Intel’s latest Core Ultra CPUs slow down high-end SSDs, tests find

In another blow for Intel’s “Arrow Lake” or Core Ultra 200S platform, testing has confirmed that SSDs inserted into an M.2 slot on a Intel X890 motherboard won’t achieve their full performance.

The SSD Review (via Tom’s Hardware) found that SSDs inserted into an X890 motherboard achieved 12GB/s sequential read speeds, rather than the 14GB/s speeds the PCI Gen 5 SSDs care capable of. The site’s testing was confirmed by Intel, which said that the shortcoming was due to a longer die-to-die data path.

The site’s findings affect those who have invested in the latest hardware technology. Right now, the most bang for your buck in the best SSDs probably comes from PCI Gen 4 SSDs, which are about half the price per gigabyte of their PCIe 5.0 cousins. PCIe 5.0 SSDs only make sense if the PC supports them, which is why they’re reserved for the latest AMD and Intel motherboards, including the X890 boards which power Intel’s Arrow Lake desktop chip like the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Intel’s X890 includes up to 24 PCIe 4 lanes, but the chipset or motherboard really isn’t at fault. Adding the 285K Arrow Lake CPU (part of the Intel 200S desktop family) increases the number of PCIe lanes to 48, including 20 PCIe 5.0 lanes, which are routed through the processor’s I/O tile. In a statement Intel gave to the site, the company said that the PCIe lanes may exhibit increased latencies because of a longer die-to-die data path.

The SSD Review’s results were pretty straightforward, though: the site tested two Gen5 SSDs on Intel’s Z890 chipset, and again on the Z790 chipset. On the Z790, sequential reads hit 14GB/s; on the Z890, they fell to 12GB/s, a 14 percent drop.

Intel’s Arrow Lake chips promised parity performance with the older Raptor Lake generation but with substantially lower power. PCWorld’s tests showed a 17 percent drop in power along with poorer-than-expected performance. Intel spent the remainder of 2024 pledging to fix the problems with the chip. It’s not clear whether Intel will be able to patch this issue out, too, or just learn from its mistakes.