WD's MSRPs tend to be pretty high at launch, and should not be directly compared to current retail prices on competing products. They usually settle down to more reasonable levels once the product's been shipping for a little while.
I'm not sure that the AN1500 price will drop. It's a pretty niche product - only for desktop users who have no nvme slot, and a spare PCIe slot, and who feel comfortable opening up their PC, but would rather buy this than a new motherboard with nvme.
This is a first generation product to test the waters. The RGB shit means it's not for corporate rollout. Maybe it's for media streamers?
The second generation should be nvme 4.0 and likely a lot cheaper.
It's not for users "who have no nvme slot". Anyone without an NVMe slot should invest that $300 towards a new system before they worry about top-tier storage performance. This is aimed at users who have an otherwise-powerful system who are stuck with PCIe 3.0 (many recent Intel builds), and don't have a PAIR of free 4x NVMe 3.0 slots (with motherboard support for RAID 0). They're taking two 4 lane solutions and RAIDing them together in an 8 lane card. It's really not a bad move, depending on your workload. For gaming it doesn't really make a lot of sense, except perhaps future DirectStorage-optimized titles, if your GPU has support.
Heck even if you do have two slots and RAID 0 support, you'd be giving up that second NVMe which I personally use for a cheaper mass storage SSD. With that being said, this would have been SO much better if they had used their new 4.0 SN850 and a 4.0 x4 to 3.0 x8 bridge.
It's literally cheaper to upgrade your entire platform to support PCIe 4.0 and buying a PCIe 4 SSD instead of trying to retrofit a PCIe 3.0 8x SSD solution.
I was just thinking the same thing. Especially the "WD Black D50 with no built-in storage has a MSRP of $319.99." Who would pay that for just a TB 3.0 dock? Insane.
Most of the best rated docks in the last 3-4 years *are* $300 w/o storage. The well regarded CalDigit & Elgato TB3 docks without even Titan Ridge cost that much.
Got a bit of a chuckle out of "Here's an USB 10Gbit/s port, use it for your keyboard" illustration though. I know having only high speed ports cuts down on the possibilities of doing anything wrong, but it's still silly.
No they didn't now stop asking its getting annoying seeing that question over and over in other product announcement or reviews of other products that related to gpus. Ask them on twitter and keep these on topic!
Yeah, I guess probably. My comment is more in general though aimed at the market in general. 'Gaming', is essentially a frivolous use of technology (one I'm guilty of taking part it) and its just dumb marketing that people fall for.
See also, Razor RESPAWN gum; "mental performance booster". No fucking joke....
Just a question to anyone making ANY type of NVME/SSD, why is anyone bother to make stuff less than 4TB in size? I will never buy anything less than 4 TB - which is barely big enough as it is.
I really get tired of the uselessly small SSD/NVME "market" - the datacenter market has larger-than-4TB all over the place and various tiers of dr ive writes per day and write or read performance bias, etc. Lots of choices.
But in the consumer, prosumer, enthusiast and gamer NVME/SSD market 95% of the offerings are uselessly small (as in under 4TB).
Cut the crap, SSD/NVME makers - make some real products rather than finding a way to dispose of obsolete silicon.
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eek2121 - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
They are out of their mind with that pricing.Billy Tallis - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
WD's MSRPs tend to be pretty high at launch, and should not be directly compared to current retail prices on competing products. They usually settle down to more reasonable levels once the product's been shipping for a little while.YB1064 - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
You are paying a premium for the x8 interface card. Once more competition hits the market prices will drop.Tomatotech - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I'm not sure that the AN1500 price will drop. It's a pretty niche product - only for desktop users who have no nvme slot, and a spare PCIe slot, and who feel comfortable opening up their PC, but would rather buy this than a new motherboard with nvme.This is a first generation product to test the waters. The RGB shit means it's not for corporate rollout. Maybe it's for media streamers?
The second generation should be nvme 4.0 and likely a lot cheaper.
silencer12 - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
All things have to drop.serendip - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Considering it's an enterprise setup with RGB lighting, it won't be cheap.Alexvrb - Sunday, October 11, 2020 - link
It's not for users "who have no nvme slot". Anyone without an NVMe slot should invest that $300 towards a new system before they worry about top-tier storage performance. This is aimed at users who have an otherwise-powerful system who are stuck with PCIe 3.0 (many recent Intel builds), and don't have a PAIR of free 4x NVMe 3.0 slots (with motherboard support for RAID 0). They're taking two 4 lane solutions and RAIDing them together in an 8 lane card. It's really not a bad move, depending on your workload. For gaming it doesn't really make a lot of sense, except perhaps future DirectStorage-optimized titles, if your GPU has support.Heck even if you do have two slots and RAID 0 support, you'd be giving up that second NVMe which I personally use for a cheaper mass storage SSD. With that being said, this would have been SO much better if they had used their new 4.0 SN850 and a 4.0 x4 to 3.0 x8 bridge.
Flunk - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
NAND prices are also dropping. Within the next 6-12 months SSDs are going to hit a new all-time low.eek2121 - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I was referring specifically to the SN850. The AN1500 is absurdly priced as well, but at least it is unique.Morawka - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
yeah the SN850 is double the price of WD's previous gen, with maybe a 5% gain in performanceSamus - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
It's double the performance for double the price. But perhaps real world, notable performance will be less pronounced.Samus - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
It's literally cheaper to upgrade your entire platform to support PCIe 4.0 and buying a PCIe 4 SSD instead of trying to retrofit a PCIe 3.0 8x SSD solution.Jorgp2 - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Yeah, that's like twice the price of the competition.mattkiss - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I was just thinking the same thing. Especially the "WD Black D50 with no built-in storage has a MSRP of $319.99." Who would pay that for just a TB 3.0 dock? Insane.lilkwarrior - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Most of the best rated docks in the last 3-4 years *are* $300 w/o storage. The well regarded CalDigit & Elgato TB3 docks without even Titan Ridge cost that much.serendip - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
And they don't have the nice labels. The WD dock had the first sensible USB labeling I've seen.Kjella - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link
Got a bit of a chuckle out of "Here's an USB 10Gbit/s port, use it for your keyboard" illustration though. I know having only high speed ports cuts down on the possibilities of doing anything wrong, but it's still silly.mattkiss - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
You can feed more RGB juice into the keyboard that way.HardwareDufus - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
So what are these for? adding perferials to a laptop?damianrobertjones - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link
Yes, probably a 'peripheral' for laptops.silencer12 - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
You would still pay for it anyway.Kaggy - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Black Drives MatterDigitalFreak - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
We have an edgelord in training...mmrezaie - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Do they mean PCIE 4 or 4 means something else when they say it?Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Which 4 are we talking about? The SN850 being PCIe 4 and 4 lanes, the an1500 holding 4TB, or the 4.1GB/s specified write speeds?Flunk - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I eagerly await a review of this product.DigitalFreak - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Speaking of which, did AT ever do a RTX 3080/3090 review?Makaveli - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
No they didn't now stop asking its getting annoying seeing that question over and over in other product announcement or reviews of other products that related to gpus. Ask them on twitter and keep these on topic!lilkwarrior - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
To be fair, those two GPUs *are* also items items people are awaiting reviews for ideally. Hopefully all 3 products are reviewed soon.Hard to get the former 2 obviously.
damianrobertjones - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link
The search function is your friend. If they did, it would also be all over the front page.DigitalFreak - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I have to laugh every time I see an M.2 drive with a relatively massive heatsink.HardwareDufus - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
especially when you plan on installing under your motherboardOperandi - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Can we please stop slapping "gaming" on every PC component with high-end pretensions? Its annoying and frankly juvenile.Tomatotech - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
If adding a single meaningless word to your product description got you 10% more sales, you’d do it too.In other news, I also have a ‘gaming’ toilet, bathtub, floor mat, toothpaste, shampoo, soap etc.
HardwareDufus - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I'll be selling my 'Gaming' 2006 Nissan Frontier XE w/ LED cupholders soon... I sense a few edits to the Kelley Blue Book pricing scales coming.....in all seriousness.. i agree.. but it's that niche that is spending higher dollars.... as long as the toy leds can be disabled...
Operandi - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Yeah, I guess probably. My comment is more in general though aimed at the market in general. 'Gaming', is essentially a frivolous use of technology (one I'm guilty of taking part it) and its just dumb marketing that people fall for.See also, Razor RESPAWN gum; "mental performance booster". No fucking joke....
damianrobertjones - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link
Also... 'true' wirless. 'True'? We can see that it's wireless, so why add the word 'true'? It makes no sense.lmcd - Wednesday, October 21, 2020 - link
First gen wireless headphones had wires between each earbud but were framed in such a way to make the wire not obviousmickrussom - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link
Just a question to anyone making ANY type of NVME/SSD, why is anyone bother to make stuff less than 4TB in size? I will never buy anything less than 4 TB - which is barely big enough as it is.I really get tired of the uselessly small SSD/NVME "market" - the datacenter market has larger-than-4TB all over the place and various tiers of dr ive writes per day and write or read performance bias, etc. Lots of choices.
But in the consumer, prosumer, enthusiast and gamer NVME/SSD market 95% of the offerings are uselessly small (as in under 4TB).
Cut the crap, SSD/NVME makers - make some real products rather than finding a way to dispose of obsolete silicon.