The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
3D MARK STORAGE GAMING BENCHMARK
UL Solutions has created a new storage gaming benchmark that we will start to use as new SSDs come in. The 3DMark Storage Benchmark DLC extends 3DMark Advanced Edition with a dedicated component test for measuring the gaming performance of SSDs and other storage hardware. It supports all the latest storage technologies and tests practical, real-world gaming performance for activities such as loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.
3DMark is a fairly new tool in our toolbox and we have only tested a few other drives to date, however, this Phison E26 Gen5 Reference Sample seems to be making a statement.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
The Phison PS5026-E26 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 Reference Design sample that we have in hand has been through four terabytes of work since we got it in hand early yesterday. It was received with an active heatsink, and then additional testing was conducted using the ASRock Z690 Velocita with on board PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot, along with the Asus Maximus Hero Z790 Hyper M.2 Card that was included with that motherboard.
Our first discovery and probably one of the best qualities of this SSD is the fact that, although careful integration may be necessary for onboard M.2 installation, passive heatsinks will be sufficient, at least in the case of the E26 sample. Prior to having this in hand, I never thought we would get away with such but the E26 was very comfortable seated in that ASUS Hyper M.2 card.
We are really very early in the Gen 5 SSD game and, as healthy as read and write performance of 10GB/s with 1.5 million IOPS is, this is really just a start. Performance will improve. We know that because our testing of this SSD included its use of the newest Micron 232-layer TLC NAND flash memory not even coming close to its top speed of 2400MT/s. This SSD was set up for maximum compatibility. It was sent out knowing that its initial reports would be the safe bet.
Still, the Phison PS5026-E26 PCIe 5.0 2TB Reference sample topped just about every test we threw at it with ease, even pulling off some lightning fast game loading results. We have this feeling that we may just be seeing retail availability in this quarter… and expect more samples to make their way for testing. Let the games begin!
Great release Phison!
I think liquid cooling, probably with a fitted cooling sleeve for the SSD since both sides need cooling, will be essential to getting full performance out of these 5.0 sticks. Forget about seeing these thermal beasts in laptops.