By Testing has shown that SSDs placed into an M.2 slot on an Intel X890 motherboard will not operate at their peak efficiency, which is another setback for Intel’s “Arrow Lake” or Core Ultra 200S architecture.
In contrast to the 14GB/s sequential read rates that PCI Gen 5 SSDs are capable of, the SSD Review (via Tom’s Hardware) discovered that SSDs installed into an X890 motherboard only managed 12GB/s sequential read speeds. Intel verified the site’s testing and said that a longer die-to-die data channel was the cause of the issue.
Those who have purchased the newest hardware technologies are impacted by the site’s conclusions. At around half the price per GB compared to their PCIe 5.0 relatives, PCI Gen 4 SSDs now offer the best value for your money when it comes to SSDs. The newest AMD and Intel motherboards, notably the X890 boards that power Intel’s Arrow Lake desktop CPU, like the Core Ultra 9 285K, are the only motherboards that enable PCIe 5.0 SSDs because they only make sense if the computer supports them.
Although Intel’s X890 has up to 24 PCIe 4 lanes, the motherboard or chipset isn’t the underlying problem. There are now 48 PCIe lanes, including 20 PCIe 5.0 lanes that are connected through the processor’s I/O tile, thanks to the addition of the 285K Arrow Lake CPU (a member of the Intel 200S desktop series). According to a statement Intel provided to the website, a longer die-to-die data link may result in higher latencies in the PCIe lanes.
However, the SSD Review’s findings were rather simple: the website evaluated two Gen5 SSDs on the Z890 and Z790 chipsets from Intel. Sequential readings reached 14GB/s on the Z790 and dropped 14 percent to 12GB/s on the Z890.
With significantly less power consumption, Intel’s Arrow Lake chips were expected to function on par with the more established Raptor Lake generation. In addition to lower-than-expected performance, Bestcomputerfinder tests revealed a 17 percent loss in power. Throughout the rest of 2024, Intel made promises to address the chip’s issues. It’s unclear if Intel will be able to fix this problem as well or simply grow from its errors.
