Realtek eyes SSDs with new PCIe 5.0 x4 DRAM-less controller — Up to 10 GB/s and 1.4M IOPS

Realtek is typically associated with audio, multimedia, and networking controllers for budget PCs, but for several years, the company has been trying to enter the SSD controller market, challenging established players. At this year's Computex, Realtek announced that samples of its RTS5781DL controller with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface are now shipping to interested parties, so expect actual drives within the next year.

The Realtek RTS5781 is an NVMe 2.0-compliant DRAM-less SSD controller with a PCIe 5.0 x4 host interface designed for mainstream drives. The chip features four NAND channels supporting data transfer rates of 3600 MT/s and supports 4K LDPC error correction to ensure compatibility with contemporary 3D TLC and 3D QLC NAND memory devices. The controller can deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 10,000 MB/s, with random read and write performance rated at 1.4 million IOPS each. The controller fully supports TCG OPAL 2.0, Pyrite, and AES256 encryption to enable makers of actual drives to address applications with high-security concerns.

Considering the typical development cycle of SSDs, we would not expect products based on the RTS5781 chip to hit the market until well into the second half of 2026, yet the company optimistically expects them to arrive in the second quarter of next year.

Last year, Realtek also revealed its ambitions for the premium SSD market with the RTS5782, its first controller designed with on-board DRAM support. This model will feature eight NAND channels supporting 3600 MT/s transfer rates, offering significantly improved throughput and efficiency compared to its RTS5781 DRAM-less counterpart.

Projected performance for the RTS5782 is aggressive. Drives built with this controller are expected to deliver sequential read speeds of up to 14 GB/s and sequential writes peaking at 12 GB/s. In terms of random I/O, the target is set at 2.5 million IOPS for both read and write operations, a substantial increase over the DRAM-less version and in line with what some of the best PCIe Gen5 SSDs offer today.

However, the status of the RTS5782 remains unknown as this year the company did not disclose its SSD controller roadmap. While Realtek has outlined the RTS5782's specifications and goals, the controller has yet to be developed, validated internally, reach prototyping and sampling stages, and then get approved by actual SSD makers. That said, expect the RTS5782 to arrive on the market considerably later than the RTS5781.

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