Blazing Quad M.2: Asrock packs four PCI-E 5.0 M.2 SSDs onto one expansion card

After a long lead time for announcements, the first SSDs that support the PCI Express 5.0 standard are now being washed onto the market. This development has not gone unnoticed by the Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Asrock, which offers an expansion card that offers space for four of the new M.2 SSDs based on PCI-E 5.0 on its circuit board. The good piece is called Blazing Quad M.2, measures 9.6 x 4.97 inches and is connected via the PCI-E 5.0 x16 slot.

Blazing Quad M.2 – Cooling is taken care of

Such expansion cards from Asrock are not new, however, because the manufacturer already offers them ultra quad and Hyper-Quad AICs for PCI-E 3.0 and 4.0 SSDs. The Blazing Quad M.2 is also said to be 13 percent larger than the previous cards. Meanwhile, the M-2 SSDs under the hood can have a maximum length of 110 mm and are housed at a 45-degree angle. According to Asrock, the signal traces should be kept as short as possible in order to ensure better signal integrity for the data transfer speed.

Since PCI-E 5.0 SSDs are known to get very hot, Asrock equips the Blazing Quad M.2 with a large aluminum heatsink paired with two fans made of the same material and thermal pads for each SSD. The card also has a 12V 6-pin power connector for power. Ultimately, four glowing LEDs are installed, which are noticeable through the housing so that users can monitor the read and write status of the SSDs.

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The manufacturer notes that the product is not sold worldwide; at the same time, there is still no information on the price and availability. However, the expansion cards are to be delivered together with W790 mainboards for the new Xeon W CPUs based on Sapphire Rapids Tom’s hardware explained.

Source: Asrock