A New Gen5 SSD Arrives In A Tough Market
SSD pricing has been painful lately. The so called memory apocalypse has pushed storage costs up and even led Micron to shut down its well liked Crucial consumer brand, which had offered some of the best SSDs for gaming. So it is a bit of a surprise to see Micron come back with a new consumer focused drive in 2026: the Micron 3610 NVMe SSD.
This is not just another PCIe 5.0 drive. Micron is calling the 3610 the industry’s first PCIe Gen5 QLC client SSD powered by its new G9 NAND. That matters because QLC has usually been the bad word of the SSD world. It stores more bits per cell, which historically meant slower performance and worse endurance.
But with memory prices high and capacities creeping up, QLC is becoming more attractive again. Micron’s 3610 hints at a future where high speed and high capacity can finally coexist at saner prices for gamers and PC builders.
QLC Is Growing Up
For years, SSD buyers were told to avoid QLC if they cared about performance or drive lifespan. More bits per cell meant tighter voltage tolerances, slower writes and less endurance compared to TLC. That made QLC a tough sell for game libraries, workstations or anything that wrote a lot of data.
The landscape has started to shift though. Last year SK Hynix announced 321 layer QLC flash with up to 100 percent faster transfer speeds and as much as 56 percent better write performance than its older QLC. That kind of improvement means QLC is no longer stuck in the budget only category.
The big advantage of QLC is density. Cramming more layers and more bits per cell into the same physical footprint means higher capacities from fewer chips. Over time, that usually translates into lower cost per gigabyte. If manufacturers can get the performance and endurance into a decent place, QLC becomes very tempting for large game libraries and local data storage.
The Micron 3610 builds on that trend. It uses G9 QLC NAND to chase both speed and density in a single client drive. While final street pricing will decide how attractive it really is, this type of product is exactly what needs to appear if SSD prices are ever going to fall back to more reasonable levels.
Micron 3610 Performance And Specs
Micron is positioning the 3610 first as an AI ready SSD, but the raw numbers make it an impressive option for gaming rigs and performance PCs.
- Interface: PCIe Gen5 NVMe
- NAND type: QLC using Micron G9 tech
- Form factors: M.2 2280, 2242 and 2230
- Capacities: Up to 4 TB
- Sequential read: Up to 11 GB per second
- Sequential write: Up to 9.3 GB per second on larger models
Those numbers place the 3610 firmly in high end Gen5 territory. Even if day to day gaming does not always show massive gains versus a good Gen4 drive, fast sequential speeds help with big game installs, copying huge files and streaming assets in more demanding titles.
The drive is DRAM less, which usually signals a focus on lower cost and better power efficiency rather than absolute benchmark dominance. Micron claims up to 43 percent better performance per watt which is a big deal for gaming laptops, handhelds and compact PCs where thermals and battery life matter.
There is a slight performance caveat on the smallest capacity. The 1 TB version tops out at about 7,200 MB per second on sequential writes, where larger models reach much higher numbers. That is typical for SSDs since lower capacities have fewer NAND dies to work in parallel. For most gamers 7,200 MB per second is still more than enough, but if you want all the speed and a bigger game library, the 2 TB or 4 TB options will be more attractive.
The availability of 2230, 2242 and 2280 form factors makes the 3610 especially flexible. The 2230 size in particular is important for ultra thin laptops, mini PCs and some handheld gaming devices that cannot accept a full length 2280 drive. Being able to drop a fast Gen5 SSD into a tiny slot opens the door to serious storage upgrades in small systems.
Built For Local AI But Great For Gaming Too
Micron’s marketing focus for the 3610 is not actually gaming. The company is pushing this drive as a solution for local AI workloads on mainstream client devices. According to Micron, the 3610 can load a 20 billion parameter AI model in under three seconds. That is the sort of workload that benefits from high bandwidth and strong random performance, and it is a sign of where PC usage is heading.
At CES 2026 many announcements have been heavy on AI messaging, even if a lot of consumers are still confused or indifferent. Micron is clearly betting that local AI processing will become a normal part of everyday computing and wants storage ready for that shift.
For gamers though, that AI push is not a downside. An SSD that can rapidly feed massive AI models is also perfectly capable of handling asset streaming in modern open world titles, huge texture packs and multi hundred gigabyte game installs. The focus on performance per watt is a bonus for gaming laptops that want fast storage without burning through battery life.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Micron 3610 story is what it signals for the future. Even after shutting down its Crucial consumer brand, Micron is still keeping a foot in the client SSD market. If this QLC Gen5 drive can deliver strong real world performance at attractive prices, it might help nudge SSD costs back in a friendlier direction for PC builders and gamers who have been waiting to expand their storage.
In short the Micron 3610 looks like a promising intersection of next generation QLC technology, PCIe 5.0 performance and practical form factors. If you are planning a new gaming PC or a laptop upgrade in the next year, this is one drive worth keeping on your radar, especially if you are also curious about running local AI tools alongside your games.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ssds/micron-isnt-done-with-consumer-ssds-after-all-unveiling-a-pcie-5-0-qlc-drive-that-should-be-both-affordable-and-fast/
