucking storage...
Are you serious? We went from HDDs straight to nvme gen 4. A straight 50 times jump. We didn't go incremental. That's like someone got their internet speed upgraded from a shitty 10mb to 500mb straight. That's a huge jump.
 
Bigger worlds more open environments? And of course for the asset quality to improve which I'm guessing UE5 is going to help with that. I don't believe Demon Souls is the best that they could do.
Like I said, the software will get better but not that much better. What PS4 game looks that much better than Driveclub?

I hope that made someone happy.
 
Like I said, the software will get better but not that much better. What PS4 game looks that much better than Driveclub?

I hope that made someone happy.

Consoles have fixed hardware. But it will still improve. At least we agree on Demon Souls looking great. There's a great interview with the developers on how they used the I/O with the game. As developers focus more on these SSDs we should see a similar level of asset quality.
 
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Consoles have fixed hardware. But it will still improve. At least we agree on Demon Souls looking great. There's a great interview with the developers on how they used the I/O with the game. As developers focus more on these SSDs we should see a similar level of asset quality.
I'm desperate for a port and died a little when they made that mistake.
Do you actually believe it won't just be demon souls but a bit better? It's literally all it ever is.
Driveclub or infamous but a bit better is the best PS4 could muster. I'm not even sure og Xbox one ever topped ryse.
 
I'm desperate for a port and died a little when they made that mistake.
Do you actually believe it won't just be demon souls but a bit better? It's literally all it ever is.
Driveclub or infamous but a bit better is the best PS4 could muster. I'm not even sure og Xbox one ever topped ryse.

Well it's like saying Halo Infinite is the best that the Series X could do. But we know it can definitely push visuals further. Same with games on the PS5.

You really need to have confidence in what developers can do with these systems.
 
Well it's like saying Halo Infinite is the best that the Series X could do. But we know it can definitely push visuals further. Same with games on the PS5.

You really need to have confidence in what developers can do with these systems.
Could you use a worse example for Xbox? Maybe not a cross gen game that is at best alright looking. You supposed to pick the best looking games. Again do you think any PS4 game looks that much better than infamous or Driveclub, or Xbox game better then Ryse?
Edit
Ghosts is arguably the best looking ps4 game, but does it look that much better than infamous?
Edit 2
Seriously go look at how great infamous looks.
 
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Could you use a worse example for Xbox? Maybe not a cross gen game that is at best alright looking. You supposed to pick the best looking games. Again do you think any PS4 game looks that much better than infamous or Driveclub, or Xbox game better then Ryse?
Edit
Ghosts is arguably the best looking ps4 game, but does it look that much better than infamous?

So you agree with the importance of games not being cross gen. It's why I believe we have yet to see the best looking ones. As for Ghosts looking better than Infamous. I would argue that it's better to compare a game like Spiderman to Infamous. It's kind of difficult to compare Ghosts to Infamous. But Spiderman is a lot easier and it does look better in my opinion.
 
So you agree with the importance of games not being cross gen. It's why I believe we have yet to see the best looking ones. As for Ghosts looking better than Infamous. I would argue that it's better to compare a game like Spiderman to Infamous. It's kind of difficult to compare Ghosts to Infamous. But Spiderman is a lot easier and it does look better in my opinion.
Dark souls and Ratchet are not cross gen. Also infamous and ghosts is better comparison since same studio.
Edit
Also Spiderman PS4 does not look that much better if at all then infamous.
Edit
Or if you want to cross devs, Spiderman look that much better gta5
 
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Dark souls and Ratchet are not cross gen. Also infamous and ghosts is better comparison since same studio.
Edit
Also Spiderman PS4 does not look that much better if at all then infamous.
Edit
Or if you want to cross devs, Spiderman look that much better gta5

Technically you can argue that this gen will just be PS4 games in 4K.
 
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