Silicon Motion Demonstrates Flexible Data Placement on MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform
At FMS 2024, the technological requirements from the storage and memory subsystem took center stage. Both SSD and controller vendors had various demonstrations touting their suitability for different stages of the AI data pipeline - ingestion, preparation, training, checkpointing, and inference. Vendors like Solidigm have different types of SSDs optimized for different stages of the pipeline. At the same time, controller vendors have taken advantage of one of the features introduced recently in the NVM Express standard - Flexible Data Placement (FDP).
FDP involves the host providing information / hints about the areas where the controller could place the incoming write data in order to reduce the write amplification. These hints are generated based on specific block sizes advertised by the device. The feature is completely backwards-compatible, with non-FDP hosts working just as before with FDP-enabled SSDs, and vice-versa.
Silicon Motion's MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform was announced back in 2022. Since then, Silicon Motion has been touting the flexibility of the platform, allowing its customers to incorporate their own features as part of the customization process. This approach is common in the enterprise space, as we have seen with Marvell's Bravera SC5 SSD controller in the DapuStor SSDs and Microchip's Flashtec controllers in the Longsys FORESEE enterprise SSDs.
At FMS 2024, the company was demonstrating the advantages of flexible data placement by allowing a single QLC SSD based on their MonTitan platform to take part in different stages of the AI data pipeline while maintaining the required quality of service (minimum bandwidth) for each process. The company even has a trademarked name (PerformaShape) for the firmware feature in the controller that allows the isolation of different concurrent SSD accesses (from different stages in the AI data pipeline) to guarantee this QoS. Silicon Motion claims that this scheme will enable its customers to get the maximum write performance possible from QLC SSDs without negatively impacting the performance of other types of accesses.
Silicon Motion and Phison have market leadership in the client SSD controller market with similar approaches. However, their enterprise SSD controller marketing couldn't be more different. While Phison has gone in for a turnkey solution with their Gen 5 SSD platform (to the extent of not adopting the white label route for this generation, and instead opting to get the SSDs qualified with different cloud service providers themselves), Silicon Motion is opting for a different approach. The flexibility and customization possibilities can make platforms like the MonTitan appeal to flash array vendors.
Storage
Posted by The Techinical Support
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Fadu's FC5161 SSD Controller Breaks Cover in Western Digital's PCIe Gen5 Enterprise Drives When Western Digital introduced its Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs earlier this year, the company did not disclose which controller it used for these drives, which made many observers presume that WD was using an in-house controller. But a recent teardown of the drive shows that is not the case; instead, the company is using a controller from Fadu, a South Korean company founded in 2015 that specializes on enterprise-grade turnkey SSD solutions. The Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN861 SSD is aimed at performance-hungry hyperscale datacenters and enterprise customers which are adopting PCIe Gen5 storage devices these days. And, as uncovered in photos from a recent Storage Review article, the drive is based on Fadu's FC5161 NVMe 2.0-compliant controller. The FC5161 utilizes 16 NAND channels supporting an ONFi 5.0 2400 MT/s interface, and features a combination of enterprise-grade capabilities (OCP Cloud Spec 2.0, SR-IOV, up to 512 name spaces for ZNS support, flexible data placement, NVMe-MI 1.2, advanced security, telemetry, power loss protection) not available on other off-the-shelf controllers – or on any previous Western Digital controllers. The Ultrastar DC SN861 SSD offers sequential read speeds up to 13.7 GB/s as well as sequential write speeds up to 7.5 GB/s. As for random performance, it boasts with an up to 3.3 million random 4K read IOPS and up to 0.8 million random 4K write IOPS. The drives are available in capacities between 1.6 TB and 7.68 TB with one or three drive writes per day (DWPD) over five years rating as well as in U.2 and E1.S form-factors. While the two form factors of the SN861 share a similar technical design, Western Digital has tailored each version for distinct workloads: the E1.S supports FDP and performance enhancements specifically for cloud environments. By contrast, the U.2 model is geared towards high-performance enterprise tasks and emerging applications like AI. Without any doubts, Western Digital's Ultrastar DC SN861 is a feature-rich high-performance enterprise-grade SSD. It has another distinctive feature: a 5W idle power consumption, which is rather low by the standards of enterprise-grade drives (e.g., it is 1W lower compared to the SN840). While the difference with predecessors may be just 1W, hyperscalers deploy thousands of drives and for their TCO every watt counts. Western Digital's Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs are now available for purchase to select customers (such as Meta) and to interested parties. Prices are unknown, but they will depend on such factors as volumes. Sources: Fadu, Storage Review Storage
Kioxia Demonstrates RAID Offload Scheme for NVMe Drives At FMS 2024, Kioxia had a proof-of-concept demonstration of their proposed a new RAID offload methodology for enterprise SSDs. The impetus for this is quite clear: as SSDs get faster in each generation, RAID arrays have a major problem of maintaining (and scaling up) performance. Even in cases where the RAID operations are handled by a dedicated RAID card, a simple write request in, say, a RAID 5 array would involve two reads and two writes to different drives. In cases where there is no hardware acceleration, the data from the reads needs to travel all the way back to the CPU and main memory for further processing before the writes can be done. Kioxia has proposed the use of the PCIe direct memory access feature along with the SSD controller's controller memory buffer (CMB) to avoid the movement of data up to the CPU and back. The required parity computation is done by an accelerator block resident within the SSD controller. In Kioxia's PoC implementation, the DMA engine can access the entire host address space (including the peer SSD's BAR-mapped CMB), allowing it to receive and transfer data as required from neighboring SSDs on the bus. Kioxia noted that their offload PoC saw close to 50% reduction in CPU utilization and upwards of 90% reduction in system DRAM utilization compared to software RAID done on the CPU. The proposed offload scheme can also handle scrubbing operations without taking up the host CPU cycles for the parity computation task. Kioxia has already taken steps to contribute these features to the NVM Express working group. If accepted, the proposed offload scheme will be part of a standard that could become widely available across multiple SSD vendors. Storage
MediaTek to Add NVIDIA G-Sync Support to Monitor Scalers, Make G-Sync Displays More Accessible
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The demonstration of the optical SSD showed a slight loss in IOPS performance, but a significant advantage in the latency metric over the shipping enterprise SSD behind a copper network link. Obviously, there are advantages in wiring requirements and signal integrity maintenance with optical links.
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Storage
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Kioxia Demonstrates Optical Interface SSDs for Data Centers
A few years back, the Japanese government's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO ) allocated funding for the development of green datacenter technologies. With the aim to obtain up to 40% savings in overall power consumption, several Japanese companies have been developing an optical interface for their enterprise SSDs. And at this year's FMS, Kioxia had their optical interface on display.
For this demonstration, Kioxia took its existing CM7 enterprise SSD and created an optical interface for it. A PCIe card with on-board optics developed by Kyocera is installed in the server slot. An optical interface allows data transfer over long distances (it was 40m in the demo, but Kioxia promises lengths of up to 100m for the cable in the future). This allows the storage to be kept in a separate room with minimal cooling requirements compared to the rack with the CPUs and GPUs. Disaggregation of different server components will become an option as very high throughput interfaces such as PCIe 7.0 (with 128 GT/s rates) become available.
The demonstration of the optical SSD showed a slight loss in IOPS performance, but a significant advantage in the latency metric over the shipping enterprise SSD behind a copper network link. Obviously, there are advantages in wiring requirements and signal integrity maintenance with optical links.
Being a proof-of-concept demonstration, we do see the requirement for an industry-standard approach if this were to gain adoption among different datacenter vendors. The PCI-SIG optical workgroup will need to get its act together soon to create a standards-based approach to this problem.
Storage
Kioxia Demonstrates Optical Interface SSDs for Data Centers
A few years back, the Japanese government's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO ) allocated funding for the development of green datacenter technologies. With the aim to obtain up to 40% savings in overall power consumption, several Japanese companies have been developing an optical interface for their enterprise SSDs. And at this year's FMS, Kioxia had their optical interface on display.
For this demonstration, Kioxia took its existing CM7 enterprise SSD and created an optical interface for it. A PCIe card with on-board optics developed by Kyocera is installed in the server slot. An optical interface allows data transfer over long distances (it was 40m in the demo, but Kioxia promises lengths of up to 100m for the cable in the future). This allows the storage to be kept in a separate room with minimal cooling requirements compared to the rack with the CPUs and GPUs. Disaggregation of different server components will become an option as very high throughput interfaces such as PCIe 7.0 (with 128 GT/s rates) become available.
The demonstration of the optical SSD showed a slight loss in IOPS performance, but a significant advantage in the latency metric over the shipping enterprise SSD behind a copper network link. Obviously, there are advantages in wiring requirements and signal integrity maintenance with optical links.
Being a proof-of-concept demonstration, we do see the requirement for an industry-standard approach if this were to gain adoption among different datacenter vendors. The PCI-SIG optical workgroup will need to get its act together soon to create a standards-based approach to this problem.
Storage
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All of these are using BiCS8 QLC NAND, though I did hear booth talk (as I was taking leave) that they were not supposed to divulge the use of QLC in these products. The 4 TB microSDUC and 8 TB SDUC cards are rated for UHS-I speeds. They are being marketed under the SanDisk Ultra branding.
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Microchip Demonstrates Flashtec 5016 Enterprise SSD Controller
![](https://twitter.com/share?url=https://compbuddey.blogspot.com/2025/05/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible_80.html&text=Silicon Motion Demonstrates Flexible Data Placement on MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/carousel_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>At FMS 2024, the technological requirements from the storage and memory subsystem took center stage. Both SSD and controller vendors had various demonstrations touting their suitability for different stages of the AI data pipeline - ingestion, preparation, training, checkpointing, and inference. Vendors like Solidigm have different types of SSDs optimized for different stages of the pipeline. At the same time, controller vendors have taken advantage of one of the features introduced recently in the NVM Express standard - <a href="https://nvmexpress.org/nvmeflexible-data-placement-fdp-blog/">Flexible Data Placement</a> (FDP).</p>
<p>FDP involves the host providing information / hints about the areas where the controller could place the incoming write data in order to reduce the write amplification. These hints are generated based on specific block sizes advertised by the device. The feature is completely backwards-compatible, with non-FDP hosts working just as before with FDP-enabled SSDs, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion's <a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/17512/silicon-motion-sm8366-montitan-ssd-platform">MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform</a> was announced back in 2022. Since then, Silicon Motion has been touting the flexibility of the platform, allowing its customers to incorporate their own features as part of the customization process. This approach is common in the enterprise space, as we have seen with Marvell's Bravera SC5 SSD controller in the DapuStor SSDs and Microchip's Flashtec controllers in the Longsys FORESEE enterprise SSDs.</p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/mid-page_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>At FMS 2024, the company was demonstrating the advantages of flexible data placement by allowing a single QLC SSD based on their MonTitan platform to take part in different stages of the AI data pipeline while maintaining the required quality of service (minimum bandwidth) for each process. The company even has a trademarked name (PerformaShape) for the firmware feature in the controller that allows the isolation of different concurrent SSD accesses (from different stages in the AI data pipeline) to guarantee this QoS. Silicon Motion claims that this scheme will enable its customers to get the maximum write performance possible from QLC SSDs without negatively impacting the performance of other types of accesses.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion and Phison have market leadership in the client SSD controller market with similar approaches. However, their enterprise SSD controller marketing couldn't be more different. While Phison has gone in for a turnkey solution with their Gen 5 SSD platform (to the extent of not adopting the white label route for this generation, and instead opting to get the SSDs qualified with different cloud service providers themselves), Silicon Motion is opting for a different approach. The flexibility and customization possibilities can make platforms like the MonTitan appeal to flash array vendors.</p>
</p> Storage){kind=link}
![](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://compbuddey.blogspot.com/2025/05/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible_80.html&media=https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sX7bsPSghb1h-guwJrJ2_KtHhqj024oAl1JtSlswm_ZHGiwa56YtmQjwV-zbAO3fuH58-or9Evx4n8TSufwwMsah33cvwq16scAS8poYT8KLNO3Le5TDrwBnRMS2g&description=Silicon Motion Demonstrates Flexible Data Placement on MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/carousel_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>At FMS 2024, the technological requirements from the storage and memory subsystem took center stage. Both SSD and controller vendors had various demonstrations touting their suitability for different stages of the AI data pipeline - ingestion, preparation, training, checkpointing, and inference. Vendors like Solidigm have different types of SSDs optimized for different stages of the pipeline. At the same time, controller vendors have taken advantage of one of the features introduced recently in the NVM Express standard - <a href="https://nvmexpress.org/nvmeflexible-data-placement-fdp-blog/">Flexible Data Placement</a> (FDP).</p>
<p>FDP involves the host providing information / hints about the areas where the controller could place the incoming write data in order to reduce the write amplification. These hints are generated based on specific block sizes advertised by the device. The feature is completely backwards-compatible, with non-FDP hosts working just as before with FDP-enabled SSDs, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion's <a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/17512/silicon-motion-sm8366-montitan-ssd-platform">MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform</a> was announced back in 2022. Since then, Silicon Motion has been touting the flexibility of the platform, allowing its customers to incorporate their own features as part of the customization process. This approach is common in the enterprise space, as we have seen with Marvell's Bravera SC5 SSD controller in the DapuStor SSDs and Microchip's Flashtec controllers in the Longsys FORESEE enterprise SSDs.</p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/mid-page_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>At FMS 2024, the company was demonstrating the advantages of flexible data placement by allowing a single QLC SSD based on their MonTitan platform to take part in different stages of the AI data pipeline while maintaining the required quality of service (minimum bandwidth) for each process. The company even has a trademarked name (PerformaShape) for the firmware feature in the controller that allows the isolation of different concurrent SSD accesses (from different stages in the AI data pipeline) to guarantee this QoS. Silicon Motion claims that this scheme will enable its customers to get the maximum write performance possible from QLC SSDs without negatively impacting the performance of other types of accesses.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion and Phison have market leadership in the client SSD controller market with similar approaches. However, their enterprise SSD controller marketing couldn't be more different. While Phison has gone in for a turnkey solution with their Gen 5 SSD platform (to the extent of not adopting the white label route for this generation, and instead opting to get the SSDs qualified with different cloud service providers themselves), Silicon Motion is opting for a different approach. The flexibility and customization possibilities can make platforms like the MonTitan appeal to flash array vendors.</p>
</p> Storage){kind=link}
![](https://web.whatsapp.com/send?text=Silicon Motion Demonstrates Flexible Data Placement on MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/carousel_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>At FMS 2024, the technological requirements from the storage and memory subsystem took center stage. Both SSD and controller vendors had various demonstrations touting their suitability for different stages of the AI data pipeline - ingestion, preparation, training, checkpointing, and inference. Vendors like Solidigm have different types of SSDs optimized for different stages of the pipeline. At the same time, controller vendors have taken advantage of one of the features introduced recently in the NVM Express standard - <a href="https://nvmexpress.org/nvmeflexible-data-placement-fdp-blog/">Flexible Data Placement</a> (FDP).</p>
<p>FDP involves the host providing information / hints about the areas where the controller could place the incoming write data in order to reduce the write amplification. These hints are generated based on specific block sizes advertised by the device. The feature is completely backwards-compatible, with non-FDP hosts working just as before with FDP-enabled SSDs, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion's <a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/17512/silicon-motion-sm8366-montitan-ssd-platform">MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform</a> was announced back in 2022. Since then, Silicon Motion has been touting the flexibility of the platform, allowing its customers to incorporate their own features as part of the customization process. This approach is common in the enterprise space, as we have seen with Marvell's Bravera SC5 SSD controller in the DapuStor SSDs and Microchip's Flashtec controllers in the Longsys FORESEE enterprise SSDs.</p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/mid-page_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>At FMS 2024, the company was demonstrating the advantages of flexible data placement by allowing a single QLC SSD based on their MonTitan platform to take part in different stages of the AI data pipeline while maintaining the required quality of service (minimum bandwidth) for each process. The company even has a trademarked name (PerformaShape) for the firmware feature in the controller that allows the isolation of different concurrent SSD accesses (from different stages in the AI data pipeline) to guarantee this QoS. Silicon Motion claims that this scheme will enable its customers to get the maximum write performance possible from QLC SSDs without negatively impacting the performance of other types of accesses.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion and Phison have market leadership in the client SSD controller market with similar approaches. However, their enterprise SSD controller marketing couldn't be more different. While Phison has gone in for a turnkey solution with their Gen 5 SSD platform (to the extent of not adopting the white label route for this generation, and instead opting to get the SSDs qualified with different cloud service providers themselves), Silicon Motion is opting for a different approach. The flexibility and customization possibilities can make platforms like the MonTitan appeal to flash array vendors.</p>
</p> Storage | https://compbuddey.blogspot.com/2025/05/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible_80.html){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=Silicon Motion Demonstrates Flexible Data Placement on MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/carousel_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>At FMS 2024, the technological requirements from the storage and memory subsystem took center stage. Both SSD and controller vendors had various demonstrations touting their suitability for different stages of the AI data pipeline - ingestion, preparation, training, checkpointing, and inference. Vendors like Solidigm have different types of SSDs optimized for different stages of the pipeline. At the same time, controller vendors have taken advantage of one of the features introduced recently in the NVM Express standard - <a href="https://nvmexpress.org/nvmeflexible-data-placement-fdp-blog/">Flexible Data Placement</a> (FDP).</p>
<p>FDP involves the host providing information / hints about the areas where the controller could place the incoming write data in order to reduce the write amplification. These hints are generated based on specific block sizes advertised by the device. The feature is completely backwards-compatible, with non-FDP hosts working just as before with FDP-enabled SSDs, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion's <a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/17512/silicon-motion-sm8366-montitan-ssd-platform">MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform</a> was announced back in 2022. Since then, Silicon Motion has been touting the flexibility of the platform, allowing its customers to incorporate their own features as part of the customization process. This approach is common in the enterprise space, as we have seen with Marvell's Bravera SC5 SSD controller in the DapuStor SSDs and Microchip's Flashtec controllers in the Longsys FORESEE enterprise SSDs.</p>
<p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21522/silicon-motion-demonstrates-flexible-data-placement-on-montitan-gen-5-enterprise-ssd-platform"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21522/mid-page_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>At FMS 2024, the company was demonstrating the advantages of flexible data placement by allowing a single QLC SSD based on their MonTitan platform to take part in different stages of the AI data pipeline while maintaining the required quality of service (minimum bandwidth) for each process. The company even has a trademarked name (PerformaShape) for the firmware feature in the controller that allows the isolation of different concurrent SSD accesses (from different stages in the AI data pipeline) to guarantee this QoS. Silicon Motion claims that this scheme will enable its customers to get the maximum write performance possible from QLC SSDs without negatively impacting the performance of other types of accesses.</p>
<p>Silicon Motion and Phison have market leadership in the client SSD controller market with similar approaches. However, their enterprise SSD controller marketing couldn't be more different. While Phison has gone in for a turnkey solution with their Gen 5 SSD platform (to the extent of not adopting the white label route for this generation, and instead opting to get the SSDs qualified with different cloud service providers themselves), Silicon Motion is opting for a different approach. The flexibility and customization possibilities can make platforms like the MonTitan appeal to flash array vendors.</p>
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Microchip recently announced the availability of their second PCIe Gen 5 enterprise SSD controller - the Flashtec 5016. Like the 4016, this is also a 16-channel controller, but there are some key updates:
- PCIe 5.0 lane organization: Operation in x4 or dual independent x2 / x2 mode in the 5016, compared to the x8, or x4, or dual independent x4 / x2 mode in the 4016.
- DRAM support: Four ranks of DDR5-5200 in the 5016, compared to two ranks of DDR4-3200 in the 4016.
- Extended NAND support: 2400 MT/s NAND in the 4016, compared to the 3200 MT/s NAND support in the 5016.
- Performance improvements: The 5016 is capable of delivering 3.5M+ random read IOPS compared to the 3M+ of the 4016.
Microchip's enterprise SSD controllers provide a high level of flexibility to SSD vendors by providing them with significant horsepower and accelerators. The 5016 includes Cortex-A53 cores for SSD vendors to run custom applications relevant to SSD management. However, compared to the Gen4 controllers, there are two additional cores in the CPU cluster. The DRAM subsystem includes ECC support (both out-of-band and inline, as desired by the SSD vendor).
At FMS 2024, the company demonstrated an application of the neural network engines embedded in the Gen5 controllers. Controllers usually employ a 'read-retry' operation with altered read-out voltages for flash reads that do not complete successfully. Microchip implemented a machine learning approach to determine the read-out voltage based on the health history of the NAND block using the NN engines in the controller. This approach delivers tangible benefits for read latency and power consumption (thanks to a smaller number of errors on the first read).
The 4016 and 5016 come with a single-chip root of trust implementation for hardware security. A secure boot process with dual-signature authentication ensures that the controller firmware is not maliciously altered in the field. The company also brought out the advantages of their controller's implementation of SR-IOV, flexible data placement, and zoned namespaces along with their 'credit engine' scheme for multi-tenant cloud workloads. These aspects were also brought out in other demonstrations.
Microchip's press release included quotes from the usual NAND vendors - Solidigm, Kioxia, and Micron. On the customer front, Longsys has been using Flashtec controllers in their enterprise offerings along with YMTC NAND. It is likely that this collaboration will continue further using the new 5016 controller.
Storage
The Endorfy Fortis 5 Dual Fan CPU Cooler Review: Towering Value Standard CPU coolers, while adequate for managing basic thermal loads, often fall short in terms of noise reduction and superior cooling efficiency. This limitation drives advanced users and system builders to seek aftermarket solutions tailored to their specific needs. The high-end aftermarket cooler market is highly competitive, with manufacturers striving to offer products with exceptional performance.
Endorfy, previously known as SilentiumPC, is a Polish manufacturer that has undergone a significant transformation to expand its presence in global markets. The brand is known for delivering high-performance cooling solutions with a strong focus on balancing efficiency and affordability. By rebranding as Endorfy, the company aims to enter premium market segments while continuing to offer reliable, high-quality cooling products.
SilentiumPC became very popular in the value/mainstream segments of the PC market with their products, the spearhead of which probably was the Fera 5 cooler that we reviewed a little over two years ago and had a remarkable value for money. Today’s review places Endorfy’s largest CPU cooler, the Fortis 5 Dual Fan, on our laboratory test bench. The Fortis 5 is the largest CPU air cooler the company currently offers and is significantly more expensive than the Fera 5, yet it still is a single-tower cooler that strives to strike a balance between value, compatibility, and performance.
Cases/Cooling/PSUs
The Endorfy Fortis 5 Dual Fan CPU Cooler Review: Towering Value Standard CPU coolers, while adequate for managing basic thermal loads, often fall short in terms of noise reduction and superior cooling efficiency. This limitation drives advanced users and system builders to seek aftermarket solutions tailored to their specific needs. The high-end aftermarket cooler market is highly competitive, with manufacturers striving to offer products with exceptional performance.
Endorfy, previously known as SilentiumPC, is a Polish manufacturer that has undergone a significant transformation to expand its presence in global markets. The brand is known for delivering high-performance cooling solutions with a strong focus on balancing efficiency and affordability. By rebranding as Endorfy, the company aims to enter premium market segments while continuing to offer reliable, high-quality cooling products.
SilentiumPC became very popular in the value/mainstream segments of the PC market with their products, the spearhead of which probably was the Fera 5 cooler that we reviewed a little over two years ago and had a remarkable value for money. Today’s review places Endorfy’s largest CPU cooler, the Fortis 5 Dual Fan, on our laboratory test bench. The Fortis 5 is the largest CPU air cooler the company currently offers and is significantly more expensive than the Fera 5, yet it still is a single-tower cooler that strives to strike a balance between value, compatibility, and performance.
Cases/Cooling/PSUs
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MediaTek to Add NVIDIA G-Sync Support to Monitor Scalers, Make G-Sync Displays More Accessible
NVIDIA on Tuesday said that future monitor scalers from MediaTek will support its G-Sync technologies. NVIDIA is partnering with MediaTek to integrate its full range of G-Sync technologies into future monitors without requiring a standalone G-Sync module, which makes advanced gaming features more accessible across a broader range of displays.
Traditionally, G-Sync technology relied on a dedicated G-sync module – based on an Altera FPGA – to handle syncing display refresh rates with the GPU in order to reduce screen tearing, stutter, and input lag. As a more basic solution, in 2019 NVIDIA introduced G-Sync Compatible certification and branding, which leveraged the industry-standard VESA AdaptiveSync technology to handle variable refresh rates. In lieu of using a dedicated module, leveraging AdaptiveSync allowed for cheaper monitors, with NVIDIA's program serving as a stamp of approval that the monitor worked with NVIDIA GPUs and met NVIDIA's performance requirements. Still, G-Sync Compatible monitors still lack some features that, to date, require the dedicated G-Sync module.
Through this new partnership with MediaTek, MediaTek will bring support for all of NVIDIA's G-Sync technologies, including the latest G-Sync Pulsar, directly into their scalers. G-Sync Pulsar enhances motion clarity and reduces ghosting, providing a smoother gaming experience. In addition to variable refresh rates and Pulsar, MediaTek-based G-Sync displays will support such features as variable overdrive, 12-bit color, Ultra Low Motion Blur, low latency HDR, and Reflex Analyzer. This integration will allow more monitors to support a full range of G-Sync features without having to incorporate an expensive FPGA.
The first monitors to feature full G-Sync support without needing an NVIDIA module include the AOC Agon Pro AG276QSG2, Acer Predator XB273U F5, and ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG27AQNR. These monitors offer 360Hz refresh rates, 1440p resolution, and HDR support.
What remains to be seen is which specific MediaTek's scalers will support NVIDIA's G-Sync technology – or if the company is going to implement support into all of their scalers going forward. It also remains to be seen whether monitors with NVIDIA's dedicated G-Sync modules retain any advantages over displays with MediaTek's scalers.
Monitors
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