When we first saw the MSI Spatium M570 Pro Frozr, it was at Computex 2023 and technically speaking, it was only being showcased from an aesthetic standpoint and not for its PCIe 5.0 prowess. Well, it’s been close to a year since I last saw it and the storage piece is finally here in my labs.
What’s Am I Looking At?
Technically speaking, PCIe 5.0 SSDs have been a thing since the advent of the interface and prior to the Spatium M570 Pro Frozr, I first saw the medium in action in 2022 when AMD launched its Zen4 architecture and the accompanying Ryzen 7000 Series desktop CPUs. As it has been for the past three generations, these PCIe 5.0 SSDs use the same 2280 M.2 form factor, the main difference being the breakneck speeds that far surpasses those of the more prevalent PCIe 4.0 models.
The Spatium M570 Pro Frozr, in this case, is the brand’s first attempt of entering the PCIe Gen5 SSD arena and surprisingly, it’s not half bad.
What’s Good About It?
Specs-wise, the Spatium M570 Pro Frozr that is in my lab has a storage capacity of 2TB and as far as I am aware, that is the second largest capacity of PCIe 5.0 SSD its parent company currently makes. As per my earlier report when it launched, the SSD is fitted with a Phison E26 PCIe 5.0 controller technology state uses 3D NAND flash. As transfer speeds, you’re looking at average sequential read and write speeds of 12.4GB/s and 11.8GB/s, respectively.
I should point out that the Spatium M570 comes in a couple of flavours and by that, I mean that depending on the model, the included heatsink will vary. For the Pro Frozr model, its heatsink is a massive tower of fins, and the whole thing is bolted onto the SSD with a healthy number of screws to hold it down.
What’s The Catch?
One of the major issues I have with the Spatium M570 Pro Frozr is the size of it. That heatsink? Yeah, it’s part of the package and understandably so, given the nature of PCIe 5.0. But it also means that this is going to be your main drive, come hell or highwater, because making it your secondary storage is not an option, and that’s simply because you won’t have the headroom for your massive graphics card.
Another problem with the Spatium M570 iPro Frozr is the price tag for it. At the time of writing, MSI wasn’t able to provide me with the SRP for this 2TB model but the starting price of the 1TB variant starts at RM999. That’s actually quite steep, given that a 2TB of the PCIe 4.0 variety averages around that same price. There is also a 4TB variant but as with the 2TB model, the company isn’t able to provide me with local pricing.
On another note, this isn’t your typical plug-and-play SSD either. To really make full use of the Spatium M570 Pro Frozr, you’re going to need a motherboard and system that is PCIe 5.0 compatible. In other words, if you’re still using a PCIe 4.0 board, that means you’re buying a whole new system.
Should I Buy It?
Would I recommend the MSI Spatium M570 Pro Frozr to a laidback gamer who has oodles of disposable income and is seeking to build the fastest desktop gaming rig humanly possible? Absolutely.
But if the question were should you get it, my honest response and recommendation would be that you hold off on it, at least until PCIe 5.0 SSDs and the likes of the interface become more mainstream. As of right now, even the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSDs that have average sequential speeds bordering on 8GB/s are currently more than plenty. As fast as the Spatium M570 Pro Frozr is, getting it right now would merely serve as a bragging point. And again, if you’re not already on a PCIe 5.0 compatible system, that just means extra cost in upgrading your current system to make it PCIe 5.0-ready.
