Intel Rocket Lake-S improves M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD performance by 11% over AMD Ryzen

The new Intel Rocket Lake-S processors that could arrive in the middle of next month bring support for PCIe 4.0. They are the first processors of the company to add support for this interface. It seems that the integration in the Intel processors of PCIe 4.0 would be better than in the AMD Ryzen 5000, according to the first data.

Intel Rocket Lake-S would offer better performance in PCIe 4.0 than the AMD Ryzen 5000

Possibly the integration of the PCIe 4.0 interface is one of the shortest of this standard. Intel will integrate it for the first and only time in the Rocket Lake-S, to launch the Alder Lake-S with support for PCIe 5.0 by the end of the year. AMD has supported it in the AMD Ryzen 3000, Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000, but predictably the Ryzen 6000 will already support PCIe 5.0.

Based on the leaked benchmark, the same M.2 PCIe 4.0 drive offers 11% better performance with Intel processors. An Intel Core i9-11900K processor and an AMD Ryzen 5950X processor were used for the test. The M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD used is the 980TB Samsung 1 Pro, which is the same for both cases. While the software used is the PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark.

Seeking to make the comparison as reliable as possible, ASUS motherboards have been used. For the Core i9-11900K the RoG Z590 Maximus XIII Hero motherboard has been used. While for the Ryzen 9 5950X the RoG X570 Rampage VII Hero motherboard has been used. Indicate that in the case of AMD the SSD has been put in a PCIe card so that it is connected directly to the processor, thus avoiding the connection with the chipset.

It appears that Intel has integrated PCIe 4.0 better, as evidenced by the 11% performance improvement. The truth is that for common users this data is not very relevant. Currently, M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs are extremely expensive for what they offer and few people choose this type of drive.

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Source: TPU | Ryan shrout