AMD Readies Radeon R7 SSDs
It looks like AMD's first solid state drives are around the corner, as the company hopes to capture high-end gaming PC sales. GPUs and system memory modules have been available undet the Radeon brand until now. Client SSDs are following, with the first 2.5-inch SATA models to bear the Radeon R7 brand, featuring capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB, according to presentation slides that appeared online at http://www.expreview.com/35109.html
All three feature SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and offer sequential read speeds as high as 550 MB/s, sequential writes of up to 470 MB/s on the 120 GB variant; and up to 530 MB/s on both the 240 GB and 480 GB ones. The three offer 4K random access throughput of up to 85,000 IOPS, 95,000 IOPS, and 100,000 IOPS, respectively; with 4K QD32 steady-state throughput of 12,000 IOPS, 20,000 IOPS, and 23,000 IOPS, respectively.
The SSDs are based on OCZ's Indilinx Barefoot 3 processor, driving Toshiba-made 19 nm MLC NAND flash chips.
They are expected to be launched on the 13th of August, 2014.