As prices of DDR5 memory kits set records in the U.S., in Europe they begin to show signs of descend. At least, this is what a DDR5 pricing graph published to a renowned PC enthusiasts community is meant to show. We also analyzed the pricing of several DDR5 kits from prominent suppliers in Germany, and we can certainly say that these kits cost less than they used to cost just weeks ago.

The chart allegedly depicts aggregated pricing of an 'average' 32 GB DDR5 kit across the European Union from late July 2025 to February 2026. Prices hovered around €95 (minimum, green) – €100 (average, blue) through early autumn, then began climbing sharply in October, accelerating through November and peaking in early February at roughly €430 – €470 on average, with minimum prices slightly lower. Toward the end of the period, both lines trend downward, which may either indicate a modest correction after the spike or an actual drop in prices due to certain factors.

While the graph from deserves attention, it lacks clarity and details (which kits, which countries, retailers, is VAT included, etc.), so we decided to do our own price trend checks of five popular 32 GB DDR5-6000/6400 dual-channel kits* from renowned brands like Crucial, Corsair, G.Skill, Kingston, and Patriot in Amazon Germany using the CamelCamelCamel service.

Among the 32 GB DDR5-6000/6400 kits that we checked, only two models — from Corsair and Kingston — demonstrated steep declines: from around €480 in early February to around €425 now for Corsair and from around €550 in early January to €463 at press time for Kingston. Nonetheless, all memory kits that we checked are now priced below their peaks several weeks ago. Note that all retail prices in Europe include VAT, unlike retail prices in the U.S.

We also checked price trends for the same 32 GB DDR5 kits in the U.S., and while the prices are far from where they were in September, some of them (G.Skill, Patriot) are also showing a modest correction, though we certainly cannot say that they are heading downwards.

While $400 is certainly way too high for a 32 GB DDR5-6000 memory kit in 2026, we are not going to see prices decline to normal levels due to shortages of memory chips, which is going to happen either when excessive demand for all kinds of memory drops, when new DRAM production capacities come online in late 2026 – 2027, or when DRAM makers transit to more efficient process technologies. Yet, the signs of correction clearly show that the retail DDR5 kits' prices are way too high, which affects demand significantly enough for retailers to slash their price tags.

*We used the following kits for our checks, as memory prices currently depend on supply, we did not specify based on whether the kits feature AMD Expo or Intel XMP profiles:

• Crucial Pro 32 GB DDR5-6400 (CP2K16G64C38U5B)
• Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB DDR5-6000 (CMH32GX5M2E6000C36)
• G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32 GB DDR5-6000 (F5-6000J3636F16GX2-FX5)
• Kingston Fury Beast 32 GB DDR5-6000 (KF560C30BBEK2-32)
• Patriot Viper Venom 32 GB DDR5-6000 (PVV532G600C36K)

Patriot just dropped a plethora of new memory modules and SSDs, as well as several storage solutions for mobile devices and gaming handhelds. Despite the ongoing DRAM and storage pricing squeeze, the Tom’s Hardware team checked out Patriot's booth at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada, to check out 15 new DDR5 RAM kits, as well as a DDR5 SODIMM with a maximum capacity of 48GB (1x48GB).

Out of all the displayed modules, the company's Viper Xtreme 5 Aurum stood out with its delightfully opulent, flashy exterior. The company said that it designed the color specifically to blend well with both light and dark builds, ensuring that it wouldn’t stand out as either too bright or too dark. But, you might need to wear a pair of gloves to not litter it with pesky fingerprints. Patriot also showed off a prototype with the same eye-catching heat-spreader, running in a 2x24GB configuration, at speeds of up to 10,000 MT/s.

There are also four Viper-branded SSDs — the Viper VP4300 Lite PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, and the Viper PV563 PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD, which you can get in either 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB capacities. Additionally, the PV563 can be had with either a graphene strip or a full heatsink. Lastly, there’s the top-of-the-line Viper PV593, offering up 14,000 and 13,000 MB/s sequential read and write speeds, plus a random read speed of up to 2,000K IOPS, Patriot claims. We have no word on how much the memory or storage might cost you; however, as pricing for both DRAM and NAND storage remain extremely volatile. An IDC report suggests that PC prices may jump as much as 8% as a result.

Aside from these PC components, it also released a wide range of USB flash drives and enclosures for those that need portable memory on the go. The company also introduced a Storage Hub designed for mobile devices. This plugs in to your gear via a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 connector, giving you one HDMI port capable of 4K@60Hz and a USB-C PD 3.0 port that accepts up to 100 watts of power. More importantly, it will give you extra storage options in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities, allowing you to turn your phone or tablet into a proper productivity tool.

Nintendo Switch 2 owners are also getting another microSD Express option with the Patriot EP Express. This PCIe 3.0 x1 expansion card delivers sequential read and write speeds of up to 800 MB/s and 600 MB/s, allowing you to quickly load games directly from it. Aside from that, it also supports 4K and high-bitrate video recording, allowing you to use it with video recording and photography equipment as well, available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities. The company also showed off a DDR5-10000 engineering sample with a 48GB (2x24GB) capacity. While this is still being tested, it gives us a glimpse of what Patriot has in store for us in the future. But you might want to start saving up now if you have your eye on any of the new products.

Patriot Memory has been around a very long time, and we’re glad to see some newer, faster drives coming out of its halls. Known for its inexpensive and practical SSDs, the company is being a bit bolder with some of its latest products, like the Viper PV593. This is a high-end, PCIe 5.0 SSD that promises up to 14 GB/s of bandwidth for your newest build. At the same time, it’s positioned to be more affordable without any fanfare or extra flair. RGB drives have their place, but we’re glad Patriot took a more straightforward approach with this one.

Pairing “budget” and “high-end PCIe 5.0” seems like a combined misnomer, but in fact, the market is unexpectedly headed that way. When some of these drives were taped out, there were early warning signs of impending doom for AI memory demand, but in past years, SSDs have resisted price increases quite well. It’s therefore reasonable to assume that Patriot planned the PV593 at a time when it could get a drive like it out the door, and less-informed builders or prebuilt buyers would just assume it’s among the best. Its price savings would keep it attractive for those markets.

Now that we’re seeing much larger and swifter price swings than we have in a long time, the PV593 seems to make even more sense because you might need to save every dollar on storage with a lot of pressure to build early at hand. In fact, this market puts more stress on Patriot because many users will opt for a solid PCIe 4.0 drive or go all-in on the very best PCIe 5.0 drives without much exposure in between. That’s a psychological perspective because, in reality, the biggest costs are from the NAND flash, and that’s going to be a problem at all levels. This means that a drive like the PV593 needs to be priced very carefully, and, at the time of review, that’s just not the case, with the recently reviewed Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade handling that much better at the moment. The drive still makes sense for a system with multiple PCIe 5.0 SSDs, where it could slot in beneath your fastest primary drive. Still, the relative attractiveness very much depends on volatile price competitiveness.

Patriot Viper PV593 Specifications

The Patriot Viper PV593, or PV593 for short, is – on paper – available at 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. At the time of review only the 1TB and 4TB were in stock at $159.99 and $399.99, respectively. These prices are high compared to the competition but they may be MSRP rather than street and, further, recent massive cost increases for SSD components has changed the pricing baseline. You may be able to find this drive available at a more reasonable price but we’re judging things based on current market conditions.

It’s a high-end drive capable of hitting 14,000 / 13,000 MB/s for sequential reads and writes and up to 2,000K / 1,650K random read and write IOPS. These numbers are pretty standard for a high-end PCIe 5.0 SSD but we have seen higher. The warranty is also standard at five years with up to 700TB of writes per TB capacity, which is higher than the 600TB baseline but not considerably so. However, if prices are equal with other drives in its class this might tip the PV593 into your favor.

Patriot Viper PV593 Software and Accessories

For more information about your drive we recommend the CrystalDiskInfo application which is free to download and use. Its partner application, CrystalDiskMark, is a solid baseline benchmark that’s also free. For cloning and data backup we recommend the free MultiDrive, although this is Windows-only at this time. For other operating systems or booting we suggest Clonezilla or SystemRescue.

Patriot Viper PV593: A Closer Look

We’ll cut to the chase as this drive doesn’t have a fancy heatsink or heatspreader: it’s a double-sided drive with a full-fledged SSD controller, one DRAM package, and four NAND flash packages. We expected a double-sided drive at this capacity and the specifications from Patriot suggest that all capacities are double-sided. This is similar to the case in our recent Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade review, possibly done to save on cost.

The form factor used for the flash packages also emphasizes the intent to minimize the use of space. A majority of the heat production will be on the top side so this drive should not be difficult to cool if you choose to do so. This is further helped by the fact that the PV593, unlike the 980 Blade, uses LPDDR4x in a single package for the DRAM.

For full details on the Silicon Motion SM2508 SSD controller please see our original review where we discuss some of the technical aspects of the hardware. Now that the controller is out with a range of flash we can sum it up as being a high-end controller with eight flash channels and DRAM, making it one of the fastest consumer options out there. The exact height of its performance depends on the flash being used.

In this case, we can interpret the flash coding “B58R” part to indicate that this is Micron’s B58R 232-layer TLC flash. This flash has been very popular on a number of drives but is technically outdated by today’s standards. Micron’s 276-Layer TLC flash on the Crucial T710 and SanDisk’s BiCS8 TLC flash on the Kingston Fury Renegade G5, to name two leading drives, both have advantages over the older flash. Using older flash can reduce cost, however, which is becoming a more serious concern with challenges due to an emerging memory supercycle. When an entire class of products is seeing inflated costs any savings can be more impactful.

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Comparison Products

We select relevant drives for comparison to keep our charts more readable and give you a better sense of how each drive compares with similarly priced solutions. In most cases, you will not be looking at a 4TB Patriot Viper VP593 thinking that it’s a good way to save money on your newest barebones build. This is a high-end drive, and even if it’s intended to be on the low end of that pricing range, if it struggles, you need to know about it.

We begin with the two heavy hitters: the SanDisk WD Black SN8100 and the Samsung 9100 Pro. WD/SanDisk and Samsung have long made the drives by which all are judged, and any high-end review needs to incorporate their data. Crucial's T710 and Kingston's Fury Renegade G5 demonstrate what different flash can do on a cutting-edge platform, with the knowledge that SanDisk’s solution has unique firmware in comparison. We’re also looking at what Phison has planned with its E28 SSD controller – we have a review of a retail drive coming up next – and what it can still muster for its original E26 with the Sabrent Rocket 5. Rounding out the list, we have the very similar Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade, which is a direct competitor to the PV593, and the DRAM-less Biwin Black Opal X570, which is also vying for the niche “budget” high-end PCIe 5.0 market segment.

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams. Future gaming benchmarks will be DirectStorage-inclusive and we also include notes about which drives may be future-proofed.

The Patriot Viper PV593 is a great games drive if you’re dead set on having a high-end PCIe 5.0 SSD for that. Yeah, it’s nowhere near the fastest in 3DMark, but it’s still very fast and faster than any PCIe 40 SSD. It should provide ample performance for DirectStorage titles when they arrive. You don’t need cutting-edge hardware for gaming but having enough space – 4TB is a good size – is important. Is the PV593 overkill for this? Absolutely, but you can say you have a high-end drive and potentially save some money at the same time, if that’s your thing.

Trace Testing — PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The results are particularly useful when analyzing drives for their use as primary/boot storage devices and in work environments.

We’d say the same for productivity. The PV593 is fast enough that your workstation or HEDT won’t complain about it. Again, there are faster drives, but this will beat any PCIe 4.0, and it should be able to do it at a lower price than its peers. Well, theoretically anyway. We’re still waiting for prices to settle down, but Patriot needs to aim in that direction. If you want the very best, we recommend waiting for E28-based drives, though the Black SN8100 is an excellent pick if you need a drive right away.

Console Testing — PlayStation 5 Transfers

The PlayStation 5 is capable of taking one additional PCIe 4.0 or faster SSD for extra game storage. While any 4.0 drive will technically work, Sony recommends drives that can deliver at least 5,500 MB/s of sequential read bandwidth for optimal performance. In our testing, PCIe 5.0 SSDs don’t bring much to the table and generally shouldn’t be used in the PS5, especially as they may require additional cooling. Check our Best PS5 SSDs article for more information.

Our testing utilizes the PS5’s internal storage test and manual read/write tests with over 192GB of data both from and to the internal storage. Throttling is prevented where possible to see how each drive operates under ideal conditions. While game load times should not deviate much from drive to drive, our results can indicate which drives may be more responsive in long-term use.

The PV593 would be a great PS5 drive, too. The problem is there are many PCIe 4.0 drives that will perform just as well and will cost you a lot less. Over time this may change as we get newer consoles and as PCIe 4.0 drives start coming up in relative cost. It might be an okay strategy to get a PCIe 5.0 drive now for plans you have down the road and parking it in the PS5 is better than in a drawer. That said, we would not recommend the PV593 if you are strictly buying an SSD for the PS5.

Transfer Rates — DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We write 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to the test drive, then make a copy of that data to a new folder, and follow up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file. This is a real world type workload that fits into the cache of most drives.

[Charts]

The PV593 scores more or less the same as the XPG Mars 980 Blade, which is exactly as expected – the two drives use the same hardware. We question why the copy performance is this bad, considering we know the flash can do better, but it’s impossible to deny that this “budget” flash choice impacts read and write performance, which, in turn, affects copying. One reason is that newer controllers are optimized for faster flash, and even relatively minor differences, say in latency, can extend to differences in areas like file transfers.

Running flash slower can have secondary benefits such as improved power efficiency or higher effective endurance and it’s possible some trade-offs were made in firmware to make a drive like this happen. From the user’s perspective this means the drive has to translate that to cost savings if you’re an educated buyer. Prebuilt machine makers and everyday builders might look at the maximum specs and call it a day, though, but we always recommend exercising caution on big purchases.

Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes and at different queue depths for both sequential and random workloads.

No real surprises in ATTO; the drive performs mostly as expected, with dips following what we see for the XPG Mars 980 Blade. We’ve concluded that the drop we see with 2MiB reads is a factor of the flash rather than the controller, as we also see a similar drop with the older Rocket 5.

In past reviews, when we first came across Micron’s 232-layer TLC flash – which has six planes rather than four, a characteristic also of YMTC’s 232-Layer TLC – we assumed this was a matter of alignment. In brief, we know flash uses 16KiB physical pages, and if each die can parallelize that six ways via the plane count, and we’re juggling two dies per each of eight flash channels, we’re talking about 1.5MiB of data at a time. The result is, perhaps, a drop at 2MiB without full recovery possible at 4MiB. We also see this with writes in ATTO in some cases, which does apply to the PV593. This does not necessarily translate directly to real-world performance drops for a variety of reasons. Data usually isn’t pretty or uniform, and you have more than just storage in play. For specialized applications, this might be something to keep in consideration, though.

We see some poor marks with CDM’s sequential results, too, although the only one really worth looking at is reads at QD1. This is a typical transfer workload and is one area you would expect good performance from a high-end drive. The PV593 and XPG Mars 980 Blade both fall short and lag the DRAM-less Black Opal X570. DRAM helps more with random workloads, so this gap is better explained by the flash being used. We would add that the PV593 is 4TB, which can put more strain on a drive, especially at higher speeds, but the 9100 Pro still makes a mockery of it. The PV593 does good work with queue depth and would be adequate as a secondary drive, but you can definitely get better all-around primary drives in this market segment.

Random read and write latency for the drive at QD1 – and QD1 is the most common consumer workload for 4KB, with most workloads being QD2 at worst, with a blanket maximum around QD4 – is thankfully better. The drive performs perfectly well for both, and this is in part because you aren’t hitting multiple dies with such small I/O. While Micron’s newer flash is still better here, as demonstrated with the T710, the older flash is good enough to surpass all but the newer PCIe 5.0 drives. We still think you should go with the Black SN8100 if latency is king for your intended workload, but if you just want a PCIe 5.0 upgrade with reasonable performance, then the PV593 would be better than any of the earlier E26-based drives. We have the Rocket 5 here as a bit of an exception because it can rival newer drives in sustained writes, as we’ll see in the next section.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of pseudo-SLC (single-bit) programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC (three-bit) or QLC (four-bit) flash. Performance can suffer even more if the drive is forced to fold, which is the process of migrating data out of the cache in order to free up space for further incoming data.

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds. This process shows the performance of the drive in various states as well as the steady state write performance.

The PV593 puts out an impressive 12.5 GB/s for over 64 seconds with an 800GB pSLC cache. This is a large cache but not the largest we’ve seen, and in technical terms it could be significantly bigger. However, it’s a good compromise between having too large a cache – this can lead to inconsistent sustained performance and higher latency in edge cases – and too small a cache. A smaller cache is usually preferable for consistency, but it depends on the user and workload. As high-end drives like the PV593 are intended to really move data, going middle-of-the-road is not a bad idea.

If we look at steady state write performance – this is the average write speed after the cache is exhausted – we see that the older Rocket 5 is still the fastest drive on record. That drive is using the same flash as the PV593 but with cache optimization it has a very fast TLC mode. The E28, which is the successor controller to the Rocket 5’s E26, has a somewhat similar cache strategy but with its BiCS8 TLC flash the baseline TLC speed is lower. What this means is, if you are buying a drive purely for sustained writes then the newer drives aren’t quite as exciting as you might expect. That includes the PV593. Your interest should be more on the power efficiency gains.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre stock storage. Desktops may be more performance-oriented with less support for power-saving features, so we show the worst-case.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption but performance-per-watt, or efficiency, is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

For temperature recording we currently poll the drive’s primary composite sensor during testing with a ~22°C ambient. Our testing is rigorous enough to heat the drive to a realistic ceiling temperature.

There is no doubt that the PV593 and other newer, high-end PCIe 5.0 drives handle power much more gracefully than the first generation. The Rocket 5 is inefficient in comparison with high power usage even at idle, albeit that is desktop idle. With proper cooling and a high-end system, the difference in power draw and heat production is relatively small, but this scales with more drives. We do think that upgrading from, say, a PCIe 3.0 drive to a newer PCIe 5.0 one can make sense if you want a sleek-running system.

In other cases, such an upgrade is unneeded. If you already have a Gen 5 drive or find a good sale on an original generation one, you can certainly make do without reaching for the very best. The PV593 falls between these options, as it’s not as performant as the very latest but should be somewhat more affordable. It’s also not too hard to cool, as we reached a maximum of 69°C during write testing, leaving about 14°C of headroom in a decently cooled system. That’s not amazing, but it’s definitely better than anything we saw out of the first generation of high-end PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Patriot Viper PV593 Bottom Line

The Patriot Viper PV593 looks attractive from a distance, but as you get up and close with the drive, it ends up being mediocre at best. Its performance is still high relative to most drives, and any PCIe 4.0 drive, and its power efficiency is better than the original crop of PCIe 5.0 drives.

The problem is, that’s no longer good enough. We recently reviewed the Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade, which has the same hardware, and that drive left us with a better feeling because it had some availability at bang-on pricing at the time of review. The PV593, instead, looks to be too little, too late, and too expensive at that. We suspect this could change, but there are enough drives in this exact spot – the Acer Predator GM9000 is another example – that it might be difficult for it to gain traction. This is especially true for Patriot, which doesn’t really have a flagship tradition, and even if it did, this drive isn’t that.

To break it down more simply, if you’re going for a budget high-end PCIe 5.0 SSD, you already have multiple choices, and the Viper PV593 just doesn’t stand out. If you’re spending this kind of money, you’re probably also looking at the excellent SanDisk WD Black SN8100, the Samsung 9100 Pro for 8TB goodness, the Crucial T710 with its newer Micron flash, or even the Kingston Fury Renegade G5, a well-known name with good support. We also have E28-based drives like Corsair’s MP700 Pro XT coming out, which just means even more options.

The PV593 has to compete on price, and at the moment, it’s just not doing so. Patriot is definitely capable of doing that and, in fact, is known for its inexpensive but capable drives, but that’s a double-edged sword when you’re looking at the higher end of products, especially in such a tumultuous storage market.

That leaves the Viper PV593 in an unenviable place: it has to be the least expensive option to make sense, but the amount of budget shoppers looking at this class of drives might be short in number. We suspect this drive will make more sense in regions of the world with fewer options, and it could also be a good pick for prebuilts and budget builders who need to check the high-end PCIe 5.0 SSD box. This is also true of the XPG Mars 980 Blade, but we feel the Adata drive is in a slightly better spot, given it’s already been priced effectively. We’re fully aware of the fact that Adata does not have the best reputation, but even with some enthusiast stigma, it can hold its own against Patriot. We reluctantly have to give the PV593 a weaker score, given the current market outlook, but we want to emphasize that it is not a bad drive at all. It’s just not targeting the right segment at the right time, and you will probably have better options.

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Patriot Memory has revealed a slew of memory devices at CES 2025 commemorating its 40th Anniversary. Founded in 1985, Patriot started as PDP Systems, named after its founders, primarily focusing on supplying PC manufacturers with DRAM modules. PDP launched a new lineup of DDR SDRAM memory in 2003, dubbed "Patriot Memory" which later transformed into the Patriot we know today.

At Las Vegas, Patriot showcased several products including new CAMM2, LPCAMM2 modules, CFExpress 2.0 cards, CKD-equipped memory kits, and several new SSDs including its first DRAM-less PCIe 5.0 SSD. First on the list, Patriot has expanded its existing Viper Xtreme 5 lineup of RAM with a special 40th-anniversary edition and a variant with a built-in CKD (Client Clock Driver).

The 40th Anniversary version comes in a blue heatsink stamped with a "40 Years" label, with speeds of up to 8,000 MT/s. No special edition is complete without RGB, and Patriot delivers, with RGB atop the heat spreader. The exact capacity and specifications are unknown, however, since the regular version offers CL38 timing, we can expect much of the same for this model.

Following is the Viper Xtreme 5 CKD version that lacks RGB but can offer speeds of up to DDR5-9600. The kit carries a silverish tone, emanating a professional aesthetic. The CKD is a small chip that acts as a buffer and amplifies the clock signal; increasing stability and allowing for higher frequencies, as seen on this kit.

Building on the success of its existing iLuxe series, Patriot showcased the iLuxe Stick C for Apple Devices. This cute flash drive-esque stick acts as a media backup solution for your iPhone and iPad with capacities of up to 2TB. Since modern mobile phones don't offer upgradable storage, this is a convenient one-stop solution to manage storage while preserving your valuable photos and videos. Just like the iLuxe Cube, expect the Stick C to offer a robust management system; assigning a dedicated folder to each Apple ID in your household.

As CES was just an exhibition, information on the retail pricing and availability of many products is scarce. We can expect more details from Patriot in the near future.

The Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite just about has it all, on paper, taking on the best SSDs. It offers up to 4TB of single-sided goodness capable of over 7 GB/s of performance, and it's inexpensive on top of all that. It matches its rival and our best budget SSD, the Teamgroup MP44, on almost all marks, and promises to run just as efficiently and cooler if anything. All that sounds great, but there's one big caveat: The 4TB Viper VP4300 Lite uses QLC flash, albeit the newest available on the market.

This is reminiscent of the HP FX700, a drive that pleasantly surprised us. Unlike the FX700, the VP4300 Lite 4TB is actually readily available on Amazon for $234 and it’s pretty compelling. It launched with TLC flash, like its competitors the Addlink A93 and Lexar NM790, but our review sample arrived with QLC NAND instead. The drive holds its own where it matters and does so with excellent efficiency and low heat output. That makes it a winner for laptops, HTPCs, the PS5, some portable gaming systems like the Asus ROG Ally X, and as a secondary or gaming drive for desktop PCs. But the switch from the original TLC to QLC NAND still disappoints. 

Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite Specifications

The Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite, from here on out known as the VP4300 Lite, is available at 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. At the moment these are going for $46.99, $64.99, $109.99, and $239.99. Assuming the non-4TB SKUs are still TLC-based, this pricing is pretty good. It would probably be the best value for all three of the lower capacities, beating out the Teamgroup MP44, its primary budget rival.

However, at 4TB with QLC flash, the VP4300 Lite doesn’t edge out the MP44 and the Lexar NM790 is close enough to make it the better pick. Those two competitors are likely still TLC-based as both manufacturers have models with the same controller but with QLC flash — the Teamgroup MP44Q and the Lexar NQ790, respectively. We've seen similar concerns with previous SSDs, where companies switch from TLC to QLC NAND without changing the model name. It's a terrible practice as it muddies the waters and potential buyers can't know for certain which drive they're getting.

The VP4300 Lite is rated for up to 7,400 / 6,400 MB/s for sequential reads and writes and up to 1,000K / 700K random read and write IOPS. The 4TB model takes a small hit to write performance in both categories, an expected side effect of using QLC flash. Patriot might have left open the door to this possibility at launch, given the NM790 and Addlink A93 are rated higher.

The drive comes with a five-year warranty and 800TB of writes per TB capacity, except for the 4TB SKU that has 2,000 TBW (500TB per TB of capacity). This also points to Patriot leaving open the door to a flash switch as the NM790, MP44, and A93 are all warrantied for 3,000TB at this capacity. 

Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite Software and Accessories

 Patriot doesn’t have much in the way of software downloads for this drive. It does have a product sheet and a PS5 compatibility list, but neither of these are particularly useful. Firmware updates are available for the 1TB and 2TB models and fix temperature sensor readings. Drives sold today should have updated firmware for the most part, though, and the 500GB and 4TB SKUs do not require this fix.

Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite: A  Closer Look

The VP4300 Lite has a basic heat spreading label and a sticker on the back with drive information. This drive is single-sided, which potentially makes it a better choice than double-sided SSDs for use in laptops and the PS5. It can be easier to cool a drive like this and we do recommend a heatsink if you can manage it, in the PS5 or a desktop computer, as the controller is known to act as a hotspot. That said, as we address in the Power Consumption and Temperature section on the next page, this drive runs surprisingly cool, in part due to its use of QLC flash. 

We’re familiar with this layout — an SSD controller, four NAND packages to keep the drive single-sided, power management circuitry, and no external DRAM. As mentioned previously, the controller can get a little hot in operation due to its small size and the lack of a metal-based IHS. It’s not likely to overheat but spreading the heat to the NAND packages would probably be a win-win scenario.

Taking a look at the controller, we have the Maxio MAP1602, in this case the MAP1602A-F3C U. This is a variation of the base MAP1602 that can be NVMe 2.0 compliant — not a big deal for a consumer SSD — and also handle 4TB of flash. Normally, the controller is made to handle up to four dies for each of its four channels, for a total of sixteen, and with dense 1Tb dies that gets it to 2TB. Allowing for eight dies a channel pushes the limit to 4TB, and with the Lexar NM790 and Addlink A93 we’ve seen that put to good use.

The VP4300 Lite then deviates from those SSDs by using QLC rather than TLC flash. This makes it closer to the HP FX700, which we deemed a halfway decent drive. YMTC’s 232-Layer QLC flash is relatively fast and very efficient. This makes it ideal for larger-capacity drives sold at a discount — great especially for a secondary or game drive. We’ve covered this flash before in the linked FX700 review, but the main point is that it uses a four-plane design — unlike the six- or hexa-plane design of the 1Tb/die TLC flash — which suggests optimizations for general performance over raw density or throughput.

That said, drives will vary not only in the flash used but also the controller. Given the performance specifications of the VP4300 Lite, a side-grade controller like the Phison E27T is a possible substitution. This is more likely to be the case at lower capacities, that is 2TB and below. If so, the drive might move from the launch YMTC 232-Layer TLC flash to Kioxia’s 162-Layer BiCS6 TLC flash, which is comparable in practice. Performance would be similar to the Corsair MP600 Elite, Inland TN470, Sabrent’s new Rocket 4, or in M.2 2230 form factor the Corsair MP600 Mini revision. This would not be a bad change in comparison to the launch hardware and should not be considered a downgrade.

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Comparison Products and Testing

The Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite is remarkably close in design to the Lexar NM790 and Addlink A93, drives with the same base hardware that also launched with TLC flash. Unlike those two, the VP4300 Lite has swapped to QLC at 4TB, making it a larger version of the HP FX700. One point of comparison is so-called mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSDs, budget drives that can’t quite use all of the interface’s bandwidth. Such drives include the recently-reviewed WD Blue SN5000, which performed very well for a QLC-based drive, and the older Teamgroup Carda Z44Q and Sabrent Rocket Q4.

For newer drives, perhaps the best 4.0 drive we’ve tested at this capacity is the Samsung 990 Pro that had updated flash for that capacity. But that's definitely a more expensive drive these days, currently sitting at $329 on Amazon. It’s more fair to compare the VP4300 Lite to older DRAM-equipped drives that usually use the Phison E18 controller — some may side grade to the InnoGrit IG5236 — such as the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G, the Seagate FireCuda 530, the Teamgroup Carda A440 Pro Series, and the Netac NV7000. The first two can use Phison’s DirectStorage-optimized firmware, not tested here today.

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams. Future gaming benchmarks will be DirectStorage-inclusive and we include details of that where possible.

The use of QLC flash doesn’t hurt one bit in 3DMark, as the VP4300 Lite is neck-and-neck with the TLC-equipped NM790. There’s no real reason to get a more expensive drive if you’re just gaming. That's assuming retail prices are in fact higher, which isn't necessarily the case with the Addlink A93 at $231.

Games typically rely on reads and, contrary to popular opinion, often sequential reads. Such data will usually be pulled from the native flash rather than the faster pSLC mode. However, data written to pSLC may remain there at least in the short term — such as with benchmarks — to improve read performance. Further, QLC flash’s higher latency can be mitigated by intelligent flash management, and usually there’s a bottleneck on the software end anyway. The result is that newer QLC-based drives like this are an excellent choice for game storage except in cases where you’re moving or updating a huge amount of data at once. 

Trace Testing — PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The VP4300 Lite again lands close to the NM790 and comes out slightly ahead on the whole. It’s very, very close to the recently-reviewed WD Blue SN5000, a drive using the newest QLC flash from Kioxia. That BiCS6 QLC surprised us with its performance, but we can see that the alternative from YMTC on the VP4300 Lite is comparable in practice, keeping in mind WD did not open the SN5000 to its full performance potential. For the record, Micron’s newest QLC — check out our recent review of the Crucial P310 to see it in action — is even better yet. The short summary here is that newer QLC flash is starting to reach performance levels once reserved only for TLC. 

Console Testing — PlayStation 5 Transfers

The PlayStation 5 is capable of taking one additional PCIe 4.0 or faster SSD for extra game storage, with some requirements. Launch models could not take 8TB drives but this limit has since been removed. While any 4.0 drive will work, Sony specifies drives that can deliver at least 5,500 MB/s of sequential read bandwidth are optimal. The PS5 does not support the host memory buffer (HMB) feature but DRAM-less drives will still work. In our testing, PCIe 5.0 SSDs did not bring much to the table and preferably should not be used in the PS5, especially as they may require additional cooling. Please see our Best PS5 SSDs article for more information.

Our testing utilizes the PS5’s internal storage test and manual read/write tests with over 192GB of data both from and to the internal storage. Throttling is prevented where possible to see how each drive operates under ideal conditions.

Dense QLC-based drives are not only good for PC gaming but PS5 gaming as well. It’s usually the best way to get as much capacity as possible for the lowest price per gigabyte. The PS5 isn’t particularly demanding and most games will load in about the same time regardless of drive, although it can be advantageous to have extra performance in some cases. The VP4300 Lite has no problem either way and is an excellent fit for the PS5. 

Transfer Rates — DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We write 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to the test drive, then make a copy of that data to a new folder, and follow up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file. This is a real world type workload that fits into the cache of most drives.

The VP4300 Lite uses the full bandwidth of its PCIe 4.0 interface and matches other high-end drives. The VP4300 Lite is plenty fast with transfers, at least within its pSLC cache. It has no possibility of catching the PCIe 5.0 Crucial T700, but neither does it have to — these drives are in a very different category. Its real competition lies in drives like the A93 and NM790, which so far offer no additional real-world performance gains over it. 

Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes and at different queue depths. For ATTO, we show both linear and logarithmic scaling on the Y-axis, with the latter showing more differentiation at low queue depths.

The ATTO results are relatively normal but somewhat underwhelming. This drive can’t quite push larger I/O as well as its TLC-based peers. Small I/O is good enough, though. The one anomaly here is a dip at the 1MiB block size for both reads and writes — we saw something similar with the FX700. This is not something that realistically hurts performance and appears to be a nuance of this flash.

CDM sequential performance is good but not great. SSDs are often sold based on theoretical sequential performance, usually at a queue depth of 32 when a queue depth of 1 is most typical. The VP4300 Lite is not a drive that’s going to feel slow. It will rocket past PCIe 3.0 drives and lower-end 4.0 models. It’s just not the fastest drive on the block, if that’s what you’re going for in a drive.

Random performance is usually more coveted and for this the VP4300 Lite is again good but not great. Specifically, its random 4K QD1 read performance — a metric commonly regarded as the most important for real world feel — is good enough to rival many fast drives.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash.

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for over 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds. This process shows the performance of the drive in various states as well as the steady state write performance.

The 4TB VP4300 Lite writes in pSLC mode at almost 5.6 GB/s for approximately 189 seconds. This means that the entire drive is utilized for caching, as 4-bit QLC flash acts in a 1-bit pSLC mode for write caching such that 4TB becomes 1TB. After this, the drive necessarily enters a folding state, which is where the drive is forced to empty the pSLC cache in order to free up the full amount of QLC space. Because the drive is trying to juggle already-written data as well as still-incoming data, performance drops drastically.

This is more pronounced with QLC than 3-bit TLC flash as TLC is faster by design, since it has to juggle fewer potential data states in each cell. With TLC flash, less sensitivity is required to read data and likewise data can be written more quickly with coarser granularity. Over time flash bandwidth has increased significantly from generation to generation, but even the newest QLC only manages 239 MB/s here after the cache is exhausted (we've seen up to ~320 MB/s with certain QLC drives, though not in 4TB trim yet). Performance would be better if the drive could write straight to the QLC flash, but this would require a smaller pSLC cache. It’s all about trade-offs.

Having a large cache makes a lot of sense for consumer duty because the average workload is bursty in nature — there’s a lot of idle time between significant I/O. However, if you’re one to do heavier workloads or large writes, this is detrimental to performance. Also, the cache shrinks as the drive gets filled, which can make it easier to exhaust the cache in some cases. For this reason QLC flash is often derided, but it’s actually a potentially good way to save on money for a secondary or gaming drive. It’s fine for a primary drive, too, but a light user probably won't need 4TB (yet). 

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre stock storage. Desktops may be more performance-oriented with less support for power-saving features, so we show the worst-case.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption but performance-per-watt, or efficiency, is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

For temperature recording we currently poll the drive’s primary composite sensor during testing with a 21-22°C ambient. Our testing is rigorous enough to heat the drive to a realistic ceiling temperature. 

The VP4300 Lite’s excellent power efficiency is certainly a bright spot after the weak sustained performance. This drive is every bit as efficient as its TLC-equipped cousins — the A93 and NM790 — while being easily better than the rest of the competition. This makes it a great choice for laptops, the PS5, and HTPCs.

Better yet, the drive also runs cool, and in fact even cooler than the A93 and NM790. Our readings were so low that we thought it was in error. The 1TB and 2TB versions of this drive had a firmware update to fix improper temperature reporting in the past, but that was for reporting them too high. We confirmed with Patriot that this drive does indeed run super cool — they tested around 50°C while we were about 5°C lower — and that it does not require any sort of extra cooling. The results are in-line with the FX700, so we shouldn’t have been so surprised.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite Bottom Line 

The Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite is by no means a bad drive. It actually performs well in most of our tests, but it does stumble a bit at common QLC flash problem areas. This includes sustained writes which, while not a 'normal' real-world workload for most people, can demonstrate performance pitfalls that might show up with long-term use and with a fuller drive. This is not disqualifying, as the drive could be an excellent choice as a secondary drive in a laptop/desktop PC or the PS5. It’s perhaps not the best choice for your primary and only drive in a system, especially a work system, but if you’re not filling it to the brim or doing a lot of large file shuffling it should be okay — certainly enough for a pure gaming system.

That reasoning applies to all QLC-based drives, but you’re probably not getting a 4TB just for casual use. You want that much capacity in a single M.2 drive for a reason. The VP4300 Lite also needs to be less expensive than the alternatives, since many of them — such as the NM790 and A93 — come with TLC flash, which is more consistent. If it clears that bar, it still must contend with slower QLC-based drives like the Blue SN5000, Crucial’s P3 Plus, and the Corsair MP600 Core XT. These drives are slower in sequential performance, which might not be terribly important for a drive like this. The VP4300 Lite is the most efficient of the bunch, though, and its native flash is a generation beyond what’s in the latter two drives. Investing in the newest hardware can have its benefits.

One of the biggest benefits is that the VP4300 Lite runs extremely cool. None of the listed drives should overheat in general use in most systems, and they are also all single-sided at 4TB — something that used to be rare and is preferred for laptops — but the VP4300 Lite should never require any sort of modification to avoid throttling. Right now, this drive is inexpensive enough to be a viable alternative to the drives listed above, although you can reach for the NM790 or keep an eye out for the Teamgroup MP44, which is often around the same price, including right now. There’s a reason the latter is our choice for best budget SSD. However, prices are constantly in flux and have generally been trending north over the past year or so.

It’s also worth remembering that the VP4300 Lite could and should  be TLC-based at lower capacities. This makes it the best value drive at 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB at the time of review. However, we do have to raise a warning flag as the swap to QLC could potentially happen with the VP4300 Lite at lower 1TB or 2TB capacities — though such a swap should be unlikely — which would make the Teamgroup MP44 a safer bet. Patriot would have been better served, in our view, if it had simply added a "Q" to the product name when it opted for different flash memory. Other companies have certainly taken that approach and we applaud such transparency.

The swap to QLC flash at 4TB isn’t something we like, but it’s understandable given the budget positioning of this drive and the fact that this QLC actually performs pretty well where it matters. Unfortunately, we can’t give it a higher score due to that change, especially when there are drives with TLC flash and DRAM that are simply more consistent — check out the Silicon Power XS70 4TB at $249 as an example. A slight shift in pricing can easily make the difference in overall value, however, so we recommend keeping an eye on street prices.

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Although solid-state drives with a PCIe 5.0 x4 host interface have been around for a while, drives that are capable of 14 GB/s sequential read speeds are still expensive. This is largely because the market has been dominated with Phison's PS5026-E26 controller. But this soon may change as Patriot is prepping a particularly interesting product — the Viper PD573 SSD, with a prototype being demonstrated at Computex 2024, that promises to bring together very high performance and a relatively low price.

The Patriot Viper PD573 is based on Maxio Technology's MAP1802 DRAM-less controller (four NAND channels at up to 4800 MT/s, 14.4 GB/s, 3.4M read IOPS, 3.5M write IOPS) designed for inexpensive SSDs and 3D NAND from Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC). As for capacities, expect the Viper PD573 to come in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB configurations.

Patriot expects the Viper PD573 drives to hit up to 14,000 MB/s read speed as well as up to 12,000 MB/s write speed, which is a relatively conservative target given the numbers outlined by Maxio itself. The combination of a Maxio controller and YMTC 3D NAND memory is not new to Patriot, so the company is familiar in how to use and tune it, so it can probably achieve its performance targets.

There is a catch about achieving up to 14,000 MB/s sequential read speeds using a controller with four NAND channels. Considering encoding overhead of an ONFi interface (8b/10b encoding, overhead is 20%), to get to 14,000 MB/s, one needs to use 3D NAND with at least 4200 MT/s interface and that memory does not exist yet.

YMTC's existing 3D NAND devices with the Xtacking 3.0 architecture feature an interface of up to 2400 MT/s, which is fast. The company's next-generation Xtacking 4.0 devices could get an even faster interface given YMTC's unique architectural advantage over competitors (peripheral logic and PHY are produced on a different wafer using an optimized process technology, 3D NAND array produced on a separate wafer), but we do not know whether it is going to support a 4200 MT/s interface from the start.

In any case, the MAP1802 is at its early stages, both Maxio and Patriot will spend time optimizing the controller firmware, ready for YMTC's next-generation 3D NAND to enter mass production. Patriot believes that that YMTC will have the memory it needs to build inexpensive PCIe Gen5 x4 SSDs rather sooner than later, so the Viper PD573 could hit the market late in 2024, though this is an optimistic assumption.

Patriot demonstrated its upcoming flagship solid-state drive with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface at CES this week. The Viper PV573 SSD has a massive cooler with a blower fan, but Patriot says it can boast up to 14,000 MB/s sequential read speed and maintain a temperature of 45ºC due to the powerful cooling system.

Patriot's Viper PV573 SSD is powered by the Phison PS5026-E26 controller and Micron's B58R 3D TLC NAND with a 2400 MT/s data transfer rate. The drives will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, and the manufacturer says that they will offer a sequential read speed of up to 14,000 MB/s and a sequential write speed of up to 12,000 MB/s, which is in line with premium drives based on this Phison E26 platform from some other makers and enough to make it one of the best SSDs available.

What differentiates Patriot's Viper PV573 from the rest of the range-topping PCIe Gen5 drives in an M.2-2280 form factor is its cooling system featuring an aluminum radiator, a heatshield, and a blower fan. The heatshield ensures that the fan blows air through the heatsink, not just against the heatsink, which Patriot says guarantees an operating temperature of just 45ºC. Such a relatively low temperature means that the drive will not throttle under high loads due to overheating.

Meanwhile, the cooling system is pretty large: it has a 16.5 mm z-height and requires and external power (which is why Patriot uses a cable with a SATA and four-pin Molex plug). The good news is that the blower fan design is rated at 25,000 hours, or two years and 10 months.

Patriot says that the Viper PV573 SSD will be available in 2024 and does not mention pricing. However, we would expect it to be close to release and be priced in line with other premium PCIe Gen5 SSDs. 

At CES 2024, Patriot showcased its storage devices ready for 2024, starting with its next-generation PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs. However, the company also showed several new external storage drives for 2024, including the portable SSD USB Duo A/C and an interesting prototype called the Portable SSD USB 4.0. 

The Portable SSD USB 4 prototype is still a work in progress as there's no casing on it, though Patriot plans to release this drive in 2024. It will use a Realtek 5772DL controller paired with an ASMedia ASM2464 bridge controller and WD BiCS5 NAND chips. This portable USB 4 SSD will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities and is advertised to yield sequential reads up to 3,720 MB/s and writes up to 3,720 MB/s. 

Patriot also prepared two other external drives. Being true to its name, the Portable SSD Duo A/C features Type-C and Type-A ports in its casing. The company promises this drive will provide read and write speeds up to 1,000 MB/s and will be available in 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB storage capacities. 

The Portable SSD was also marked as a prototype, featuring only a Type-C port and a much higher transfer data speed. In its display, Patriot mentions it provides up to 2,100 MB/s reads and writes up to 1,800 MB/s. It is clear these drives are made for two different user bases- one provides versatile physical compatibility and the other with more performance throughput.

Patriot also provides a Type-C to dual Type A/C cable for the drives, which looks similar to the cable that comes with the Transporter external SSD.

The State of USB 4 External SSDs

We already have PCs and Macs that leverage USB 4, so it is about time we see more manufacturers roll out USB 4 SSD and NVMe enclosures. We tested the ZikeDrive USB 4 enclosure for NVMe SSDs, which provides roughly the same speeds, and there are native USB 4 drives like the Adata SE920.

Portable drives are in high demand due to the need to have mass storage for mobile and handheld devices. This is where the products like the SSD Duo A/C and the Portable SSD fill the void. Unfortunately, pricing and retail availability were not provided by Patriot at CES. Hopefully, we'll learn these details in the coming months as these prototypes give way to production-ready designs. 

The age of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs has only just begun, with the current focus being on high-performance drives that push the envelope. Just this week, we reviewed the Crucial T700 , which promises sequential read and write speeds of 12,400 and 11,700 MBps respectively but costs a whopping $339 for the 2TB model.

Over time, all Gen 5 SSDs will get cheaper, especially as NAND prices sink. However, one sure-fire way to get budget Gen 5 SSDs is to go with a DRAMless configuration. There are a slew of PCIe Gen 3 and Gen 4 drives without DRAM and, though they can't quite hit the same speeds as more expensive SSDs that have a DRAM cache, they give you a lot for your money.

At Computex 2023, Patriot Memory showed a prototype of a DRAMless Gen 5 SSD that is still pretty far away from launch. A company rep said that it could take up to a year before the unnamed drive hits the market. 

We don't know the speeds or specs for the unnamed drive, but we do know about the drive is that it uses a Maxiotek brand controller and Patriot expects it to have surprisingly good performance. The rep said "we're working a lot to bring our DRAMless drives damn close to our DRAM drives."

Speaking of SSDs that have DRAM, Patriot also introduced the Viper PV553, a PCIe Gen 5 drive that has a full 4GB of DDR4 cache memory on its 2TB capacity. The drive, which uses a Phison E26 controller and speedy 2400 MT/s NAND, will be available in 1TB, 2TB and 4GB capacities starting within the next month or so.

The PV553 uses an active fan for cooling, but makes up for the potential noise by having an extremely thin profile. Patriot said that they are still refining the fan speeds so that the plastic on the heatsink doesn't degrade from the heat. 

Designed to compete with the best SSDs, the Patriot PV553 is rated for 12,400 MBps sequential reads and 11,800 MBps writes, which is about on par with the T700. That makes sense since it uses the same controller. 

Though the unit we saw on display had a thin and not-very-attractive looking power cable, Patriot told us that it will have a connector that is black, sleeved and have a black connector you can plug into a fan header on your motherboard. There will also be an extension cable should you need to connect the SSD to your PSU.

There's no word yet on pricing for the PV553, but since it's due out next month, we should find out soon. 

California-based Patriot Group has been teasing (PDF) a super-fast new SSD, which it intends to fully unveil at the Computex 2023 in a few week's time. The new Patriot Viper PV553 is one of the latest breed of PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 SSDs, and has a touted top transfer speed of 12.4 GB/s. If it lives up to its promise, we could see the new Patriot Viper PV553 swelling the ranks of our Best SSDs of 2023.

We don't have a great deal of information about the new Patriot Viper PV553, as it is still at pre-launch stage. For example, we don't know what controller or NAND will be used. The key facts we have about this SSD at this stage are provided in the following table.

With the recent (bad) news regarding PCIe Gen5 SSDs overheating, throttling, or even grinding to a complete halt, it is good to see that Patriot's Viper PV553 looks like it has an active cooler as standard (rather than an option). At the connector end, the tiny fan is visible, and there follows a fluted and vented design, which looks like it is capped by an aluminum shield. The overall design makes this writer wonder if some kind of music can be produced by covering the various holes once the fan is running. A final observation is that the Viper PV533 appears to eschew RGB LED lighting.

We hope that the Patriot Viper PV553 can live up to its performance claims, as if it follows through, we could have one of the fastest new generation PCIe Gen5 SSDs available, sitting alongside the likes of the Crucial T700 (which also achieves 12.4 GB/s).

Patriot isn't only going to launch the new PCIe Gen5 SSD as part of a refreshed Viper gaming storage line. It says that at Computex it will also talk about updates to its PCIe Gen4 SSD lineup, as well as a RAM showcase centered around the Viper Xtreme 5 DDR5 extreme performance memory and Viper Elite 5 DDR5 mainstream performance memory. There will also be a host of new peripherals and a showcase of the recently released Viper VXD M.2 SSD Enclosure.

The Team Group MP44L SSD is a mid-range PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that’s best if you are looking for a drive with 1TB capacity or less. It’s a basic budget SSD that you could slot into a laptop, desktop, or PlayStation 5 without much trouble or additional fanfare. It utilizes a newer controller and newer flash, so it is both fast and efficient. It’s not the fastest drive on the market but it will give any last-generation PCIe 3.0 drive a run for its money. There is quite a bit of competition in the market, so choosing this drive comes down to pricing and availability.

The Team Group, or just Team, has put out a crazy amount of drives in the last few years. We last reviewed Team’s T-Force Cardea A440 Pro/Special Series in April with some questions about its flash selection. It’s no mystery that many manufacturers are swapping hardware and some of Team’s low-end SATA drives have been spotted with multiple controllers and flash. The MP44L sample under review has hardware of decent quality and we have no issues in recommending it today with the hope that the use of newer hardware will encourage Team to maintain a certain level of performance.

Specifications

The Team MP44L is available at 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. The reason we suggested 1TB or less in the introduction is because that is where this drive hits its peak performance - that is, where it has the ideal amount of flash dies. Performance does dip a little at 2TB but, moreover, there are better options for your money at that capacity. Current Amazon pricing is at $38.99, $56.99, $96.99, and $181.99 for the listed capacities, respectively. This makes the 500GB and 1TB models the most compelling. It’s difficult to get good performance out of NVMe with fewer dies at 250GB especially as flash is getting denser, so that capacity is also not recommended.

Performance is up to 5,000/4,500 MBps for sequential read and write with up to 525K/550K IOPS read and write. This places it in the middle of the pack with PCIe 4.0 drives, along with those that are using the SM2269XT and IG5220 controllers. Many of those drives are using the same flash as the MP44L. We recommend ones with QLC, like the Crucial P3 Plus or Solidigm P41 Plus, if you’re looking for 2TB or more to get the best bang for your buck.

Team rates the MP44L for 200TB, 300TB, 600TB, or 1200TB of writes by capacity, respectively. All models have a 5-year warranty according to Team’s website.

Software and Accessories

Team provides S.M.A.R.T. monitoring software for its SSDs. This application shows disk and system information. It also has a performance tab for quick testing. This information can alternatively be read with free software like CrystalDiskInfo, HWiNFO, and CrystalDiskMark. We recommend Macrium Reflect Free for image and cloning needs.

A Closer Look

The 1TB MP44L is single-sided, which is a nice benefit. The top has a label that Team states is constructed of graphene-coated aluminum, which should be useful for heat dissipation. Under the label, we spy 4 NAND packages and a controller with no DRAM. The controller is in the center of the PCB which can have benefits for heat spreading.

The controller is the DRAM-less Phison E21T. We have reviewed this controller before with the excellent budget drive, the Silicon Power UD90. The MP44L is extremely similar to the UD90 on paper. The E21T is also present on the Crucial P3 and Crucial P3 Plus, both using Micron’s 176-layer QLC, the latter being PCIe 4.0 and former PCIe 3.0.

The Phison E21T has competition from the InnoGrit IG5220 and the SMI SM2269XT, as well as WD’s custom controller on the Black SN770. All of these controllers are DRAM-less and in the middle of PCIe 4.0 bandwidth, which effectively makes them a replacement for the old Phison E16 with DRAM. Newer flash allows them to rival even very fast drives from the previous generation, certainly PCIe 3.0 drives, while having generally high levels of efficiency.

Efficiency usually translates to less heat generation, all else being equal, so drives in this class are suitable for laptops. However, they only have four channels so are limited in capacity when paired with TLC. 2TB options, where available, may not be quite as performant and are also often not cost-competitive.

The flash is labeled IA7BG94AYA, which is very familiar. It’s Micron’s 176-layer TLC. This popular and now ubiquitous flash that has worked well with multiple controllers. Each of these packages is 256GB in size with four 64GB dies for a total of 1TB. It’s possible to fit this much memory into fewer packages, but this is a popular configuration and is balanced well on this drive for heat dissipation.

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Comparison Products

The Team MP44L is up against the budget-oriented Inland Prime, other mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSDs including the HP FX900, the Patriot P400, the WD SN770, and the Solidigm P41 Plus, plus an old stalwart - the Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0. The higher-end Crucial P5 Plus is also in the mix. The P41 Plus is the only QLC drive in the list. Most of these drives, including the MP44L, are utilizing Micron’s 176-layer TLC, so we can see what difference a controller can make.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The MP44L is average to above average in 3DMark. The InnoGrit controller in the FX900 and P400 does not seem well-optimized for this benchmark. Older 28nm technology in the Inland Prime and Rocket NVMe 4.0 - the E15T and E16 controllers, respectively - also fall behind, even though the latter has DRAM. The P41 Plus does surprisingly well.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

Results for PCMark 10 are similar to those for 3DMark. The MP44L is above average and the P41 Plus punches above its weight.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

In DiskBench, we are essentially looking at the copy transfer rate to get a feel for how well the drive would copy files to itself. This takes both read and write performance into consideration. The MP44L is again a bit above average, with the P5 Plus and SN770 remaining at the top.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The MP44L does exceptionally well on ATTO. Phison controllers tend to do well in this test, particularly with reads at larger I/O sizes. CDM sequentials show it falling behind the P5 Plus and SN770, however; it is decidedly average at best. 4K low queue depth results are better but not quite capable of matching the best. Specifically, the SN770 is better across-the-board and the FX900 and P400 - using the IG5220 controller - are better with all-important low queue depth read latency. The P41 Plus continues to surprise, considering it’s using QLC, while the DRAM-equipped Rocket NVMe 4.0 shows how old hardware can fall behind.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The 1TB MP44L writes in pSLC at 4.6 GBps for up to 15 seconds, with a cache size around 69GB. This is a fairly small cache, so we would expect higher sequential write performance in TLC mode. This is indeed the case as the MP44L writes at around 1.75 GBps after the cache is exhausted. The E21T controller has a limited amount of channels and die interleaving so eventually the drive must fold to around 250 MBps.

Although the pSLC cache will vary with how full the drive is, having a smaller cache means being able to retain a similar absolute size with space utilization. A certain amount of cache for a 1TB drive is sufficient to cache small, random writes as well as writes in bursts, which is ample to maintain high performance and make the best use of the pSLC for endurance purposes. The relatively high and elongated TLC performance phase suggests additional consistency that should be present even if the drive is very full. Typically budget drives have leaned on larger pSLC caches to hide their poor native performance, but this controller and flash combination is fast enough to offer an excellent experience without compromise.

The most direct comparison would be to the FX900 and P400, which are using the IG5220 controller instead. The pSLC cache design for those drives emphasizes a much larger cache and much shorter intermediate performance period, although all of these drives seem to take a bit of time to recover their cache when idle. Recovery time varies because there are good reasons to defer clearing the pSLC, such as avoiding additional wear, while having it ready again means better performance. Therefore there is a balance to be struck, but DRAM-less drives with good TLC performance generally opt to be conservative, particularly as consumer usage on a budget drive tends to demonstrate lots of idle time.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Remember that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

High power efficiency has been one of the most obvious benefits of newer controller and flash technology. Budget drives in particular have been impressive, for example with the FX900 and SN770. The MP44L falls in-between these two drives with very high efficiency. A DRAM-less, 4-channel controller is bound to be more efficient and makes for an excellent drive choice for a laptop, especially with a single-sided design. With very light usage something like the P41 Plus might be the better choice - given that it should be cheaper - but the MP44L would be superior if you intend to do a bit more.

We measured the MP44L at 41C during idle with a maximum temperature of 77C under load. This temperature was reached by writing for over one-half of the 1TB drive’s capacity. At that point it hit a folding state which precluded throttling - no heatsink is required under normal conditions.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

The Team MP44L is a solid all-around budget PCIe 4.0 SSD with generally above average performance, good power efficiency, and a simple but effective design. Team backs it with a reasonable warranty and basic software support. There’s not much more to ask for in a drive, especially as this would work well in a laptop or possibly a PlayStation 5. These results are not surprising as we found the Silicon Power UD90, which has the same hardware, to be perhaps the best budget SSD available at the time of its review.

The MP44L scores a bit worse, but there are good reasons for that. The UD90 tends to offer the same package at a bit lower cost. Other drives within this range also offer a similar experience for the same price or less. The SSD market continues to trend downwards with pricing and significant sales have made for a competitive environment. There are also new competitors for the MP44L that the UD90 didn’t face at its time of review, for example the Solidigm P41 Plus. QLC is best at 1TB or 2TB which still leaves the MP44L a compelling 500GB choice, but the MP44L’s performance is good enough to make it a better all-around choice at 1TB as well.

We scored the P41 Plus rather harshly in part due to its MSRP because a QLC SSD, especially a DRAM-less QLC one, really should be cheaper. That drive has since had excellent pricing at 2TB and we would recommend it there. A drive like the MP44L is superior at lower capacities, especially if pricing is close. This is partly because benchmarks often show performance in ideal conditions, an especially valid criticism as the P41 Plus is best when it is less than 50% full. Taking this into consideration, the performance consistency of the MP44L combined with its exceptional efficiency - significantly better in our testing than the P41 Plus - makes it an objectively better choice in the general case, and worthy of a higher score.

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The Acer Predator GM7000 takes a winning formula of components and puts unique branding on it. This combination is powerful, efficient and particularly compelling at 2TB, but the GM7000 is in a crowded market. This high-end PCIe 4.0 drive would be happy in the PlayStation 5 or in your PC with help from Acronis True Image OEM software. Otherwise, this SSD does not stand out, particularly against the very fastest drives we’ve tested, like the SK hynix Platinum P41 and WD Black SN850X. 

The GM7000 is best compared to the HP FX900 Pro, since it has the same controller and flash. The pSLC caching scheme is also similar. While it appears some tweaks were made to the GM7000, possibly through updated firmware, it largely falls into the same position as the FX900 Pro and other drives like it. These drives are often a bit cheaper than other high-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs, particularly at 2TB.

Acer announced a partnership with Biwin more than a year ago, and we see its flash on the GM7000. Biwin previously worked heavily with HP, which includes the FX900 Pro. Biwin provides services with flash binning and the manufacture of drives. It is not surprising that the GM7000 is so close to the FX900 Pro. It does mean that you have a bit better idea of what you’re getting. Otherwise, you are relying on Acer’s support for warranty and software.

Specifications

The Acer GM7000 is available at 512GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities. This is a nice range, but we were not able to find the drive available at its highest capacity at the time of this review. The other capacities actually lowered in price during writing, reflecting that the NAND and SSD markets have been, and remain, in a steady price decline.

The closest competitor, the HP FX900 Pro which is slightly cheaper at 2TB. 2TB has become an increasingly popular capacity and there have been many sales on drives of this size this year, so it is a competitive space. One advantage the GM7000 has is its graphene foam heat pad, something the FX900 Pro also uses. Graphene has very high thermal conductivity and PCIe 4.0 SSDs can get quite hot, so this is a solution that saves a bit of physical space.

The GM7000 is otherwise unexceptional, coming with a 5-year warranty and 300, 600, 1,300, and 3,000 TBW ratings for its respective capacity options. Rated IOPS are quite high, as on the FX900 Pro. Sequential performance can top out at 7.4/6.7GBps for reads and writes, respectively, thanks to the use of newer flash with the IG5236 controller. This makes for a powerful drive that checks all the expected boxes.

Software and Accessories

The GM7000 comes with a free, customized copy of Acronis True Image OEM. This is a piece of software that allows you to clone, backup, or image your drives, which can make upgrading your storage easier. This is barebones software and there are good freeware options, but it’s still nice to have it bundled.

A Closer Look

This is a double-sided drive at 2TB, with a label on the rear covering two NAND packages and one DRAM package. Removing the top graphene pad reveals a single DRAM module, the controller and two NAND packages.

The controller is an InnoGrit IG5236, a popular and powerful PCIe 4.0 solution. It competes with the Phison E18, the upcoming SMI SM2264, and proprietary designs from Western Digital, Samsung, Crucial and SK hynix. InnoGrit as a company is a relative newcomer, but it has veterans at its helm. Its latest controller designs have proven quite effective, and are often paired with drives that are a bit cheaper than the competition.

The DRAM package is NANYA NT5AD512M16A4, DDR4 in a 512M x 16b configuration for a total of 8Gb or 1GB. As there are two packages, the total DRAM on this 2TB drive is 2GB. This is an ample amount of memory, even for heavy workloads.

The flash packages are labeled BW29F4T08ENLEE. This is the same flash that we saw on the 2TB FX900 Pro. Biwin has long managed HP’s SSDs and, over a year ago, it was announced that it would also work with Acer. Historically this has not been an issue as some of HP’s SSD products have been quite excellent, such as with the EX920 and EX950.

The “BW” represents Biwin, with 29 being the common code for Micron (or Intel) Technology. These are 4Tb or 512GB modules, four for a total of 2TB, in a typical 8-bit configuration. The flash is of the 176-layer generation and TLC. This flash is found on a ton of drives and has proven to be quite fast. It is in fact the flash that Phison chose for its preliminary I/O+ firmware, albeit at 1600 MT/s. The flash on the GM7000 is the standard 1200 MT’s, although this does not have a huge impact on performance.

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Comparison Products

The Acer GM7000 is very close in hardware and design to the HP FX900 Pro, so we will be comparing our test subject to the latter. The Patriot Viper VP4300 is also similar but arrived with older Micron TLC. Proprietary designs are represented by the newer WD Black SN850X and SK hynix Platinum P41, plus the older Crucial P5 Plus and Samsung 980 Pro. The Kingston KC3000 represents one of the fastest drives built on Phison’s E18 controller. All in all, this is stiff competition for the GM7000.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files and recording gameplay video streams.

In 3DMark the GM7000 falls into the middle of the pack. It matches the FX900 Pro, as expected, but falls behind the faster drives - the SN850X, Platinum P41 and KC3000.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The GM7000 performs similarly in PCMark 10 to how it did in 3DMark. It does fare a bit better, only falling behind the Platinum P41 and SN850X, two drives that we consider to be the overall best SSDs on the market.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

DiskBench is largely a bandwidth test and, as a result, most of the drives perform very similarly. So far, however, it’s clear that upgrading the flash on the IG5236 controller brings worthwhile gains. The VP4300 falls a bit behind with reads on this test but was very much behind in 3DMark and PCMark 10. The Predator GM7000 matches the FX900 Pro, as expected, and does well enough otherwise with copies.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO & CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. These tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

ATTO’s sequential results favor Phison, that is the KC3000, particularly with reads. That being said, the SN850X has definitely caught up. The drives based on the IG5236 controller - the GM7000, FX900 Pro and VP4300 - have a notable dip with sequential reads. The dip being in a different place for the VP4300 may indicate differences in flash architecture, but overall this controller may have some inconsistencies. Sequential write performance in ATTO looks good.

Sequential results in CDM are also good, except for reads at QD1. That is a place where the Platinum P41 excels in particular, with the SN850X a bit behind. The GM7000 improves on the VP4300, but is otherwise lackluster. Luckily, it makes up for it with excellent random read and good random write performance. Those results are probably more important than the sequential ones, at least for the time being.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The GM7000’s pSLC cache response is very similar to the FX900 Pro’s. A large cache, about one-third the TLC capacity of the drive, allows it to write at around 6.6GBps for up to 105 seconds. There is then a briefer middle state of direct-to-TLC at around 2.85GBps before the drive has to fold at 1.35GBps. The GM7000 seems a bit more consistent than the FX900 Pro but is otherwise functionally the same in this as it is in other tests. Overall, this is a fast drive and there are no complaints about what it can get out of this flash.

Recovery is not great on the GM7000, as was the case with the FX900 Pro, probably due to the relatively large nature of the pSLC cache. You can get more consistent results out of the Platinum P41 or even the SN850X. However, it’s clearly superior to the older VP4300. On the whole, the GM7000 is more than fast enough, and the overall write performance is pretty good thanks to the flash.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Remember that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

PCIe 4.0 drives draw more power and run hotter, but can also finish workloads faster. Modern drives in particular may have controllers made in a smaller process node and newer flash always inches to be more efficient over time. This combination means that there’s a surprising trend towards better results on our Quarch power tests. This does not necessarily indicate what drive is best for your laptop or hot environment, but rather reflects how well the drive does on basic transfer tasks.

The Platinum P41 surprised us with its efficiency when we reviewed it, but the GM7000 comes surprisingly close. It’s the second best in terms of efficiency in this test and significantly better than the older VP4300.

For thermal testing, we checked the drive temperature at both idle and max under a sustained write workload. We also looked for throttling. The GM7000 idled at 47 degrees C and hit a maximum temperature of 85 C, where it throttled, during a transfer of 1TB of video files. The speed degraded at first to 1.35 GBps and then 800 MBps with heavy throttling. The graphene cooler is not sufficient for super heavy workloads, so you may want to consider additional cooling.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless otherwise noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

The Acer Predator GM7000 does not disappoint, nor does it excite. It's a well-rounded drive for most use cases, and those who  don’t need the fastest performance, you can save some money. The GM7000 really needs to be priced right in order for it to be compelling. There is a lot of competition, particularly at 2TB with recent pricing trends and the availability of higher-capacity drives.

This is an efficient drive with reasonable support and good all-around performance. Biwin is not an unknown brand anymore and has proven itself with HP SSDs. That fact may give you a bit of confidence when you look at the Acer Predator drives. Nevertheless, it finds itself in a crowded segment and if you are discerning then you will have to weigh it against the other options. At the same price, the Platinum P41 or SN850X would be superior, and even the KC3000 or similar would probably be a better bet. The GM7000 is best at the 2TB capacity, especially if you can find it on sale.

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Patriot's Viper Venom DDR5 kit arrives with DDR5-6200 CL40 speeds and an option for a bright RGB exterior, vying for a spot on our list of best RAM. Patriot may seem a bit late to the DDR5 party, but some brands took a bit more time to develop and consequently release their first DDR5 memory kits to the market. Of course, that isn't a big deal since DDR5 is here to stay, and it still carries a premium. Patriot, in particular, has opted to extend the brand's prominent Viper series with the new Venom DDR5 lineup, which the manufacturer offers in RGB and black variants. The Viper Venom DDR5 features kit capacities from 16GB (2x8GB) up to 32GB (2x16GB) and data rates spanning from DDR5-5200 to DDR5-6200.

The Viper Venom DDR5 memory modules sport a two-tone exterior with a primary matte black design complemented with brushed aluminum accents. In addition, Patriot has tactically placed its red Viper logos in different parts of the heat spreader to be visible to bystanders from every direction. Overall, the memory modules look pretty cool without being overly tall. On the other hand, they measure 43mm (1.69 inches), so they don't precisely fall into the low-profile category, either.

The RGB version of the Viper Venom comes with an RGB diffuser. The diffuser doesn't add height to the memory module as the non-RGB versions also stand 43mm tall. For the non-RGB versions, the memory module has a black bar instead of a diffuser. You can customize the RGB-lit memory modules to your heart's content through Patriot's own Viper Venom RGB software or your motherboard's software. For the latter, the memory is compatible with Asus, ASRock, MSI, and Gigabyte software.

Patriot's memory kit arrives with two 16GB DDR5 memory modules with a single-rank design. The integrated circuits (ICs) are from SK hynix, specifically the latest H5CG48MEBDX014 (M-die) chips. As for the power management IC (PMIC), Patriot opted to use the "0D=9B 409" unit, which according to the CPU-Z dump, comes from Richtek.

For compatibility sake, the memory modules default to DDR5-4800 with standard 40-40-40-77 timings. Patriot has capitalized on the XMP 3.0 standard and loaded the memory modules with three profiles. Profile 1 sets the memory to DDR5-6200 with 40-40-40-76 timings and a 1.35V DRAM voltage. Profile 2 drops it to DDR5-6000 with identical timings but with the DRAM voltage down to 1.25V. Finally, profile 3 puts the Viper Venom RGB to DDR5-5600 at 36-36-36-68 with 1.25V. See our PC Memory 101 feature and How to Shop for RAM story for more on timings and frequency considerations.

Comparison Hardware

Our DDR5 test system consists of Intel's Core i9-12900K flagship Alder Lake processor with Corsair's CUE H100i Elite LCD liquid cooler taking care of the cooling. The 16-core Alder Lake chip resides on the MSI MEG Z690 Unify-X motherboard, running the 7D28vA8 firmware. On the other hand, the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio is responsible for our gaming RAM benchmarks.

Our Windows 11 installation, benchmarking software, and games reside on Crucial's MX500 SSDs, whereas the RM650x feeds our entire system with power. Lastly, the Streacom BC1 open bench table ensures all of our hardware is well kept and tidy.

Intel Performance

The Viper Venom RGB placed fifth overall in the performance chart. The memory kit didn't win any first places, but it frequently found itself in the top three positions in many workloads.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

When you run hardware outside of the manufacturer's specifications, there's always a potential risk of damage. That's the standard caveat with overclocking any hardware, not just memory. Although we've already reached out to SK hynix to inquire about the maximum safe voltage for its ICs, we haven't received any feedback on safe voltages for overclocking. However, after speaking with various memory vendors, they've agreed that 1.4V is the maximum voltage you would want to pump into DDR5 for an extended time.

One advantage of the Viper Venom RGB is that the memory uses SK hynix M-die ICs similar to other faster rivals, such as the V-Color Manta XPrism DDR5-6200 C36. As a result, we didn't have any issues getting the Patriot's memory to DDR5-6400 with 36-38-38-76 timings once we pumped 1.4V into the memory modules.

Lowest Stable Timings

Similar to the Manta XPrism, the Viper Venom RGB could also do 36-37-37-76 on 1.4V at DDR5-6200. Therefore, with some diligent tweaking, the Viper Venom RGB has the potential to counterpoise the Manta XPrism's stock performance.

Bottom Line

There aren't many DDR5-6200 memory kits on the market right now, so the Viper Venom RGB DDR5-6200 C40 doesn't have a lot of rivals. On the other hand, the memory kit was slightly slower than the V-Color Manta XPrism DDR5-6200 C36 ($399.99) right out of the gate. So the margin isn't huge. If we add overclocking to the equation, however, the Viper Venom RGB can be on par with its more expensive competitors since SK hynix's M-die ICs are presently very popular in high-speed DDR5 memory kits. The Viper Venom RGB also comes with three XMP profiles, which is an excellent detail if your system can't handle the advertised DDR5-6200 data rate.

The DDR5-6200 category has intense competition. The Viper Venom RGB DDR5-6200 C40 currently retails for $284.99. It's a reasonable price for a DDR5-6200 memory kit. Patriot's memory kit is a decent option if you don't mind the standard timings.

The Silicon Power UD90 is the first drive we’ve had on our testbed with Phison’s new E21T SSD controller. If you only need 1TB of capacity, this is a relatively inexpensive PCIe 4.0 drive that would work great in a Playstation 5 or desktop PC. Thanks to the DRAM-less controller and 176-layer TLC flash, it’s also power efficient enough to work great with laptops. It comes with a fairly decent warranty and some software support, too, earning a spot on our list of Best SSDs. However, we do recommend additional cooling, if possible.

The UD90 finds itself up against tough competition from drives we’ve recently reviewed, including the HP FX900 and Patriot P400. If you’re looking for a high-end PCIe 4.0 drive, there are better options, but this segment is the better value for your dollar. Many top-tier PCIe 3.0 drives with DRAM have come down significantly in price, so the real question is if it’s worth compromising with a drive like the UD90. For the PS5, absolutely; for PCs, it depends. These newer drives can be very efficient for laptops and make good primary or secondary drives for desktops, assuming you don’t need more than about 1TB of space.

The UD90 uses the same flash as many other great drives we’ve reviewed, but it has a new controller. We’re seeing more competition in this space as Silicon Motion has its SM2269XT controller on the way, too. This is a good thing as you have more choices, but it can make it challenging to pick the perfect drive. Perhaps the most significant factor here is cost, and the UD90 should launch at a very attractive price point on Amazon. Let’s see how it measures up to the excellent but more expensive FX900.

Specifications

The UD90 comes in three capacities of 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. Silicon Power has informed us that it intends to launch with just the 1TB SKU in the U.S. The smaller SKUs are for other regions and markets for now. This drive reaches peak performance at 1TB, and that capacity tends to be the “sweet spot” for mid-range drives like this, so this is not too terrible. Some users prefer smaller drives for the OS in multi-drive builds, but it’s hard to get the most out of a fast PCIe 4.0 drive without a higher capacity for more flash and interleaving.

The 1TB drive reaches 4.8/4.2 GBps for sequential read and write and 570K/600K IOPS for random read and write, both respectively. These numbers are firmly in the mid-range against drives like the FX900 and P400, which use a different controller but the same flash. It’s faster than entry-level PCIe 4.0 drives like the S50 Lite and SN750 SE. The UD90 is warrantied for five years and 600 TB of data writes (TBW) at 1TB, which is pretty solid.

Silicon Power says this will arrive at $94.99, making it very competitive in its intended market segment. This is a bit cheaper than the HP FX900 and the Patriot P400, making it a good budget choice or alternative for the Playstation 5 as well as for cheaper PCIe 4.0 builds.

Software and Accessories

Silicon Power has a download of its “SP ToolBox” available on its site. This piece of software offers information about the drive, including SMART and other diagnostics. It’s basic but better than nothing. You can clone and image the drive with free software options.

A Closer Look

The UD90 has a label on top showing basic information about the drive, such as the capacity and serial number. Under the label, we see the controller in the middle along with a PMIC, flanked by two NAND packages to either side. There is no DRAM. This type of layout can have some advantages, for example as WD touted with its WD Black and SN750, but the average user can just look at it and imagine a balancing of heat dissipation.

The Phison E21T is Phison’s new PCIe 4.0 DRAM-less controller, positioned to compete with InnoGrit’s IG5220 and SMI’s SM2269XT. It also competes with WD’s proprietary controller used on the SN770. This controller has four channels with a bus speed of 1600 MT/s, capable of using current and upcoming TLC and QLC flash. It has Phison’s 4th-Gen LDPC error correction, end-to-end data path protection, and RAID error correction through Smart ECC 2.0. Encryption support for TCG OPAL 2.0 and Pyrite is optionally available but not activated on this drive.

Performance-wise, this controller can hit up to 5/4.5 GBps for sequential read and write, respectively, and up to 780K/800K random read and write IOPS, also respectively. This matches up nicely with the IG5220, which we’ve seen in past reviews of drives like the HP FX900 and Patriot P400. This is our first review of a drive using the E21T, but we expect to see more drives using this controller. We also expect it to be competitive.

The flash packages are labeled IA7BG94AYA which means they contain dies of Micron’s 176-layer TLC. Each package should host four dies, that is 4DP or QDP, at 64GB per die. The total of sixteen dies is ideal for this four-channel controller, allowing peak interleaving at 1TB.

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Comparison Products

We compared the 1TB Silicon Power UD90 to direct rivals like the Patriot P400, HP FX900, and SN770. The rest of the field includes high-end PCIe 4.0 drives including proprietary designs with the Crucial P5 Plus, Samsung 980 Pro, and SK hynix Platinum P41. Lastly, the Kingston Fury Renegade represents drives built on Phison’s E18 controller with 176-layer flash. This excellent flash is found in five of the eight 1TB drives on this list.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The UD90 performs favorably here, beating the P400 and FX900. The SN770 manages to pull away from its peers. This test isn’t the be-all and end-all for gaming performance, which in fact tends to be the same for any SSD. Load times can vary, but in general, the advantages are pretty small.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The UD90 again beats the FX900 and P400 in this test but falls behind the high-end PCIe 4.0 drives. This is still a strong showing for what is basically a budget drive. Once again, the SN770 punches above its weight.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The UD90’s first misstep is here, but it’s not a big one and not unexpected. DiskBench results are limited by a drive’s bandwidth potential, and as such, the lower-end drives like the SN770, FX900, P400, and UD90, fall behind on reads and copies. The UD90 still remains pretty close to its direct rivals. If you absolutely need the fastest file transfers, you should be looking at a high-end PCIe 4.0 drive.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

Phison controllers tend to do well with sequential reads in ATTO, and the UD90’s new controller is no different. It’s actually up there with the Fury Renegade and Platinum P41. Its sequential write performance is a bit more modest, but it still matches or beats most drives. This is a very strong showing for a drive of this caliber. Phison’s E21T controller is a bit late to the game, but it was worth the wait: This is more than a suitable replacement for the E16, popular in budget PS5 drives.

Sequential results in CrystalDiskMark are limited by the interface or controller bandwidth, as determined by its channel count and bus speed, leaving the UD90 in the lower tiers. However, it’s still faster than any PCIe 3.0 drive. Random low queue depth 4K performance is good, as we’d expect from this flash with an optimized controller, but it falls behind with reads versus the FX900 and P400. In practice, this might not mean much as all of these drives are very quick here, but InnoGrit’s IG5220 controller is better optimized for that all-important metric.

Higher queue depth 4K results are a mixed bag, but this drive isn’t intended for those sorts of workloads. However, we do still see lagging with reads in particular. Nevertheless, these numbers are good and beat anything from the last generation of DRAM-less NVMe drives.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The UD90 writes in its fastest, pseudo-SLC state at over 4.6 GBps for almost 15 seconds. This implies a dynamic cache of around 69GB which, although presumably shrinking with drive usage, is sufficient to absorb random and smaller sequential writes. The UD90 then drops down to around 1.8 GBps for another eight minutes of writes. Then, finally, it hits its slowest state at about 275 MBps.

We can reasonably compare this to its peers and see that it has a significantly smaller SLC cache, a faster middle state, and a very slow worst-case scenario when SLC must be emptied. It nevertheless manages to outwrite the FX900 given enough time, but this is not a typical workload. Therefore, this design seems closer to something like a Phison E12-powered drive, as in our Corsair MP510 review, than launch Phison E16 drives like the Sabrent Rocket 4.0.

DRAM-less drives often have large SLC caches to hide their weak native performance states, but a more conservative design (as with newer DRAM-equipped E16 drives, like the MSI Spatium M470) can offer better consistency. Most users will not see the worst a drive has to offer, but dynamic cache inevitably shrinks with drive usage, and sustained writes will eventually slow down the drive. The UD90 offers a nice, balanced approach, with higher speeds in the middle state than we see on E12 and E16 SSDs, although in practice what we see with the FX900 and P400 might offer a slightly better user experience.

The UD90 did not recover its SLC cache quickly, instead bouncing back to its middle state, which is still plenty quick. This drive can better handle bursty writes, especially random ones, as befits normal consumer usage. You'll need to jump to a high-end model if you want faster performance in sustained write workloads.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Remember that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

The UD90 is extremely efficient in our power consumption test, right up there with the FX900 and Platinum P41. Although this result is limited by testing only a file copy, it does demonstrate that this drive is quick enough to finish tasks without much delay. A DRAM-less, four-channel controller design like this, coupled with an efficient 176-layer flash, is bound to be an excellent choice for laptops.

Its top power state is rated for 5W versus 3.5W for competitors, but it is more efficient in its other states with the trade-off of higher overall enter and exit latencies for idle. It can also move between active states freely with little delay. These numbers are only a guideline, anyway, but do offer a general idea of drive responsiveness and power draw. In practice, this is a flexible and efficient design.

We measured the drive temperature at idle and under sustained writes, both via SMART and with a temperature gun. The UD90 idled in the mid-40s degrees Celsius but reached 81C as measured by SMART and 73C as measured by gun after 380GB of sustained writes. Although not a realistic workload, this suggests that additional cooling could benefit this drive.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

The Silicon Power UD90 is yet another winner in a stream of affordable, DRAM-less SSDs that manage to exceed expectations. Improvements to controller design and flash have allowed manufacturers to offer efficient, powerful drives at a reasonable price point. Of course, these aren’t the fastest drives — they don’t saturate your PCIe 4.0 connection, and in everyday use, they might not be a huge upgrade over older PCIe 3.0 drives that had DRAM. However, they work with the PS5 and offer a great experience on PC — if only at limited capacities.

The UD90 compares favorably with drives like the FX900 and P400, plus other popular drives like the ADATA Atom 50. It scores a bit better with peak sequential read performance over bigger block sizes but tends to fall behind a bit during random read workloads. This probably doesn’t mean much to most users, and it more than passes the threshold for an excellent user experience. The SLC cache is more conservative than what’s found on its peers, including the SN770, which does suggest it should be more consistent across a range of workloads and fill rates, but it will not absorb as many writes at maximum speed.

Silicon Power backs this drive with an SSD toolbox and decent support; no three-year, low-endurance warranty here. We think it may benefit from a heatsink, but it is probably not required — most other drives in this segment also lack full heatsinks. This drive should be cheaper at launch than its competition. That makes it a fantastic budget choice and hard to beat, but be aware it may not be possible to get it at capacities other than 1TB in the U.S.

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The Patriot Viper VPR400 is a mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSD designed with a bright aesthetic in mind. The stylish heatsink features bright RGB lighting, and the SSD has software support for RGB sync. The VPR400's hardware is similar to two other drives we have reviewed, the HP FX900 and Patriot's own P400, so it’s effectively a gaming-oriented version of the latter. The P400 proved to be a stalwart drive with good performance for its price. Like that drive, the VPR400 is DRAM-less, but it comes equipped with a fast controller and newer flash that deliver solid performance in tandem with the bright lighting, earning a spot on our list of Best SSDs.

RGB is still all the rage, especially in the “gamer” space, although some drives do not support color control like the VPR400. The downside to this feature is that, historically, drives with RGB tended to run hotter with a higher risk of throttling. We'll test the drive in both the on and off states. The VPR400's heatsink, while aesthetically pleasing, doesn't seem well-designed for heat dissipation. That said, we didn't have much trouble with the P400 overheating.

The SSD market is becoming a bit oversaturated, especially in the mid-range, and more drives are on the way. New SSD controllers and flash are also on the horizon. It’s important for individual drives to stand out; therefore, Patriot has chosen to focus on RGB with the VPR400. If you only want the performance, you can opt for the cheaper P400 or one of its competitors, but if you're interested in adding some RGB to your M.2 port, this might just be the right fit for your build’s theme.

Specifications

The Patriot VPR400 comes in three capacities of 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. At the time of review, only the 512GB and 1TB SKUs were available and documented. Compared to drives like the P400, the VPR400 comes with a significant premium in the interest of aesthetics: you’re paying more for the heatsink and RGB. The drive is otherwise standard fare for its hardware in terms of performance. The warranty, at least, is quite good, with a full five years of coverage with endurance of up to 800 TB of data writes (TBW) at 1TB.

Software and Accessories

Patriot offers an RGB sync app for download on its website, and it's compatible with the RGB sync systems from ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI. Patriot also cites support for their Viper toolbox, a typical SSD application for information and utility use. Patriot additionally says that the VPR400 has an advanced temperature control function.

A Closer Look

The VPR400 has a black heatsink on top with sixteen windows for LEDs to shine and an informative label on the back. The thermal padding appears to make relatively good contact. Under the heatsink, we see the controller and two NAND packages, with no DRAM present. We can also spot the LEDs.

The VPR400 uses the InnoGrit IG5220 SSD controller, which has proven quite popular. It’s present in the HP FX900 and Patriot P400, two drives we have previously reviewed. The VPR400 is, in fact, quite similar in layout to the latter. However, the P400 and FX900 had the BAA revision of this controller. This SSD has the BCA revision, with the difference appearing to be in the material of the integrated heatsink (IHS). It’s possible this will demonstrate better heat dissipation with the VPR400. The IG5220 does not run particularly hot, but it is still a fast controller, and this drive does have RGB lighting that typically adds a bit of heat. 

The VPR400 uses Micron’s 176-layer TLC flash, known as B47R. This flash is also on the P400 and FX900, as well as numerous other drives like the P5 Plus. Presumably, this SSD uses the standard 512Gb or 64GB dies, or eight per 8DP/OCP for a total of sixteen dies at 1TB. This is an excellent amount to saturate the IG5220 controller with four dies for each of its four channels.

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Comparison Products

We compare the 1TB Patriot Viper VPR400 to the Patriot P400 and HP FX900, two drives that have the same type of hardware. We also include the Silicon Power UD90, which uses a rival Phison E21T controller. The WD Black SN770 is also included because it is a strong competitor in this segment. Lastly, we have three high-end drives: the SK hynix Platinum P41, the Samsung 980 Pro, and the Crucial P5 Plus. As usual, we test all drives at the same capacity.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The VPR400 actually seems to do better than its two direct peers in this test. It falls behind the rest, but its performance is still adequate.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

In contrast to the 3DMark results above, the VPR400 comes in dead last in PCMark. The differences in these tests may be down to optimization or firmware, particularly as the VPR400 is specifically designed for gaming.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The VPR400 lands exactly where we’d expect it to in this bandwidth-limited test: right in the middle. It performs well against its direct competitors, including the UD90 and SN770.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

There are no surprises with the ATTO tests — the VPR400 matches the P400. It’s also a fair match for the SN770. What we do see is the UD90 pulling away in sequential read performance, a Phison staple that indicates the E21T SSD controller has a shared lineage with the popular E18.

The VPR400's sequential performance is also solid in CrystalDiskMark. Performance in random workloads lags a little bit, particularly with writes, but reads tend to be more important, and these results are good on the whole. This hardware combination - controller and flash - has proven itself to be consistently above par. Nevertheless, the SN770 and UD90 remain competitive.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The VPR400 has three distinct performance states with SLC, TLC, and folding modes. The primary mode of pseudo-SLC writes at 4.65 GBps for up to 73 seconds, indicating an SLC cache of around 340GB. This is a bit larger than what is found on the FX900 and P400. Its TLC state at 2 GBps is correspondingly much shorter before hitting the 500 MBps bottleneck.

The VPR400 is clearly optimized a bit differently than those two peers, although the difference would not usually be noticeable in practice. This flash is quite fast in its native state, which makes for relatively quick writes for a four-channel controller. In addition, the large SLC cache should catch most things even if the drive is fuller. That being said, the SN770 matches it quite well, while the UD90 would be more consistent.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Remember that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

We’ve charted the VPR400’s power consumption both with and without the LEDs illuminated. Unsurprisingly, the drive is more efficient without the LEDs enabled. As expected, it comes close to the P400 in that state, rivaling the SN770. However, the drive consumes significantly more power with the RGB enabled, although this is probably not a concern with use in a desktop PC.

We also tested thermals under both conditions. With RGB disabled, the drive idled around 50C with a maximum of around 69C after an extreme amount of writes; no throttling was seen even after 600GB. With RGB enabled, the idle temperature rose to the mid-50s Celsius, hitting over 73C with sustained writes. This was sufficient to engage throttling after about 420GB of writing. So we can say that the heatsink does work and helps compensate for the extra LED heat sufficiently for its intended use.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

The Patriot VPR400 is essentially more of a good thing, serving as a Patriot P400 with a better warranty, a heatsink, and RGB. The RGB lighting syncs with most major platforms with Patriot’s software, as well. The InnoGrit IG5220 is a proven SSD controller and Micron’s 176-layer TLC remains the best flash on the market. What’s not to love?

Part of the problem is that this market segment is becoming crowded and competitive. There are other drives with the same hardware, sure, but also WD’s stellar SN770. Moreover, we have newcomers like Silicon Power’s UD90, which uses Phison’s new E21T controller, nipping at the heels. The VPR400 certainly stands out with its looks and the performance is nothing to ignore. However, it doesn’t really do anything new.

Patriot says a 2TB SKU is forthcoming, which would be nice as we don’t see that with the P400 or HP’s FX900 (yet), but it's still missing at the time of writing. That’s okay as 1TB is the sweet spot with this type of drive, but then we have to start looking at the price. The VPR400, as priced today on Amazon, is simply far too expensive unless you absolutely need matching RGB for your build. We do appreciate the heatsink and metal heat spreader, but ultimately it’s not a lot more effective than plain drives with the same hardware.

If you’re looking for a budget drive or even an entry-level PCIe 4.0 SSD, this is simply not the drive for you. It’s more along the lines of the Lexar SL660 Blaze, a portable drive with RGB, in the sense that it’s aimed at the gamer aesthetic. Patriot does separate the VPR400 a bit from its own P400 with a better warranty, but similar drives like the FX900 plus ADATA’s Legend 840 and Atom 50 already do that at a competitive price. That’s not to mention the SN770, which for the average gamer, assuming they don’t care about RGB, is a safer bet.

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Patriot’s P400 is an entry-level PCIe 4.0 SSD that's designed to be affordable for the PlayStation 5 (PS5) or budget PC builds. The P400 is cheap enough to be a strong choice for new buyers who want an NVMe drive that gets the job done without any fanfare. 

The P400 lacks DRAM and has a shorter warranty than its peers, which include the Adata Legend 840 and ATOM 50, as well as the HP FX900 we recently reviewed. It compensates with higher endurance, but the P400's cooling solution leaves something to be desired. Nevertheless, we expect that its performance is more than adequate for most users, and pricing is competitive.

The budget NVMe SSD space has many contenders, including the WD SN570 and Samsung 980 in the PCIe 3.0 category. Meanwhile, the WD SN770 remains a powerful contender in the PCIe 4.0 camp. However, if you absolutely need the bandwidth or want a cheap drive for the PlayStation 5, you will lean more toward the latter or a drive like the P400. These drives are priced about the same, with the exception of the SN570 being a bit cheaper, helping make it a good compromise against the Samsung 980.

With so much selection, it’s a good time to be an SSD fan. But that can be a bittersweet proposition: Too many options can create indecision. Should you get the FX900 or the P400? We will compare these two drives in our performance benchmarks to hopefully demonstrate that you can’t go wrong — it’s all a matter of where your priorities lie.

Specifications

The Patriot P400 only comes in 512GB and 1TB capacities, which is similar to the HP FX900, Adata Legend 840, and Atom 50. This is fine, as these are budget drives meant to be quick and affordable. This is especially true at 1TB, where the P400 comes in at just $0.10 a GB. That's currently a bit cheaper than the FX900 and SN770. It’s certainly possible to get SSDs cheaper than this, particularly SATA SSDs and cheaper PCIe 3.0 options, including the 670p with QLC. That's why you'll have to take performance into consideration.

The P400 is PS5-compliant and is rated for up to 5/4.8 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and 620K/550K read/write IOPS. This also makes it a good choice for a PC that can handle PCIe 4.0 drives. The P400 is still fast on a 3.0 system, but it’s possible to get a cheaper drive like the SN570 in that case. If you’re looking at future-proofing, there are also faster 4.0 drives available. While this seems to make a drive like this a bit niche, in fact, the P400 is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades that we generally find more compelling than drives based on Phison’s E16 SSD controller.

In contrast to the five-year warranty you'll find with the HP FX900 and other rivals, the P400 only has a three-year warranty. This is a downside because the warranty period tends to be more important than the endurance rating for the average user. However, the P400 does offer 800 TB of write endurance per TB of capacity, which far exceeds the FX900 and also exceeds what you often find in high-end drives. As this is within a smaller period of time, the drive writes per day rating is rather high. However, the P400 would not be our first choice for a drive for heavier write workloads.

A Closer Look

The P400 is topped with a graphene label that acts as a heat spreader, although this is less substantial than the FX900’s graphene padding. ADATA’s similar drives use a metal heat spreader instead, which at least appears to be a bit more functional. Under the P400’s label, we see the DRAM-less controller and two NAND packages. The rear of the drive contains a second label that shows basic information about the drive.

The InnoGrit IG5220 is a DRAM-less, entry-level PCIe 4.0 SSD controller designed for cheaper drives. Nevertheless, it's a cut above what is available at PCIe 3.0, with higher peak bandwidth and impressive IOPS. This controller has proven popular as it fills the gap that the Phison E16 once did, albeit without DRAM. In fact, this controller helped usher in a new era of fast DRAM-less controllers, even though WD’s earlier Blue drives were quite good. 

This controller actually gained some competition when WD brought out its SN770 with a proprietary controller. While certainly better than the SN750 SE’s E19T, the IG5220 potentially has more competition on the horizon. This includes Phison’s E21T, which may be a pseudo-replacement for the E16 and should see both TLC and QLC, and SMI’s SM2269XT, which recently popped up on ADATA’s Legend 850. This is all good news for users as it heralds greater options and, hopefully, more competition. 

The flash appears to be Micron’s 176-layer TLC, or B47R, a popular pairing with this controller. This flash is also on the Crucial P5 Plus, some InnoGrit IG5236-powered drives like the FX900 Pro, and the faster models using Phison’s E18 controller, like the updated Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus. This flash has been more or less unparalleled  — that is until SK hynix brought out the Platinum P41 with its own 176-layer NAND. There are many technical differences between these two types of flash; however, for the general user, it just means better performance with less power draw.

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Comparison Products

We compare the Patriot P400 to all of its primary rivals, like the similarly-equipped HP FX900, the WD Blue SN570, the Samsung 980, and the WD Black SN770. We also threw in other high-end PCIe 4.0 drives, like the proprietary Crucial P5 Plus and Samsung 980 Pro. We also included a drive that uses the same flash as the P400 but coupled with DRAM and the Phison E18 controller, the Kingston Fury Renegade. All of these drives are 1TB.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

As expected, the P400 scores right alongside the FX900, with the closest rival otherwise being the WD SN570. This test shows how well-optimized the WD SN770 is as it pulls away from the pack, challenging even high-end drives.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

PCMark shows a similar distribution, although some drives, like the P5 Plus, do better here than on 3DMark.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

DiskBench has three distinct performance bands due to bandwidth differences: the PCIe 3.0 drives at the bottom, the lower-end PCIe 4.0 drives in the middle, and the high-end 4.0 drives at the top. The exception would be the Crucial P5 Plus with file copies. Therefore, this test does not accurately reflect something like PS5 load times, and any compliant drive, including the P400, should be more than fast enough for that type of usage.

We see that the lower-end 4.0 drives offer a compromise when it comes to bandwidth which might help separate these options from even high-end 3.0 drives. The P400 lacks DRAM but has flash of a speed that can be difficult to find on PCIe 3.0 drives, possibly positively impacting workloads not bound by bandwidth.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The P400 performs similarly to the FX900 in ATTO, with good write results but only mediocre results during the read workload. As with the FX900, there’s a bit of a drop in the read graph. This seems to be a “feature” of InnoGrit controllers, which may require a bit more optimization.

With the CDM sequential results, we see a similar pattern as we did with DiskBench: three zones that vary more or less by available bandwidth. This again makes the P400 and its direct competition a bit of a compromise for those with PCIe 4.0-compatible systems. However, we can see by the low queue depth random results that flash quality plays a role. The P400 and FX900 do well there, especially with random reads. Traditionally that has been a valuable metric for “real world” performance and demonstrates that this drive is more than enough.

The IG5220 also demonstrates that it’s a powerful SSD controller with its results at higher queue depths. It helps the P400 exceed the Crucial SN770 and even the Crucial P5 Plus during read workloads while matching the P5 Plus with writes and handily beating the WD SN570 and Samsung 980 in either scenario. Those two last drives are, again, PCIe 3.0 drives. We hinted above that 4.0 drives are more likely to have newer flash and more powerful controllers, which seems borne out by the results here, even if these are unrealistic workloads that may also be bound by the interface.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The P400’s SLC cache capacity is similar to the FX900’s, coming in at around 300GB. This is very large but leaves some room for TLC so that it has a graceful post-SLC decline. The P400 generally writes a tiny bit slower than the FX900, but conversely, it can write a bit longer in both SLC and TLC modes. The outcome is almost precisely the same: 4.7 GBps or so for SLC, almost 2 GBps for TLC, then folding around 500 MBps. InnoGrit drives tend not to have great SLC recovery but can usually manage to jump back up to TLC speeds if tested.

As with the FX900, this is a very good result for a budget, DRAM-less drive. This is largely thanks to the excellent flash and how these drives are designed with the IG5220 controller. It’s flexible and fast, obviously faster than the WD SN570 and Samsung 980. The WD SN770 is much closer but lacks that middle-performance state. It’s possible you could make use of the P400’s heavy endurance with this realization, although we wouldn't consider that a realistic selling point.

Power Consumption & Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Remember that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Since our power testing is currently based on a large file copy, it tends to favor drives that can finish that task faster. That’s usually faster drives in terms of interface and flash. That’s one reason the SK hynix Platinum P41 (not shown) did so well in our recent review, beating even the legendary Gold P31. The HP FX900 also beat the Gold P31 as it uses the fastest flash coupled with an efficient 4-channel controller.

The P400, however, has given us different and unexpected results than the FX900. It’s less power-efficient, although it still beats the PCIe 3.0 drives. It’s also within contention of many high-end drives. Our idle power result — which is worst-case and should not be used to gauge a potential laptop experience — is also peculiarly high. This seems to be a firmware quirk with the P400 not using its power states as effectively as possible. It’s possible Patriot tuned this drive for maximum performance, although we suspect this makes little subjective difference in practice.

The P400 also ran hotter than the FX900, as perhaps anticipated above when looking at the heat spreader. It idled in the mid-to-high-50Cs, with a 24C ambient. The heat spreader surface was a bit cooler, but also quite warm. However, the heat spreader proved sufficient to keep the drive from throttling. We measured a peak of 75C. This is still significantly hotter than the FX900 and likely hotter than the ADATA offerings; however, it's adequate for its intended market.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

Patriot is a known brand but has rarely stood out of the pack, and that’s no different with the P400. It’s very similar to the HP FX900 we previously reviewed. The PCIe 4.0 market has been getting more complex over time with more hardware and different drives available. Our review of WD’s SN770 has shown what a DRAM-less drive is capable of — which is to say, they're enough for everyone but don't carry a premium price. The P400 has stiff competition that grows by the day, as we have not yet seen what the E21T and SM2269XT controllers can do, not to mention newer flash from manufacturers not named Micron.

Moving away from those technical aspects, what does the P400 offer uniquely? It does have a graphene heat spreader, which is better than a plain label. The FX900 has graphene padding and other drives have metal heat spreaders or even heatsinks, though. That’s particularly true for PS5 drives, although we suspect good cooling is not at all a requirement there. The Platinum P41, which is a high-end drive, manages without any special cooling. The P400 also has a shorter warranty than its peers, at three years instead of five, although it makes up for it with a very high endurance rating. We suspect this is mostly for marketing purposes, but it’s there for those that care.

In any case, we had no problems with overheating, and the P400's overall performance was quite good. For general use, this will get you there and then some, all while offering a taste of the benefits PCIe 4.0 bandwidth can provide. Budget PCIe 3.0 drives can be had a bit more cheaply in many cases, so this type of drive fits a nice milieu; after all, having more options is not a bad thing. The competition will likely be tougher in the future. It was tempting to drop this drive down half a point since it doesn’t seem quite as polished as the FX900; however, it’s cheaper than that drive and the SN770, making it a fair trade. We have not tested Adata’s analogous drives yet, but those might be the most compelling alternative.

The P400 is an easy choice for a cheap PS5 drive if you don’t need the capacity. Technically, the FX900 has a larger 2TB SKU, but we have not seen it available. In any case, 1TB is the sweet spot for this type of hardware, and that’s where most of the competition lies. For a PC, this is an excellent choice for a first-time PCIe 4.0 build that’s on a budget; you get more bandwidth without any real downsides in general performance. It’s a safe purchase, and we’re glad users have lots of options with more to come.

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Patriot is expanding its SSD offerings with the addition of the Viper VPR400, which it claims is the world's first PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 SSD with RGB flourishes. For those that keep up with the latest developments in the SSD space, this is the successor to the Viper VPR100 that we reviewed just over two years ago.

Before we dive into the glitz and glam of RGB, let's talk about performance. The Viper VPR400 uses an InnoGrit IG5220 SSD controller, which is geared towards the value segment. In this case, we're looking at 4K random read/write performance of 600K IOPs and 500K IOPs, respectively. In addition, sequential reads are listed at 4,600 MBps across the board. However, sequential writes are listed at 3,600 MBps for the entry-level 512GB SKU, while the 1TB version of the SSD boosts that figure to 4,400 MBps.

Those performance numbers won't win any speed records, considering that SSDs equipped with the more performance InnoGrit IG5221 'RainierQX' controller can handle sequential reads/writes of 7,000 MBps/6,000 MBps. However, Patriot hopes the Viper VPR400's performance/value will attract price-conscious gamers.

To manage heat generated by the controller and onboard 3D NAND, Patriot employs an aluminum heatsink and a dynamic thermal throttling algorithm to keep heat levels within a given performance envelope. Patriot also claims endurance of 400 terabytes written for the 512GB SSD, while the 1TB SSD doubles that to 800 terabytes written. A 5-year limited warranty also backs the SSDs.

Of course, the real reason to purchase the Viper VPR400 is its Viper RGB lighting, which is integrated into the aluminum heatsink. The RGBs can be customized using Patriot's Viper RGB 3.0 software. As you might expect, the RGB effects are compatible with leading platforms, including Asus Aurora Sync, ASRock Polychrome Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion and MSI Mystic Light Sync.

As previously stated, the Viper VPR400 family consists of 512GB and 1TB SKUs. However, the product sheet for the SSDs makes mention of a more capacious 2TB version, so it could potentially come at a later date.

Patriot hasn't announced pricing yet for the Viper VPR400, but we'd imagine a starting price around the $100 mark for the 512GB SSD. Of course, once we get one in for review, we'll have to see if it's up to par with the best SSDs on the market.

The Patriot Viper V765, which is one of our favorite gaming keyboards, has matched the lowest price we've ever seen at $59.99 for the Black Friday deals section. So if you want a keyboard with a number pad and clicky switches, this one is worth a look.

We've seen this keyboard as high as $90, though it often sells a bit lower. To get this new low price, you'll have to go through Newegg, which has it for $64.99, and stacks a $5 off code on top of it. To get the deal, use the code BCMAY22362 at checkout.

Our editor-in-chief Avram Piltch reviewed this keyboard back in 2018 and wrote that "the Patriot Viper V765 provides a best-in-class clicky typing and gaming experience that's superior to those provided by the Cherry MX Blue switches you'll find in many of its competitors."

This keyboard uses Kailh Box White switches. It also features dedicated media keys and a volume roller. Of course, if you prefer a smaller keyboard, like a TKL or even something smaller for the sake of ergonomics, you're going to want to pass on this one. This is also worth skipping if you prefer linear switches. 

You can find even more savings at our best Black Friday PC gaming deals page. We're also tracking the best Black Friday monitor deals, best Black Friday CPU deals, best Black Friday SSD deals, best Black Friday gaming laptop deals, best Black Friday 3D printer deals, best Black Friday Raspberry Pi deals and the Best Black Friday PC hardware deals overall.

If you're a PC builder that's looking for memory that gels with a white build, Patriot's new Viper RGB memory kits come in both black and white flavors, with the latter ultimately tailored towards systems with a white theme.

Despite all the RGB frenzy, white PC builds are still a pretty popular choice, so hardware manufacturers still have a reason to continue offering their products in a variety of different colors. Nowadays, you can find just about any type of computer hardware in white. The Viper RGB series made its debut back in 2018, offering data rates from DDR4-2166 to DDR4-4133, and that line lives on with today's new kits. 

As you'd expect, the memory modules flaunt an aggressive design that's worthy of bearing the Viper branding. The matte white heat spreader is made of aluminum and features the Viper logo with a reflective silver finish. The Viper RGB memory modules are 45mm (1.77 inches) tall, which may get in the way of some of the bigger CPU coolers. We recommend you check the clearance space for your cooler before contemplating this Viper RGB memory kit.

What's cool about the Viper RGB's design is the Viper's eyes, which glows along with the RGB diffuser. The Viper RGB memory modules come with five customizable RGB zones. As usual, you can tweak the illumination with Patriot's Viper RGB application or with the software that accompanies your motherboard. The memory is compatible with Asus Aura Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and ASRock Polychrome Sync.

Patriot's Viper RGB memory is manufactured with a black, eight-layer PCB. Given its white aesthetics, it would have been nice to have a white PCB. However, it's not a huge letdown. Samsung's K4A8G085WB-BCPB (B-die) integrated circuits (ICs) hide underneath the Viper RGB's hood.

The Viper RGB defaults to DDR4-2133 and 15-15-15-36 timings when you install the memory modules for the first time. The memory modules come with an XMP profile for DDR4-4133 and a secondary profile for DDR4-4000. Regardless of the profile, the memory sticks to the advertised 19-21-21-41 timings and a 1.4V DRAM voltage. For more on timings and frequency considerations, see our PC Memory 101 feature, as well as our How to Shop for RAM story.

Comparison Hardware

We used two testbeds for reviewing memory kits. The Intel system revolves around the the Core i9-10900K and Asus ROG Maximus XII Apex (0901 firmware), while the AMD system consists of the Ryzen 9 5900X and Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero (3501 firmware), Although a bit outdated, MSI's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio ensures we don't have a graphics bottleneck during the part of RAM benchmarks suite that involves gaming.

Intel Performance

The Viper RGB memory kit skyrocketed to the top of the cumulative application chart but ended at the bottom of the gaming chart. In the former, the memory outperformed the slowest memory kit by 3.8%. Specifically, it excelled in the Adobe Photoshop, 7-Zip compression and y-cruncher benchmarks.

AMD Performance

On the AMD platform, however, we saw the opposite. The Viper RGB was the worst memory kit out of the group and ranked last and second-to-last in the application and gaming performance charts, respectively. Not many Ryzen processors can maintain the FCLK in a 1:1 ratio with the memory controller past DDR4-4000. Therefore, many DDR4-4000+ memory kits don't reach their potential on an AMD platform.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

The Viper RGB memory kit draws 1.4V for DDR4-4133. We bumped it to 1.45V to hit DDR4-4300. The only sacrifice that we made was to loosen the CAS Latency to 21, as the other primary timings were fine at DDR4-4300.

Lowest Stable Timings

The memory modules feature Samsung B-dies so we knew that the timings could be tighter with an increase in the DRAM voltage. Again, we upped the voltage from 1.4V to 1.45V and we got the timings all the way from 19-21-21-41 down to 16-16-16-36. These are awesome timings for a DDR4-4133 memory kit.

Bottom Line

The Viper RGB White DDR4-4133 C19 targets system builders that need memory that has a white theme, enthusiasts that don't leave any performance on the table, or both. True, this particular memory kit is compatible with the latest Intel and AMD platforms. However, the odds of AMD owners unleashing the Viper RGB White DDR4-4133 C19's full performance is slim unless you have an exceptional Ryzen processor, which is very hard to come by.

Patriot prices the memory kit very competitively. The Viper RGB White DDR4-4133 C19 is available through Amazon for $129.99. There shouldn't be any reason why you wouldn't want to pick it up. If white is a letdown for you, remember that Patriot also sells the same memory kit in a sleek, black trim.

Practically every piece of modern computer hardware has RGB lighting. The memory market, in particular, is filled with flashy memory kits, and it's to the point that it's getting ever more difficult to find normal kits. Luckily for the 'purists,' Patriot recently launched its Viper Elite II series, the follow-up to the brand's Viper Elite lineup. The Viper Elite II not only aims at securing a spot on our list of the best RAM, but the series also looks to capture consumers that still value a good old-fashioned design that's devoid of all the glitz.

The Viper Elite II memory module sports an aluminum heat spreader with a black and red theme. The heat spreader feels a bit light in the hand, but it should perform its duties without hiccups. The memory modules are 35mm (1.38 inches) tall, so they're only a tad taller than the standard memory modules that don't come with a heat spreader.

There's zero RGB lighting on the Viper Elite II, so it relies on the aggressive design to stand out from the competition. Patriot implanted the Viper logos on both sides of the heat spreader as well as on top of the heat spreader.

The Viper Elite II features a black, eight-layer PCB. Each memory module is 16GB and has a dual-rank design. The memory modules use Hynix integrated circuits (ICs), although Thaiphoon Burner failed to pinpoint the exact model. The ICs read out as H5AN8G8N?FR-VKC.

The Viper Elite II's default data rate and timings are DDR4-2666 and 19-19-19-43, respectively. With support for XMP 2.0, the Viper Elite offers two different profiles. The main profile corresponds to DDR4-4000 with 20-26-26-46 timings, while the secondary profile is for DDR4-3600 with identical timings. The former pulls 1.4V, while the latter utilizes 1.35V. For more on timings and frequency considerations, see our PC Memory 101 feature, as well as our How to Shop for RAM story.

Comparison Hardware

The Intel system employs the Intel Core i9-10900K and Asus ROG Maximus XII Apex, which operates on the 0901 firmware. On the opposite side, the AMD system consists of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero. The latter is on the 3501 firmware. Meanwhile, the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio is in charge of the gaming RAM benchmarks,

Intel Performance

The Viper Elite II found itself right in the middle of the pack in our application performance chart. However, the memory kit ranked third in our gaming performance chart. It stood out in the Sandra 2020 memory bandwidth test, where it almost caught the Trident Z Royal DDR4-4000 C17.

AMD Performance

The memory kit's standing in the application benchmarks didn't change when we tested it on the AMD platform. It did move up a position in the gaming performance chart, though. The Viper Elite II put up its strongest show in the Microsoft Office benchmark, notching a 26% margin between it and the slowest memory kit.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

It was impossible to squeeze extra frequency out of the Viper Elite II memory kit. We tried using insane levels of DRAM voltage and loosening the timings to the middle '20s, but to no avail. We're convinced there isn't even the slightest of headroom for overclocking, but it could just be back luck in the silicon lottery. As always with overclocking, your mileage may vary. 

Lowest Stable Timings

We had better luck tightening the primary timings for the Viper Elite II at DDR4-4000. A small voltage bump to 1.45V sufficed to reduce the timings from 20-26-26-46 to 18-25-25-45. Those are the borderline values, though, since the memory kit wouldn't go any lower.

Bottom Line

The Viper Elite II DDR4-4000 C20 has an appealing design and acceptable price tag, but average performance. Our tests showed that the memory kit's loose timings didn't allow it to stand out in any meaningful way. DDR4-4000 at CL20 is pretty hard to swallow, considering it's at the bottom of the barrel in the DDR4-4000 category.

Patriot's memory kit currently retails for $195.99. It's not the worst pricing on the market for a DDR4-4000 memory kit, but it is on the more expensive side, especially considering there shouldn't be an RGB tax. There are more compelling options in the Viper Elite II series, but this DDR4-4000 C20 memory kit simply doesn't offer the best bang for the buck.

Corsair's MP600 Pro XT sets a new standard for high-end SSDs, pushing the boundaries of performance with up to 7.1 GBps of throughput and over 1.5 million write IOPS. Corsair also tops the SSD with your choice of a heatsink or waterblock for cooling, enabling high performance in even the most demanding scenarios. That means you'll see this SSD on our list of Best SSDs soon. 

Corsair launched the MP600 Pro just a few months ago, but it wasn't quite fast enough to remain the company's top dog for the rest of the year. With the recent launch of Micron’s 176-Layer TLC flash, Corsair decided to revamp the MP600 Pro and birth a beast that performs with only the best of the best — the MP600 Pro XT.

The fastest SSDs on the market generate a lot of heat, so they can slow down when things get tough. You won't have to worry about heat output or throttling at the MP600 Pro XT's high speeds, though, because it comes in two variants that remain cool regardless of the workload. Corsair’s air-cooled MP600 Pro XT features a bulky heatsink, while the Hydro X variant sports a water block that you can attach to a custom watercooling loop. 

With Phison’s PS5018-E18, a powerhouse of a controller linked up to Micron’s fastest flash, the MP600 Pro XT's hardware matches the Seagate FireCuda 530. As expected with its premium hardware, the MP600 Pro XT doesn’t come cheap. Still, it's positioned well: The MP600 Pro XT is much less expensive than the impressive Seagate SSD for what is nearly identical performance. However, it lacks the higher endurance ratings and three years of Data Recovery Services that you'll get with the FireCuda 530. 

Specifications

Features

Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT is available in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB with the air-cooling heatsink, but the watercooled Hydro X variants are only available at 2TB and 4TB capacities. As a result, prices come in at a premium ~$0.20-$0.25 per gigabyte. However, the MP600 Pro XT comes with all the performance you could ask for, justifying the price tag. Corsair rates the MP600 Pro XT to deliver up to 7.1/6.8 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and upwards of 1,000,000 / 1,200,000 random read/write IOPS when tasked with heavily-threaded workloads. 

Corsair also backs the MP600 Pro XT with a solid warranty and above-average endurance ratings compared to Samsung, WD, and Crucial SSDs. For example, our 2TB sample can absorb up to 1,400 TB of writes over its five-year warranty, but the 4TB model is rated for up to 3,000 TB. With that kind of endurance, the MP600 Pro XT shouldn’t wear out from normal use.  

The high endurance ratings are due in part to Phison’s SmartECC, which leverages RAID-like parity, and the company’s fourth-generation LDPC ECC that reconstructs defective pages when normal ECC fails. Other reliability features include SmartRefresh, which monitors the flash’s block ECC and periodically refreshes the blocks to maintain data retention over time, and SmartFlush, which helps ensure data retention in the event of a power loss by minimizing the time the data spends in the cache. 

Software and Accessories

Corsair provides its SSD Toolbox with the drive. The GUI is dated but functions well enough to enable advanced drive controls like secure erase, firmware updates, adjusting the overprovisioning, or just monitoring the SSD.

A Closer Look

Measuring 20 x 23 x 70 mm and weighing in just a hair under 68 grams, the MP600 Pro XT's aluminum heatsink is much larger and heavier than the one on the MP600 Pro. The design is very unique and we appreciate the blacked-out aesthetic, black PCB included. However, the heatsink is thick, which will prevent you from using the drive on any M.2 slot underneath a GPU. A double-sided M.2 2280 SSD resides underneath the heatsink.

As mentioned earlier, the Phison PS5018-E18 that powers the MP600 Pro XT is a beast in its own right, but the combination with Micron’s 176-Layer replacement gate TLC flash is a match made for those who can’t settle for less than the best. 

This eight-channel controller is built on TSMC’s 12nm process and features a triple-core Arm Cortex R5 CPU architecture paired with a dual-CPU co-processor to ensure fast sustained write speeds. The main three cores operate at 1 GHz, generating quite a bit of heat, but it remains relatively cool under standard operations thanks to a few power-saving features.  

Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT supports Active State Power Management (ASPM) and Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) to reduce power under light activity or when at idle, so the SSD will just sip a few milliwatts of power instead of guzzling down tens to hundreds of milliwatts of power. Additionally, thermal throttling capability is built-in. The MP600 Pro XT will lower (throttle) its performance if it gets too hot. The company says speeds will scale down 50 MBps with each additional degree of heat over the 68C trigger point.

Of course, it also supports Trim, SMART data reporting, and can be conveniently secure erased via the Format NVM command to wipe your data clean off the drive. It features end-to-end data path protection and hardware-accelerated AES 256-bit encryption to help keep your data secure, too.

The MP600 Pro XT leverages DRAM to ensure responsive access to the FTL mapping table. There is 1GB of SK hynix DDR4 DRAM on the 1TB model, and 2GB on the 2TB and 4TB models. Thirty-two 512Gb flash dies reside on our 2TB sample, and all operate at the same 1,200 MTps speed as the Seagate FireCuda 530's flash. Each is a quad-plane replacement gate architecture that uses metal-based control gates along with some other design and production tweaks to increase performance and endurance.

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Comparison Products

Today, we put the MP600 Pro XT up against the best SSDs we’ve tested. These include the Seagate FireCuda 530, Samsung 980 Pro, WD_Black SN850, Patriot Viper VP4300, MSI Spatium M480, and Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus. For added perspective, we also threw in the Adata XPG Gammix S50 Lite, an entry-level PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

The WD_Black SN850 came close, but it was still no match for the Corsair MP600 Pro XT in this benchmark. With a score that roughly matched the Seagate FireCuda 530, Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT was amongst the fastest SSDs at game loading that we’ve tested.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

When it comes to handling your files, the MP600 Pro XT offered some of the most responsive performance in the group. It placed first in our 50GB file folder copy and ran a hair slower than the Seagate FireCuda 530 when we read back our test file. Neither the Samsung 980 Pro nor WD_Black SN850 came close to matching its speed.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.

Again, the MP600 Pro XT outpaced the Samsung 980 Pro as well as the rest of the competition, but the WD_Black SN850 took the win this time. The WD_Black SN850 outperformed the group in both the Quick and Full System Drive benchmarks, but Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT came in a close second place.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The MP600 Pro XT’s performance scales well across various blocks sizes and both sequential and random access, tying the Seagate FireCuda 530 once again. Samsung’s 980 Pro delivered slightly faster random read speeds at QD1, but Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT was nearly just as fast. Additionally, the MP600 Pro XT hit a peak of 1.5 million write IOPS, which is roughly 500,000 more IOPS than the Samsung SSD. 

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT features a large dynamic SLC cache that measured 225GB on our 2TB sample. It started off the write stream at 6.9 GBps until the cache filled. Once saturated, sustained write speeds fell to roughly 3.9 GBps for another 1.5TB before degrading once again to roughly 1.6 GBps (until full). Unfortunately, the MP600 Pro XT didn't recover its full write speed within the 30-minute idle window; it would only write at 3.9 GBps in each consecutive round.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT is fairly efficient under load and scored the second-highest MBps-per-Watt score, but its overall high power consumption, even at idle, held it back from being the most efficient SSD we’ve tested.

The MP600 Pro XT remained cool in an open-air test bench. At idle, it hovered around 34 degrees Celsius (C) in our 23C lab. After writing over 1TB of data to the MP600 Pro XT, we measured a peak temperature of 55C, which was well below the 68C throttling point set in its firmware.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

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The MP600 Pro XT is a phenomenal performer that will leave a standard M.2 SSD in the dust, especially when it comes to write-heavy workloads. Improving upon the MP600 Pro with the inclusion of faster Micron flash, the MP600 Pro XT is a top-tier contender that should be at the top of your list if you're on the hunt for one of the Best SSDs on the market.

Along with the Seagate FireCuda 530, the MP600 Pro XT delivers the best sustained performance we've seen, setting the new standard for flash-based storage. Not even Samsung’s mighty 980 Pro or the WD_Black SN850 can match the MP600 Pro XT when you hammer it repeatedly with heavy workloads.

The heatsink keeps Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT nice and cool under any workload, and that’s without any airflow. With a little air moving through the case, the drive shouldn't throttle even during the heaviest sustained workloads. However, while the large and chunky heatsink provides more than enough cooling, it may also be too big to fit under a GPU or other add-in card (AIC). Such is the same issue with the watercooled Hydro X variant, but that's expected because you need room for the barbs, fittings, and tubing. 

With capacities of up to 4TB and prices as high as $1,000, the MP600 Pro XT is a high-end storage device for prosumers, PC enthusiasts, and the most competitive of gamers. It‘s costly, so it's not quite what we would pick up if we were trying to maximize performance per dollar. At 2TB, the WD_Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro both undercut the MP600 Pro XT by roughly $40-$60. That isn’t to say the MP600 Pro XT is a bad value, though. 

Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT is a great value compared to the very pricey Seagate FireCuda 530. Although it lacks the more advanced XTS-AES 256-bit encryption, three years of Data Recovery Services, and has lower endurance ratings, it still delivers nearly the same experience at a much lower cost. At $400, the 2TB MP600 Pro XT is $140 cheaper. With Phison’s high-performance E18 NVMe SSD controller and Micron’s most advanced TLC flash yet, Corsair’s newest top-dog is a force to be reckoned with. 

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September 7, 2021 Update: We've updated this article with new testing for the 4TB Seagate FireCuda 530 M.2 NVMe SSD on page 2. This drive has also been added to our list of Best SSDs for the PS5.

Original Review for the 2TB capacity was published on August 22, 2021:

Seagate’s FireCuda 530 will burn through workloads, but will just as likely set your wallet ablaze at checkout. This lightning-quick PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD delivers some of the best performance we’ve seen, but at roughly twice the price of an average NVMe SSD. The FireCuda 530 is a premium device for built professionals, rather than the average gamer. 

We’ve been eagerly awaiting retail SSDs with Micron’s 176L TLC replacement gate flash, ever since we took a close look at a Phison PS5018-E18-based engineering sample paired with it. After seeing that promising performance, we couldn't wait to see a retail product. While our recent review of Crucial’s P5 Plus gave us another perspective on this new flash with a different controller, it was apparent that to truly unlock the potential of Micron’s new flash, Phison’s E18 NVMe SSD controller was needed. 

Today, we look at the Seagate FireCuda 530 to gain even more perspective on Micron’s new flash. The FireCuda 530 is closely based on the same components and layout as the Phison engineering sample, but there is a difference beyond just the sticker overtop of the hardware and optional heatsink SKU. 

Seagate’s FireCuda 530 features Seagate-validated, final production firmware as well as production-grade flash rated for 3000 program/erase cycles, not the early sample-grade flash that our sample had rated at just half the P/E cycles. Also, unexpectedly, the FireCuda 530 reports flash interface speeds clocking just 1,200 MTps, matching that of other E18-based SSDs paired with Micron’s 96L floating gate TLC rather than our engineering sample that ran at the full 1,600 MTps capability.

While these slower speeds may seem strange at first sight, this is likely done to ensure reliable and dependable performance under sustained abuse, as the FireCuda 530 comes with a robust warranty and endurance ratings. Unlike competing SSDs, the FireCuda 530 comes backed by data recovery services throughout the majority of its warranty, which we’re sure is one reason for its high price. 

Specifications

Seagate’s FireCuda 530 comes in capacities of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. The heatsink-less models are priced at roughly $0.24 per GB, while the models including a heatsink cost roughly $0.25-$0.32 per GB. The larger capacities are rated to deliver sequential speeds of up to 7.3/6.9 GBps read/write, and even the smallest capacity is rated for read speeds of up to 7GBps. Furthermore, the FireCuda 530 is rated to deliver upwards of 1,000,000/1,000,000 random read/write IOPS at its largest capacities. 

Seagate backs the FireCuda 530 with rather high endurance ratings, more than twice that of the average Samsung or WD SSD. The 2TB model we are testing today is rated to sustain up to 2,550 terabytes of writes within its five-year warranty, and the 4TB is rated for up to a robust 5,100 TB of writes. While that is impressive, to say the least, what is even more impressive is the fact that the FireCuda 530 comes with three years of Rescue Data Recovery Services on top, to protect your precious data against unexpected data loss when traditional means fail. No competitor offers such robust protection.

Software and Accessories

Seagate provides downloads to Seagate DiscWizard, essentially an OEM licensed copy of Acronis True Image, and Seagate Seatools GUI, a simple and easy-to-use app to monitor your SSD’s health and more.

A Closer Look

With its clean label and black PCB, the Seagate FireCuda 530 gets a thumbs up from us in the looks department. The drive comes in an M.2 2280 single-sided form factor at the 500GB and 1TB capacities and a double-sided form factor at the larger 2TB and 4TB capacities.

With Phison’s PS5018-E18 powering it, the FireCuda 530 boasts high-ranking performance capability that should run even faster now that it is paired with Micron’s newest flash. The E18 features a penta-core, DRAM-based architecture, with the primary cores clocking 1GHz. It utilizes an eight-channel PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.4-compliant design to interface with all the flash, and interfaces with two 8Gb SK hynix DDR4 DRAM IC at speeds of 1,600MHz to accelerate FTL access for low-latency mapping table addressing and wear-leveling. 

Additionally, the controller is built on a 12nm process to ensure cool operation, although the controller also supports ASPM and ASPT, and L1.2, along with thermal throttle protection as well. Also noteworthy is the fact that the thermal protection limit has been raised from 70C to 90C. Furthermore, in terms of features, Seagate’s FireCuda 530 comes outfitted with Phison’s robust SmartECC engine, which leverages a fourth-generation Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) ECC. It also comes with end-to-end data path protection, Trim support, and S.M.A.R.T. data reporting capability. It also features XTS-AES 256-bit encryption that is enabled by default without user authentication and will prevent threat actors from reading data directly from NAND.

Built using such a robust controller in combination with thirty-two 512Gb dies of Micron’s production-grade 176L replacement gate TLC flash, the FireCuda 530 was made to perform. Surprisingly, though, the company still left some performance on the table in its implementation. Rather than operate the flash at 1,600 MTps as we had hoped for and expected, the 530’s flash operates at just 1,200 MTps, based on our software reports. 

Still, this speed, when paired with all the benefits that the new flash has to offer, will provide for plenty of uplift in comparison to Phison E18-based SSDs paired with Micron’s 96L floating gate TLC interfacing at the same speed. Not only does this flash feature four planes, but also multiple physical enhancements to its design over the company’s previous memory. Micron’s replacement gate flash uses metal-based control gates, features an increased etch diameter, and reduced cell-to-cell capacitive coupling issues to provide for its fast performance and high-end endurance.

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Comparison Products for Seagate FireCuda 530 4TB

Today, we put the 4TB Seagate FireCuda 530 against the Best SSDs in its class, including the Intel Optane DC P5800X, WD_Black SN850, Samsung 980 Pro, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, Patriot Viper VP4300, and of course, the 2TB FireCuda 530. We also threw in an entry-level Gen4 SSD, the Sabrent Rocket Q4, for good measure. 

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV 

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Second only to the Intel Optane powered DC P5800X, the Seagate FireCuda 530 ranks as one of the fastest NVMe SSDs we have tested. The 4TB model proved slightly faster than the 2TB FireCuda and even outperformed the WD_Black SN850, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, and the Samsung 980 Pro.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench 

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The Seagate FireCuda took second place in the large file transfer test, but that was only to the large and power-hungry Intel Optane DC P5800X, which isn’t the best comparison product due to its eye-watering pricing. 

The 4TB FireCuda fell behind the 2TB FireCuda 530 when we read the files back, but it was still faster than the WB_Black SN850, Samsung 980 Pro and Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.

The WD_Black proves to be the fastest NVMe SSD in PCMark 10’s workloads, but the 4TB FireCuda 530 once again trails the 2TB variant and the expensive Optane DC P5800X in each test thrown its way. However, it outperforms the rest of the drives.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

Seagate’s 4TB FireCuda 530 notches some of the fastest sequential read and write speeds at a queue depth of one, but Intel’s Optane DC P5800X, which doesn’t have competitive pricing, was still faster with smaller blocks.

Seagate’s 4TB FireCuda 530 does well during the random read workload, matching the Samsung 980 Pro and responding faster than the WD_Black SN850 at a QD of 1. We dialed the workload up to a QD of 256, and the FireCuda 530 maxed out at roughly 825,000 / 1,555,000 random read/write IOPS. 

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Per our measurements, the 4TB FireCuda 530 comes with a large 450GB SLC cache. The FireCuda wrote data at a rate of 6.9 GBps until the SLC cache filled, but then performance degraded to an average write rate of 4 GBps for an additional 3TB before the drive slowed down once again. In its slowest writing state, the FireCuda 530 wrote at 1,625 MBps until full. 

While the FireCuda’s sustained write performance is monstrous, it recovers slowly. While some SSDs recover their SLC cache within our idle round testing spanning up to 30 minutes, the FireCuda 530 did not. 

Power Consumption and Temperature 

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle, while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

The 4TB FireCuda 530 doesn’t provide chart-topping efficiency, but it’s still very efficient nonetheless. The Samsung, WD_Black, and Patriot Viper stick out as more efficient options under load. However, at idle, the 4TB FireCuda takes second place. Notably, the FireCuda 530 proves more efficient than the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus that uses Micron’s older 96L TLC flash. 

With the included heatsink, our 4TB FireCuda 530 fared well under stress and operated without a hint of thermal throttling, even after filling it up with 1TB of data. Idle temperatures landed in the mid-30C range while peak temperatures reached up to 68 degrees Celsius under load. This is well under the SSD’s thermal throttle junction temperature of 90-95 degrees Celsius. 

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Performance Results for Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB

Rating: 4.5 (Editor's Choice) 

Verdict: Although it is expensive, thanks to Phison’s PS5018-E18 SSD controller and Micron’s very capable B47R 176L replacement gate TLC NAND flash, Seagate’s 2TB FireCuda 530 is ideal for professionals and enthusiasts who demand fast, reliable, and enduring performance.

FOR

+ Very fast PCIe 4.0 performance
+ Very impressive sustained write speeds and endurance
+ 5-year warranty w/ 3-year rescue data recovery service
+ Cool operation
+ XTS-AES 256-bit encryption

AGAINST

- Expensive
- Less efficient than some competitors

Comparison Products for Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB

Today, we put the FireCuda 530 up against the Best SSDs on the market as well as a few competent E18-based competitors. These include the Samsung 980 Pro, WD Black SN850, Gigabyte Gen4 7000s, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, and Mushkin Gamma. We also threw in the Patriot Viper VP4300 and Samsung 970 EVO Plus for good measure.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Seagate’s FireCuda 530 delivers exceptional game load performance. In this Final Fantasy XIV benchmark, the FireCuda 530 not only managed to outpace both the InnoGrit-based Patriot Viper VP4300 and Samsung’s Elpis-powered phenom, the 980 Pro, but it also dethroned the previous Gen4 champ, having taken first place by just a hair ahead of the WD Black SN850.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

In terms of its large file and folder access performance, the Seagate FireCuda 530 delivered the fastest results we have seen thus far from a retail M.2 SSD. Having scored over 1,600 MBps in the copy round, not even Samsung’s 980 Pro can match its performance. Also, when reading back the .zip file, the FireCuda 530 did so faster than all competitors.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.

The Seagate FireCuda 530 also delivers exceptional application responsiveness. The FireCuda 530 fills the performance gap between Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850 in both the Quick and Full System Drive benchmarks.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

In ATTO, the FireCuda 530’s sequential performance ramped steadily across most block sizes, and in CDM, it scored some of the best sequential performance in the group. In terms of random performance, it also delivered very strong results that not only surpassed the WD Black SN850, but also roughly matched the Samsung 980 Pro at QD1. When we ramped up the queue, the FireCuda 530’s random performance scaled well, but didn’t score quite as high in reads as the Samsung 980 Pro or WD Black SN850 at QD 256. However, in reaching roughly 1.6 million random write IOPS, its write performance cannot be touched.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Seagate’s FireCuda 530 utilizes a large SLC cache for writes, and is one of the fastest SSDs to fill. But in our testing, it did not recover the SLC cache within our idle rounds. The cache spans roughly 225GB on our 2TB sample when empty and will write at up to 6.9 GBps until full. Once we filled the cache, its write speed degraded to 3,850 MBps for the majority of the test. And after having written an additional 1.5TB, the FireCuda 530 degraded once again to a final write speed of roughly 1.6 GBps until it was filled.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

While it consumes more power than the WD Black SN850, the FireCuda 530 scores second amongst the test pool in terms of efficiency under load. Like other E18-based competitors, the FireCuda consumes a lot of power on average and scores some of the highest when looking at peak consumption. However, the FireCuda 530 proves to be the most efficient E18 sample we’ve come across thus far, thanks in part to its use of Micron’s 176L RG TLC flash instead of Micron’s 96L FG TLC.

In terms of thermal sensitivity, the Seagate FireCuda 530 should maintain its cool without throttle under most workloads. At idle, the FireCuda 530’s controller measured 30-35 degrees Celsius in a 24 degrees Celsius environment. After transferring roughly 600GB of data to the SSD, the controller reached a maximum temperature of 75 degrees Celsius, with no performance throttling in sight.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

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Seagate’s FireCuda 530 is a fire-breathing drive dragon, just as its box indicates. While its flash interfaces at slightly less than optimal rates for the absolute fastest performance that this hardware is capable of, it still not only took out the Samsung 980 Pro and WD_Black SN850 in most metrics, it laid waste to all other competitors. 

Sure, WD’s Black SN850 took the lead under PCMark 10’s application workloads, but it couldn’t hang with the Seagate FireCuda 530 once we threw it through our sustained write testing--nor could any other SSD for that matter. That said, while Seagate's drive is extremely speedy and capable of throttle-free performance without a heatsink or active cooling, its efficiency under load could use a little improvement.

Right now, Seagate is one of only a few companies offering an SSD with Micron’s 176L TLC flash, and that puts them in a strategic position. Not only does this flash provide for some of the most responsive performance we’ve seen when paired with Phison’s PS5018-E18, but it also enables Seagate to offer up stellar endurance ratings, plus a good warranty and support for the FireCuda 530. 

Instead of the standard 600 TB of writes per 1TB of capacity endurance rating that we see from the likes of Samsung, WD, and Crucial, the FireCuda 530’s ratings are more than double that. The FireCuda 530 comes with the best warranty and support we have seen in a while, too. Not only is it backed for high endurance ratings and up to five years of warranty, but it also comes with three years of Rescue Data Recovery Service, which can potentially recover your data in the case of unexpected data loss. 

For those looking for the best performance and highest capacity that they can get in a small M.2 form factor, the FireCuda 530 is it. Although it currently lists at a $60 premium over the WD Black SN850 and $120 over Samsung 980 Pro at the 2TB capacity point, the FireCuda 530 is worth the high cost for the peace of mind in using such a robust storage device, especially if you are looking for something as large as 4TB. While not quite on the same level as Intel’s Optane DC P5800X in terms of raw performance, it makes for a solid alternative--especially if you need a drive in the M.2 form factor--for workstation applications at a much lower cost. 

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Although far from being one of the best SSDs, the Viper VPN100 is a solid SSD for the money. Unfortunately, the drive recently made the Reddit headlines because a consumer discovered that it arrived with different components than originally advertised. Patriot has provided an official statement to Tom's Hardware explaining the reason behind the component swap.

One Redditor recently purchased one of Patriot's Viper VPN100 2TB SSDs, and much to his surprise, the drive arrived with Phison's E12S SSD controller and 512MB of DRAM. This certainly raised the alarm since the SSD not only utilizes a different SSD controller but also came with 1/4 the DRAM. For comparison, the original Viper VPN100 2TB used the Phison E12 SSD controller and had 2GB of DRAM.

Like many vendors, including Adata and PNY, Patriot also fell victim to the global semiconductor shortage, so the company explored other options for its VPN100. Unfortunately, the majority of SSD manufacturers don't produce their own components and have to buy them elsewhere. The thing here is transparency, and if there is a substantial change to a product, then it's the vendor's responsibility to communicate the change to the consumer in a timely matter. That didn't happen in this situation, though. 

Despite the drastic difference in components, Patriot guarantees that both configurations offer the same performance in sequential and random workloads. The brand advertises the VPN100 with sequential read and write speeds up to 3,400 MBps and 3,200 MBps, respectively, depending on the capacity. Random performance is rated for 700,000 IOPS reads and writes.

In its statement, Patriot claims that the new E12S setup features the same endurance limits as the original E12 configuration "sans Chia mining." However, that doesn't seem to be the case. The original specification sheet had the VPN100 2TB at 3,115 TBW, while the new specification sheet reveals an endurance level of 900 TBW. We're following up for clarification. 

Although it's now public that there are two versions of the VPN100 on the market, consumers still have no way to really differentiate one from the other. Patriot seems to be using the same part number for both variations, turning the purchasing process into a lottery.

You can find Patriot's full statement below.

Patriot's statement:

We at Patriot would like to address the current situation surrounding our Viper VPN100 M.2 solid state drive. We have become aware that some customers have noted the reduction in cache on the VPN100 SSD. Over the past few days we have taken time to investigate this matter thoroughly internally and listen to the feedback generated online.

Due to the ongoing fab shortages affecting the global IC supply chain, in 2020 Patriot opted to utilize the Phison E12S controller in addition to the Phison E12 for the full VPN100 series (256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB). We confirm this is the only Viper SSD series affected. The E12S uses less cache but offers the same performance as the E12 controller because it is produced using the latest fab process and innovative firmware development. As an advanced version of the E12 controller, Patriot still guarantees that the VPN100 using the E12S will hit the same performance specs in sequential read/write, and random IOPS, and same endurance limits (sans Chia mining) as the VPN100 using the original E12 controller. Please see the comparison of performances below:

However, we do not deny that when doing so, we have failed to update our information sheets that are available online for public viewing and reference respectively, this should have been performed immediately. For this we apologize and take responsibility for any inconveniences caused to all partners and customers. Any consumer that has any questions or concerns regarding their VPN100 solution with E12S controller is free to get in touch with our Customer Service department at:

support@patriotmem.com

Going forward, we commit to our information sheets and website reflecting the actual available product specifications at all times.

We are excited to be introducing a new Viper Gen3 x4 m.2 SSD solution launching in Q4 2021 that will replace the VPN100 and hope it will continue to please hardware enthusiasts worldwide and meet their standards.

It has been a pleasure being a part of the IT hardware community for the past 35 years and we hope to continuously bring out ground-breaking products in a time where technology is ever-evolving.

Sincerely,

Patriot Memory, Inc.

With a high-speed PCIe 3.0 x4 controller, enterprise-grade TLC flash, and a 12-year warranty, Team Group’s T-Create Expert delivers respectable performance and boasts incredibly high endurance figures that put some of the Best SSDs on the market to shame. Due to its impressive endurance, the company positions this SSD as the best consumer NVMe SSD for Chia Coin mining. Enterprise-grade TLC isn’t cheap, though, so it'll cost you a pretty penny if you want one of these ultra-endurant SSDs. 

Chia Coin farming has exploded in just a few short months, and with that, so has the demand for high-performance and high endurance NVMe SSDs for plotting. Chia plotting is taxing due to its heavy write and mixed workloads, so we typically recommend enterprise-grade SSDs for the task. However, Team Group is singing a different tune. Instead of dissuading Chia farmers from purchasing their SSDs, Team Group has begun marketing its drives to them.

Unfortunately, many Chia farmers still use standard consumer-grade hardware, and some vendors are going as far as to void the warranty of SSDs used for Chia plotting, while others are having mixed thoughts. In contrast, even though Team Group initially designed the T-Create Expert for content creators with heavy multi-media file manipulation workloads, the company now claims it is the best NVMe SSD for Chia plotting.

Specifications

Team Group’s T-Create Expert is available in two capacities of 1TB and 2TB at $430 and $830, respectively, meaning the SSDs are twice as expensive as standard M.2 NVMe drives. The company rates the Expert to deliver 3.4/3 GBps of read/write throughput and sustain up to 180,000/140,000 random read/write IOPS through the use of SLC caching. 

The high endurance ratings and warranty duration certainly stand out from the crowd. Team Group rates the 1TB model to endure up to 6,000TB of writes while the 2TB model is rated for up to 12,000 TB of writes within a staggeringly long twelve-year warranty period. Surprisingly, the T-Create Expert ships with very little factory over-provisioning at just 7.4%. Still, thanks to Silicon Motion’s special mix of LDPC ECC and high-grade flash, these SSDs can handle tons of wear and keep going.

A Closer Look

The Team Group T-Create Expert comes in an M.2 2280 double-sided form factor, restricting it in some mobile applications that call for a single-sided design. It should fit in most desktops, though. It also features a grey heat spreader over the controller to help keep it cool, and the black PCB is a plus. Two small activity LEDs on the PCB blink during use, one blue and one red.

Team Group’s T-Create Expert leverages Silicon Motion’s SM2262EN PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD controller. This NVMe 1.3-compliant SSD is an older design at this point, but it should still deliver responsive performance under most consumer workloads. It leverages dual ARM Cortex R5 CPU cores, along with an eight-channel architecture for enhanced interleaving. It interfaces with DRAM to accelerate FTL layer access, too. 

The controller is clocked at 625 MHz, while the two 8Gb Micron DDR3L ICs operate at 800 MHz. The controller features ASPM, ASPT, and L1.2 support for low power consumption at idle. It will also thermal throttle to prioritize data protection at high temperatures exceeding 75 degrees Celsius. The drive supports Trim and comes with S.M.A.R.T data reporting capability, but lacks AES 256-bit encryption.

The company has opted to use Micron’s FortisMax high-endurance enterprise-grade 64L TLC flash, which is rated to handle 10,000 P/E cycles or roughly 3-6x more endurance than your standard consumer-binned flash. This is part of why this SSD is so expensive. Sixteen 512Gb quad-plane dies are spread across four NAND packages, each operating at 650 MTps.

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Comparison Products

We put the T-Create Expert up against the best SSD on the market, including the WD_Black SN850, Samsung 980 Pro, Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s, and Patriot Viper VP4300. We also include some PCIe 3.0 competition, like the WD_Black SN750, Samsung 970 EVO Plus, and Crucial P5.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Scoring fourth place, Team Group’s T-Create Expert tied the Samsung 970 EVO Plus. The Expert surpassed the 980 Pro but couldn’t catch the WD_Black SN850 and Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

While it delivered responsive game load results, the Team Group T-Create Expert lagged the competition during our file transfer benchmarks. Landing in last place during both the 50GB copy and large file read, the T-Create Expert appears to be more optimized for endurance than responsiveness.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.

In contrast to the DiskBench results, the Expert delivered respectable results in both of PCMark 10’s workloads. It surpassed the Crucial P5, Samsung 970 EVO Plus, and WD_Black SN750, but ultimately trailed the PCIe 4.0 competitors due to its limited throughput.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The Expert delivered solid sequential read and write performance across most block sizes at a QD of one (QD1). As a matter of fact, its read performance results were much faster at smaller file sizes than the Crucial P5 and WD_Black SN750. Furthermore, the Expert delivered the fastest random responsiveness out of any PCIe 3.0 competitor, and peak performance exceeded the official spec ratings, too. 

However, it couldn't keep up with the likes of the PCIe 4.0 Samsung 980 Pro nor WD_Black SN850. At a QD of 8, throughput measured 3.5/3.2 GBps read/write. Performance in random workloads maxed out at roughly 327,000/374,000 read/write IOPS at a QD of 256.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The T-Create Expert has a large dynamic SLC cache that spans roughly 326GB of our 2TB sample. The Expert wrote at an average rate of 2.8 GBps before it filled the cache. Once filled, the Expert’s write speed degraded to roughly 1,200MBps on average, fluctuating between 950 MBps to 1,450 MBps for the remainder of the test. After idle time, the T-Create Expert recouped roughly 20GB of SLC cache during each of our idle rounds.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Power efficiency isn’t the T-Create Expert’s strong suit. Overall, it lands in last place in terms of efficiency. It manages its idle power consumption fairly well, sipping just 741mW at idle with ASPM disabled.

Idle temps measure roughly 40 degrees Celsius, while peak temps hit 77 degrees at the controller after we wrote 450GB of data to the SSD. However, the drive began throttling after we wrote roughly 250GB of data. While active airflow isn’t needed in most cases, it is recommended if you plan to constantly task the T-Create Expert with heavy write or copy workloads like we see during Chia plotting. 

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

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Team Group’s T-Create Expert is a speedy NVMe SSD that easily outpaces any SATA drive and is competitive with many of the best PCIe 3.0 SSDs, but it isn’t the most agile SSD we've come across. With limited throughput due to its PCIe 3.0 interface and slower hardware, it can’t keep up with the PCIe 4.0 competition, like WD’s Black SN850 or the Samsung 980 Pro. Both of those SSDs leverage faster flash and more complex controller designs to serve up faster, more responsive performance.

However, mature hardware tends to bring higher reliability, and Team Group claims the Expert is a reliable and durable SSD. Furthermore, instead of running a pool of QLC flash in static SLC mode as we’ve seen in the Enmotus FuzeDrive and what we speculate that Sabrent plans for its recently-announced Plotripper Pro, the Expert takes advantage of high-quality enterprise-grade TLC flash and optimized firmware to endure the toughest workloads that Chia plotters and creators can throw at it. 

Team Group stands by the T-Create Expert with endurance ratings that span up to 12,000 TBW and twelve years of warranty coverage. No other consumer SSD can come close to the reliability of the T-Create Expert. With high-endurance like this, it is also perfect for Chia plotting. However, the Expert costs twice as much as an average SSD, so purchasing one of these SSDs will cost you a pretty penny. 

Alternatively, if you don’t need such high endurance or the peace of mind brought to you by a very lengthy warranty, you could also consider SSDs like the 4TB WD_Black SN750 or 4TB Sabrent Rocket, which will get you twice the usable capacity of the 2TB T-Create Expert for a similar price. 

That's not to mention that there are plenty of cheaper QLC options, like the Sabrent Rocket Q, Mushkin Alpha, and Corsair Force MP400. However, they lack anywhere near the endurance capability and can’t always keep up with heavy workloads like Chia plotting or heavy media manipulation. 

The T-Create Expert is great at what it does, serving up the ultimate in endurance at its capacity point to appeal to Chia farmers and content creators with the most punishing workloads. Still, its high price and PCIe 3.0 interface relegate it to a niche product. 

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Patriot, which produces some of the best RAM on the market, has presented the new Viper Elite II, the successor to the brand's award-winning Viper Elite family. Retaining its successor's DNA, the Viper Elite II memory arrives with an aggressive design that's devoid of flashy RGB illumination.

The Viper Elite II, which is built for performance and overclocking, featuring a 10-layer PCB with hand-tested memory integrated circuits. Patriot offers the memory in a single module presentation and a dual-channel package. The Viper Elite II comes with densities, spanning from 16GB (2x8GB) to 64GB (2x32GB). There are four data rates to choose from: DDR4-2666, DDR4-3200, DDR4-3600 and DDR4-4000.

The maximum capacity varies depending on the data rate. The DDR4-2666 and DDR4-4000 memory kits max out at 32GB (2x16B), while the DDR4-3200 and DDR4-3600 memory kits are available up to 64GB. (2x32GB).

As far as timings go, the DDR4-2666 and DDR4-3200 variants come with 16-17-17-36 and 18-22-22-42 timings, respectively. The faster DDR4-3600 and DDR4-4000 variants, on the other hand, are rated for 20-26-26-46.

The Viper Elite II is compatible with the latest Intel and AMD platforms. As expected, the memory modules support XMP 2.0 for automatic overclocking on compatible platforms. Patriot backs its Viper Elite II memory with a limited lifetime warranty.

Patriot's new memory is already available for purchase at Amazon and Newegg. The DDR4-2666, DDR4-3200, DDR4-3600 and DDR4-4000 memory kits start at $89.99, $91.99, $97.99 and $132.99, respectively.

Phison’s PS5018-E18 is a high-performance PCIe 4.0x4 NVMe SSD controller that has flooded the market in many of the newest and fastest-performing SSDs. It offers up very fast sequential performance but has been outshined in random responsiveness by top picks like Samsung’s 980 Pro and WD_Black SN850 due in part to Micron’s B27B 96-Layer TLC flash holding it back. Today, we’re taking a deep look at the company’s next iteration that gets a little help from Micron’s fastest flash yet. 

While the first generation of E18-based NVMe SSDs used flash that interfaced with the controller flash at somewhat restricted speeds of 1,200 MTps, our second-gen sample is no longer shackled by this bottleneck. Now, featuring Micron’s latest B47R 176-layer TLC flash operating at speeds of up to 1,600 MTps, our new sample offers much more competitive performance. Still, this is only a preview, and while SSDs based on this flash due to hit the market soon, they will only hit the market after a few more firmware revisions.  

Specifications

Phison’s PS5018-E18 supports both TLC and QLC flash and can address capacities of up to 8TB, but most retail products will ship in the popular 1TB and 2TB capacities. In terms of performance specifications, Phison’s E18 hasn’t changed much besides the faster 1,600 MTps flash transfer rate. Sequential speeds are rated for up to 7.4/7.0 GBps read/write and in terms of random performance, and the company claims the SSD controller is capable of 1 million random read/write IOPS, given the proper flash and tuning. 

Phison seems to be moving away from full dynamic SLC caching in the traditional sense. Instead, its SLC caching algorithms are adapting to better suit not only consumer workloads but heavy prosumer workloads, too. We will cover this more in-depth later in the article. 

Phison didn’t reveal anything about end-product endurance ratings with this new flash, but it may help improve endurance ratings over current-gen devices. The Phison E18 still features the company’s fourth-generation LDPC ECC and RAID ECC along with a DDR ECC engine and end-to-end data path protection to ensure your data is programmed and read reliably over the product’s useful lifespan. It also supports various security options such as Pyrite, AES 256, SHA 512, RSA 4096, and TCG Opal. Additionally, it comes with S.M.A.R.T. data reporting and Trim support and secure erase and crypto erase capability. 

A Closer Look 

The E18 interfaces with the host over a PCIe 4.0 x4 link and is NVM 1.4 compliant. Our 2TB sample comes in an M.2 2280 double-sided form factor, but smaller capacities come in single-sided form factors for broad compatibility with the latest ultra-thin mobile devices. This is in contrast to Samsung and WD M.2 SSDs, all of which come only in single-sided form factors.

The PS5018-E18 controller is an eight-channel, DRAM-based design. Our 2TB sample features two 1GB SK hynix DDR4 ICs, one on each side of the PCB. It leverages a Penta-core design with three single-core Cortex R5 CPUs handling the host/read/write tasks while an additional R5 CPU, in a lower-clocked dual-core configuration, acts as a co-processor. The E18's primary cores are clocked much higher than the older E16’s cores, at 1 GHz versus 733 MHz.

The E18 comes with CoXPorcessor 2.0 technology, which offloads some of the firmware code from the primary cores to the dual-core R5 to ensure responsive QoS when hammered with heavy sustained workloads and aid power efficiency. One of the co-processor cores optimizes NAND die-queues to the flash while the other is for managing the DRAM/NAND tables.

The controller is manufactured on TSMC’s 12nm process technology and comes with multiple features to keep thermals under control while operating at high speeds. It features ASPM and ASPT support, can transition into the L1.2 low power state to sip just 3mW at idle, and can thermal throttle to preserve data integrity over performance.

Phison sent over our sample with a sleek-looking heat sink, but this heat sink does not necessarily indicate that retail models will require heat sinks to keep them cool under most consumer workloads. Although, when this controller is paired with 2TB of flash, it can gulp down over 8 watts of power under sustained load, which can create quite a bit of heat.

Speaking of the flash, our 2TB sample comes with thirty-two 512 Gb dies of Micron’s new B47R 176L TLC, aligning with the controller’s native chip enable capability to optimize interleaving, and thus, performance. Micron’s 176L TLC offers a significant improvement over previous generations, and not just due to its high layer count. 

This flash features the company’s new replacement-gate architecture that combines charge traps with CMOS-under array (CuA) technology, allowing for roughly a 30% smaller die size than its competitors. Enabled through multiple advancements in the new architecture and firmware support, operating interface speeds clock in at 1,600 MTps, which improves read and write speed by roughly 35% compared to the company’s previous-generation floating-gate 96L TLC.

Architecturally, Micron replaced the polysilicon control gates with metal, and it uses a different etching method compared to traditional NAND. This reduces resistance, thus allowing the program pulse to ramp up quickly, reducing programming complexities and overhead. The design reduces the electric field duration on the circuits since they can be programmed much more quickly. Micron also increased the etch diameter, allowing for more structural stability as the company ramps layer counts in future generations of the flash. 

Additionally, in traditional NAND, cell-to-cell capacitive coupling issues limit performance, but by utilizing a nonconductive layer of silicon nitride (SiN) acting as a NAND storage cell, the replacement-gate design demonstrates almost no capacitance between cells.

These changes, along with other cell geometry adjustments, directly improve performance, endurance, conserve energy, and allow for increased storage capacity, especially as Micron continues to develop newer iterations of its flash. 

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Comparison Products 

In today’s preview, we put the new B47R sample against some of the best SSDs on the market. This includes the WD Black SN850, Samsung 980 Pro, Gigabyte’s Aorus Gen4 7000s, and Patriot Viper’s VP4300. We also included slightly lower-performing SSDs such as the Silicon Power US70, Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus, and Adata XPG Gammix S50 Lite for good measure.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

While Phison’s still at work optimizing the E18 for this new B47R flash, game-level load times in the Final Fantasy XIV have already shown significant improvement over the already-tuned Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s with the older B27B 96L flash. This new sample is the fastest drive on the chart.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

In addition to faster game load performance, the Phison PS5018-E18 takes the crown in our file transfer testing, too. It scores first place in both the file copy and .zip file read test, outpacing both the Samsung 980 Pro and WD _Black SN850, and leaves SSDs like Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus and Adata’s XPG SX Gammix S50 Lite in the dust.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.

Not only have large file transfers improved, but the faster random access provided by Micron’s 176L TLC propels this new E18 sample to second place in PCMark 10’s workloads. While still trailing the WD_Black SN850, the E18 easily outpaces the Samsung 980 Pro.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

ATTO reveals strong low QD sequential performance and strong scaling across all block sizes, eclipsing both the WD_Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro.

Iometer testing reveals strong results, too. Peak sequential speeds surpassed 7,450/6,850 MBps read/write on our AMD test bench, although we couldn't hit such high figures on our soon-to-be-deployed Intel Rocket Lake test bench. Random read performance is significantly faster than the Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s, surpassing even the Samsung 980 Pro at a queue depth (QD) of 1. However, the WD_Black SN850 led the Phison sample when we intensified the workload to QD128.

Sustained Write Performance & Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Sustained write performance on the E18 has varied quite a bit over the past few months and it will most likely continue to adapt as the company continues to tweak and tune its firmware. Our sample wrote at 7 GBps for the first 225GB of this test, and then 3.9 GBps on average for an additional 1.5TB of writes. Beyond that, the write speed degraded to roughly 1.6 GBps until full.

During recovery, the E18’s sustained write speed operated at 3.5-3.9 GBps in each of our following idle rounds up to half an hour, meaning full cache speed recovery will take longer.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Phison’s E18 consumes a lot of power under full load, but it also delivers great power efficiency at the same time. It scores second to the Samsung 980 Pro on our efficiency ranking and power consumption looks to have improved by roughly 0.2-0.3 watts. Idle power consumption is also low when APSM is disabled. 

On our 23C open-air test bench with no direct airflow and without a heatsink, the E18 controller measured 46 degrees Celsius while the flash measured 44 degrees. However, like the previous generation E18, this sample is also programmed to throttle after exceeding 70 degrees Celsius.

After transferring roughly 250GB of data to the SSD via multiple drag n’ drops within Windows Explorer the drive began to throttle and it even degraded to speeds as low as 380 MBps on average after reaching 75 degrees Celsius (the flash hit roughly 70 degrees). That means you'll get the best performance for extended duration workloads by using a heatsink or a built-in shroud on your motherboard. 

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Phison’s PS5018-E18 is a high-end, high-performance PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD controller, and now paired with Micron’s fastest TLC flash yet is a powerhouse solution that outstrips the best of the best in real-world comparisons.

This is quite the contrast to our initial thoughts on our first Phison E18 sample last year. Our new Phison E18 sample with Micron’s B47R flash is a stellar SSD in the making — not only did it succeed to overthrow the WD_Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro in many of our tests, but it was also the most well-rounded of the bunch with monstrous sequential performance.

While we really like WD’s nCache 4.0 implementation on the WD_Black SN850, we also see great performance results out of the E18's new SLC caching algorithms. Paired with Micron’s B47R and all the firmware magic that went into this new sample, we are excited to see the performance this hardware combination has to offer once it hits shelves with final firmware.

That won't be long, either. Retail product announcements are only a few weeks away, with Computex coming up at the end of June. We were told at least two firmware revisions will be qualified before then, but as of today, we are very impressed with the performance gains we've already seen. Hopefully Phison can increase the endurance ratings back to E16 levels with the new configuration, or at least beat Innogrit-based competitors like the Patriot Viper VP4300 or Adata XPG Gammix S70. For now, that seems to be the only weakness, and a slight one at that, in what is otherwise a stellar performer. 

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Patriot, who isn't a stranger to our list of Best RAM, has many interesting product lines in its broad repertoire. However, the memory specialist recently revamped one of its emblematic lineups to keep up with the current RGB trend. As the name conveys, the Viper Steel RGB series arrives with a redesigned heat spreader and RGB illumination.

The new series marks the second time that Patriot has incorporated RGB lighting onto its DDR4 offerings, with the first being the Viper RGB series that debuted as far back as 2018. While looks may be important, performance also plays a big role, and the Viper Steel RGB DDR4-3600 memory kit is here to show us what it is or isn't made of.

Viper Steel RGB memory modules come with the standard black PCB with a matching matte-black heat spreader. It was nice on Patriot's part to keep the aluminum heat spreader as clutter-free as possible. Only the golden Viper logo and the typical specification sticker is present on the heat spreader, and the latter is removable.

At 44mm (1.73 inches), the Viper Steel RGB isn't excessively tall, so we expect it to fit under the majority of the CPU air coolers in the market. Nevertheless, we recommend you double-check that you have enough clearance space for the memory modules. The RGB light bar features five customizable lighting zones. Patriot doesn't provide a program to control the illumination, so you'll have to rely on your motherboard's software. The compatibility list includes Asus Aura Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and ASRock Polychrome Sync.

The Viper Steel RGB is a dual-channel 32GB memory kit, so you receive two 16GB memory modules with an eight-layer PCB and dual-rank design. Although Thaiphoon Burner picked up the integrated circuits (ICs) as Hynix chips, the software failed to identify the exact model. However, these should be AFR (A-die) ICs, more specifically H5AN8G8NAFR-VKC.

You'll find the Viper Steel RGB defaulting to DDR4-2666 and 19-19-19-43 timings at stock operation. Enabling the XMP profile on the memory modules will get them to DDR4-3600 at 20-26-26-46. The DRAM voltage required for DDR4-3600 is 1.35V. For more on timings and frequency considerations, see our PC Memory 101 feature, as well as our How to Shop for RAM story.

Comparison Hardware

Our Intel test system consists of an Intel Core i9-10900K and Asus ROG Maximus XII Apex on the 0901 firmware. On the opposite side, the AMD testbed leverages an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and ASRock B550 Taichi with the 1.30 firmware. The MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio handles the graphical duties on both platforms.

Intel Performance

Things didn't go well for the Viper Steel RGB on the Intel platform. The memory ranked at the bottom of our application RAM benchmarks and came in last place on the gaming tests. Our results didn't reveal any particular workloads where the Viper Steel RGB stood out.

AMD Performance

The loose timings didn't substantially hinder the Viper Steel RGB's performance. Logically, it lagged behind its DDR4-3600 rivals that have tighter timings. The Viper Steel RGB's data rate allowed it to run in a 1:1 ratio with our Ryzen 5 3600's FCLK so it didn't take any performance hits, unlike the DDR4-4000 offerings. With a capable Zen 3 processor that can operate with a 2,000 MHz FCLK, the Viper Steel RGB will probably not outperform the high-frequency kits.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

Overclocking potential isn't the Viper Steel RGB's strongest trait. Upping the DRAM voltage from 1.35V to 1.45V only got us to DDR4-3800. Although we had to maintain the tRCD, tRP, and tRAS at their XMP values, we could drop the CAS Latency down to 17.

Lowest Stable Timings

As we've seen before, you won't be able to run Hynix ICs at very tight timings. That's not to say that the Viper Steel RGB doesn't have any wiggle room though. With a 1.45V DRAM voltage, we optimized the memory to run at 16-20-20-40 as opposed to the XMP profile's 20-26-26-46 timings.

Bottom Line

It comes as no surprise that the Viper Steel RGB DDR4-3600 C20 will not beat competing memory kits that have more optimized timings. The problem is that C20 is basically at the bottom of the barrel by DDR4-3600 standards.

The Viper Steel RGB won't match or surpass the competition without serious manual tweaking. The memory kit's hefty $184.99 price tag doesn't do it any favors, either. To put it into perspective, the cheapest DDR4-3600 2x16GB memory kit on the market starts at $154.99, and it checks in with C18. Unless Patriot rethinks the pricing for the Viper Steel RGB DDR4-3600 C20, the memory kit will likely not be on anyone's radar.

Patriot will release a new DDR4 kit next month to compete with the best RAM in the budget category. During The Tom’s Hardware Show yesterday, Roger Shinmoto, Patriot VP of product, revealed the DDR4-4000 Viper Elite 2.

The brand already has DDR4-4000 kits available in its other Viper-branded products, such as the Patriot Viper Steel, but the Viper Elite lineup currently maxes out at DDR4-2400. The Viper Elite 2 will kick things up to DDR4-4000, while keeping with the more wallet-friendly pricing of the Elite series.

4,000 MHz is a sweet spot for AMD platforms, but Shinmoto told us that the kits target both AMD and Intel builders. 

But it’s not just about keeping your bank account happy. After 6 years of the Viper Elite being in the market, the new Viper Elite 2 is supposed to bring some new style too.

“Engineering team decided it was time to give it a facelift, so they went out and designed a brand new heat spreader from the ground up,” Shintomo said on The Tom’s Hardware Show. “It’s a really nice red and black design. Very aggressive styling.”

The exec pointed to the DDR4-4000 RAM as being a good fit for overclocking, as well as enthusiasts building a PC for the first time or builders simply seeking an upgrade that doesn’t cost a fortune. 

We still don’t know the Viper Elite 2’s pricing, partially due to the memory market's volatility. 

“Just like NAND, DRAM pricing is so volatile,” Shinmoto explained. “We can quote a price today and it might change by May. So they'll be competitive, but these aren’t the highest-end solutions we have. They’re geared more for the entry-level and price-minded sector.” 

But although memory prices have been “going up for a couple months now” and “allocations have been tight,” according to Les Henry, Patriot’s VP of North America and South America sales, Shinmoto assured the Viper Elite 2’s pricing will be “very affordable.” 

We currently see Patriot's high-end Viper Steel DDR4-4000 (2x 8GB) going for about $145, so we hope the Viper Elite 2 is cheaper upon release. 

The Tom’s Hardware Show livestream is every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, and is also available as a podcast. 

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 pumps out fast sequential speeds of up to 7.4 / 6.8 GBps read/write and features wicked good looks, making it a top contender for our best SSDs list. Whether you're loading up the latest Call of Duty update or scrubbing 4K or 8K content, Patriot’s Viper VP4300 delivers responsive performance. And with two optional cooling solutions included, it will keep cool and look cool during the most strenuous tasks you can throw its way. 

When PCIe 4.0 SSDs first hit the market, they all had one formula in common — they came powered by a Phison E16 SSD controller that was merely a repurposed PCIe 3.0 design modified to work with the PCIe 4.0 interface, and then paired with BiCS4 flash. This pairing improved the end-user experience, but it lacked the oomph we now see from new clean-sheet controller designs that leverage the speedy PCIe 4.0 interface, like the Phison E18 and the controllers with the latest Samsung and WD SSDs.

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 now joins the list of new drives with completely new controllers. This SSD slithers its way onto our test bench with a new Rainer controller designed by InnoGrit. This new PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD controller comes paired with a healthy helping of Micron’s 96-Layer TLC flash to serve up fast performance.

The Viper VP4300 also comes with many of the features we expect from a high-end NVMe SSD, and even some we don't. Patriot even throws in two cooling solutions - a sleek-looking 4mm thick aluminum heatsink and an ultra-thin graphene label for tighter-tolerance installations, like in notebooks. Add in the VP4300's high endurance ratings, which even outstrip the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850, and it appears to be a very competitive drive. Let's put it to the test. 

Specifications 

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 comes in just two capacities of 1TB and 2TB. Each is rated to deliver speeds of up to 7.4 / 6.8 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and sustain up to 800,000 random read/write IOPS. Priced at $255 for the 1TB model and $500 for the 2TB, the Viper VP4300 launches with high pricing that exceeds both the WD Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro. 

The Viper VP4300 carries very robust endurance ratings, though. The 1TB model is rated to endure up to 1,000 TB of writes within its five-year warranty period, while the 2TB is rated for up to 2,000 TB. The VP4300 has very little factory overprovisioning, roughly 7% of the SSD's capacity is dedicated to the task, and it uses InnoGrit’s Proprietary 4K LDPC ECC along with end-to-end data path protection to ensure reliable performance within the lifespan of the product. 

A Closer Look 

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 comes in an M.2 2280 double-sided form factor and includes two optional thermal solutions (“heatshield options,” as they refer to them) to choose from. You can either install the slim yet aggressive-looking aluminum heatsink that measures roughly 72 x 22 x 4 mm, or you can use the very thin graphene sticker for installation into tighter spaces, like notebooks.

Like the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850, the Viper VP4300 leverages a high-end PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD controller and NAND flash to match. Codenamed Rainer, InnoGrit’s IG5236 is a multi-core NVMe 1.4-compliant SSD controller with a DRAM-based architecture. 

Two 8Gb SK hynix DDR4 DRAM chips are present on the PCB, one on each side, that accelerate FTL accesses to ensure responsive performance. The controller is fabbed on TSMC's 12nm FinFET process and uses multiple consumer-oriented power management techniques to maintain its cool and perform efficiently, too.

Patriot paired the controller with Crucial’s fast 512Gb 96-Layer TLC flash. The controller interfaces with this flash over eight NAND channels at speeds of up to 1,200 MTps, and there are 32 NAND dies spread among the four NAND packages. The flash has a quad-plane architecture for a high level of parallelism per die, and it's also quite robust and efficient thanks to the unique application of CuA (circuitry under array) design and tile groups.

 Comparison Products 

We put the Patriot Viper up against some of the best SSDs on the market. We include the company’s Viper VP4100, a first-generation PCIe 4.0 SSD, and VPR100, an RGB PCIe 3.0 SSD. We also included a near-doppelganger, the Adata XPG Gammix S70. Additionally, we included the WD Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro along with cheaper competition like the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus and Silicon Power US70.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 delivers responsive game load times, outpacing Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus by a hair, but it isn’t the most responsive in the test pool. Both the WD Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro outpace the Viper by roughly half a second during the benchmark.   

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

While the Viper VP4300 comes with some of the fastest sequential performance ratings we've seen, that doesn’t carry over entirely to its file copy and loading performance. The VP4300 delivers respectable results, but it places fourth and fifth, respectively, coming up short of the best.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark is more relatable to power users.

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 is fairly quick at responding to PCMark 10's requests, but again, it lags the top heavy-weight contenders in our comparison pool.

Both the VP4300 and the Adata XPG Gammix S70 deliver similar performance during the very intensive Full System Drive Benchmark. However, the VP4300 couldn’t match the S70 during the lighter Quick System Drive Benchmark no matter how many times we retested.  

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

At a queue depth of 1 (QD1), the Viper’s sequential write performance is on par or better than many of the fastest PCIe Gen4 SSDs. The Viper's peak sequential speeds also rank among the fastest results we've seen, matching Adata’s XPG Gammix S70. However, as we can see with a reduction in performance at 512KB, Innogrit still needs to work out a few kinks at smaller block sizes. 

The VP4300's random performance is average to above-average at best, though. While it can achieve massive write IOPS at high QDs, it falters at the all-important QD1, which helps us measure the 'snappiness' of the drive in everyday workloads. As a result, the VP4300 is roughly 25% slower than Samsung’s 980 Pro at QD1 random writes. 

Also, the VP4300's high-QD random read performance knocks it back to last place. As we can see, its read speed doesn’t scale too well at higher QDs as we see with the more established and mature controller designs.  We hit peak speeds of 371,000/601,000 random read/write IOPS at high queue depths, falling short of the 800,000 read/write IOPS rating.  

Sustained Write Performance & Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 features a large dynamic SLC cache that spans one-third of its available capacity. Our 2TB sample wrote roughly 690GB of data at an average rate of 6.8 GBps before its performance degraded. First speeds fell to roughly 2GBps, but after writing an additional 150GB, the VP4300 degraded once more, falling to a sustained write speed of 900MBps.

Additionally, the SSD features a static SLC cache that measures roughly 36GB - 40GB. Only the static portion of the cache recovered after half an hour of idle time.

Power Consumption & Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

The Viper VP4300 has decent power efficiency under load, taking third place in our efficiency testing, but peak and idle power consumption aren’t as well regulated as we see with other designs. With the Viper VP4300 consuming nearly 9W under peak load and 1.7W at idle, the SSD can run hot if you choose not to use one of the two included cooling solutions. 

Without the heatsink, the SSD idled around 62 degrees Celsius while peak temperatures measured roughly 90 degrees Celsius. Throwing on the included heatsink lowered idle temps by roughly 7 degrees Celsius, and peak temperatures measured only 70 degrees Celsius. Thermal throttling wasn’t an issue with the heatsink, but it might an issue if you're moving over 200GB of data at a time and not using any cooling solution at all. Obviously, given that the drive comes with two included cooling options, this isn't a concern for most users. 

Patriot’s Viper VP4300 is a high-performance PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that comes with the killer looks to match its fast performance, and its performance results look amazing on paper — its rating for 7.4/6.8 GBps of sequential read/write throughput is the fastest we've seen yet, and the company specs the drives for up to 800,000 random read/write IOPS during heavy workloads. 

Unfortunately, we weren't able to reach those numbers in our testing. Patriot rates the Viper VP4300 to sustain 800,000 random read/write IOPS, but our sample only achieved 371,000/601,000 random read/write IOPS under heavy load. It also wasn’t quite as responsive as competing drives under lighter loads, either. 

The Viper VP4300 is very responsive during most daily tasks, but it's not the fastest NVMe SSD on the market. Compared to the best of the best, the InnoGrit powered VP4300 has a lot to offer but, like most new Gen4 NVMe SSDs controllers, there's still some performance optimization work to be done.

Sequential performance could be improved at smaller file sizes, and while the SSD comes with a large dynamic SLC cache and recovers a decently-sized portion of the static SLC cache, performance was inconsistent, especially when taxed with heavy write workloads that exceed the size of the cache. That's partially because the large dynamic cache recovers slowly. 

The VP4300's five-year warranty matches the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850, but it also has a higher endurance rating than either of those drives and comes with some nice add-ons and features. The included heatsink and ultra-thin graphene heat spreaders not only look good, but are very effective at cooling the SSD. Like the Samsung 980 Pro, the VP4300 features AES 256 full disk encryption, which is useful for those that need the added security.

While it comes with everything you could want from a high-end, enthusiast-grade NVMe SSD, the VP4300's launch pricing of $255 for the 1TB capacity and $500 for the 2TB is a little high, even for an SSD of this caliber. The WD Black SN850, Samsung 980 Pro, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, and even the Adata XPG Gammix S70 offer a better price-per-GB ratio, retailing at roughly $100-150 cheaper for a 2TB drive. Patriot will have to price the Viper VP4300 a bit more aggressively to sway our recommendation away from one of these alternative picks. 

Patriot recently expanded the brand's existing Viper Steel DDR4 lineup. The new Viper Steel RGB not only arrives with a redesigned heat spreader, but also features a RGB diffuser with five multi-zone lighting.

Patriot fabricates the Viper Steel RGB memory on a 10-layer PCB and offers it in different presentations. The single-DIMM kits come in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB flavors, while the dual-DIMM kits are available in 16GB (2x8GB), 32GB (2x16GB) and 64GB (2x32GB) capacities.

In regards to frequency, the Viper Steel RGB doesn't really offer much options to choose from. The DDR4-3200 kits feature 18-22-22-42 timings, while the DDR4-3600 kits have their timings configured to 20-26-26-46. Regardless of the frequency, both SKUs require a 1.35V DRAM voltage to work.

All Viper Steel RGB memory kits are equipped with XMP 2.0 support, making setup a fast and painless process. Compatibility-wise, the memory plays nice with the latest Intel and AMD platforms.

Patriot backs the Viper Steel RGB with a limitied lifetime warranty and has already put up the different kits on sale at Newegg and Amazon. The pricing for the DDR4-3200 memory kits span from $84.99 to $265.99 and the DDR4-3600 ones sell for between $89.99 and $275.99.

In a memory market dominated by lavish designs and excessive RGB lighting, Patriot launched the Viper 4 Blackout series for the few that still appreciate the simple things. However, what the memory lacks in looks, it makes up for in performance. Patriot markets the Viper 4 Blackout as high-performance memory, so the series doesn't embrace slower frequencies. The offerings start at DDR4-3000 and gradually peak to DDR4-4400, the flagship memory kit and the one we have in for review today.

Staying faithful to its name, the Viper 4 Blackout memory features an all-black, aluminum heat spreader that's devoid of RGB lighting. Although the memory modules evidently lack the bling, they will fit nicely into the majority of PC builds. The low-profile yet aggressive design finds the memory module with multiple fins at the top and the Viper branding on both sides of the heat spreader. Measuring just 42.6mm (1.68 inches) tall, we don't expect the Viper 4 Blackout memory modules to cause any troubles with big CPU air coolers.

Sold in a dual-channel package, the Viper 4 Blackout memory kit consists of two 8GB single-rank memory modules. For this particular memory kit, Patriot went with Samsung K4A8G085WB BCPB (B-die) integrated circuits (ICs) that reside on an eight-layer, black PCB.

The Viper 4 Blackout operates at the baseline DDR4-2133 frequency with the timings set to 15-15-15-36. The memory modules, which are compatible with the AMD platform, have two XMP profiles baked into them. One profile is for the advertised DDR4-4400 frequency with 18-26-26-46 timings and a 1.45V DRAM voltage, while the other corresponds to a DDR4-4200 profile for at 18-22-22-42 with 1.4V. For more on timings and frequency considerations, see our PC Memory 101 feature, as well as our How to Shop for RAM story.

Comparison Hardware

Our Intel test system consists of an Intel Core i9-10900K and Asus ROG Maximus XII Apex on the 0901 firmware. On the opposite end, the AMD testbed leverages an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and ASRock B550 Taichi with the 1.30 firmware. The MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio handles the graphical duties for our RAM benchmarks.

Intel Performance

The Viper 4 Blackout is currently the fastest memory kit that has passed through our labs. The memory kit didn't dominate in every benchmark, but overall, it finished first in both the performance and gaming charts.

AMD Performance

Like other high-speed memory kits in its category, the Viper 4 Blackout will only excel on an AMD platform if your processor can run the Infinity Fabric clock (FCLK) and memory clock (MCLK) in synchronous operation. Unfortunately, our Ryzen 5 3600 isn't one of those processors that can do a 2,200 MHz FCLK, which restricted the Viper 4 Blackout's performance.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

The Viper 4 Blackout runs at DDR4-4400 with a 1.45V DRAM voltage. Increasing it to 1.5V only got us to DDR4-4500 with very loose timings of 21-26-26-46. It may just be a 100 MHz increase, but it's an acceptable margin for a high-speed memory kit like this one.

Lowest Stable Timings

The lowest timings that the Viper 4 Blackout would allow at DDR4-4400 are 17-25-25-45. Of course, we had to increase the DRAM voltage to 1.5V to be able to drop the timings by one clock cycle.

Bottom Line

High-frequency memory has gotten cheaper over the years, and the Viper 4 Blackout DDR4-4400 C18 memory kit is proof of that. It's fast, but more importantly, it won't cost you an arm and a leg. In fact, the Viper 4 Blackout is one of the more affordable DDR4-4400 memory kits on the market right now. With a $134.99 price tag, Patriot's offering is right up the alley of some of the flashier but lower-clocked memory kits, such as those that land in the DDR4-3200 to DDR4-4000 range.

Although DDR4-4400 isn't an overly-exaggerated frequency, plug-and-play shouldn't be considered a given, either. Ultimately, your setup (mainly the processor and motherboard) will dictate whether a bit of manual tuning is required to get the memory kit to live in harmony with the rest of your system. If you're already decided on a DDR4-4400 memory kit with 16GB of capacity, we don't think the Viper 4 Blackout 4 will disappoint you. 

Update 9/28/2020: We have updated this article with new testing for the 2TB Crucial P5 M.2 NVMe on page 2.

Original Review published 8/25/2020:

While we have been awaiting the arrival of a high-end NVMe SSD from Crucial for a few years, the company only teased us with the entry-level P1 last year. It isn’t until halfway through 2020 that Crucial’s first high-end NVMe SSD, the P5, hit the market. But now that the P5 is out, it’s about time we put it through its paces. With a very robust design, it can dish out impressive performance numbers on paper, but it isn’t quite the best SSD going for the price. 

Crucial’s P5 has been a long time coming and check’s almost all the boxes for a high-end enthusiast-class PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD today. With Micron’s third-generation, 96L TLC NAND flash and brand new proprietary six-core NVMe controller, Crucial’s P5 comes with some serious hardware that not only helps it hit some great performance numbers, but it also protects the stored data with full hardware-based encryption. Not only does it perform well, but it also has the looks to match. Crucial designed the P5 with a blacked-out aesthetics so that it will blend into any build for gamers and professionals alike. 

Crucial P5 Specifications

Crucial’s P5 comes in capacities of 250GB up to 2TB, and current street prices range from $0.15-$0.22 per GB. Crucial says the P5 delivers sequential performance of up to 3.4 /3 GBps read/write as well as up to 430,000 / 500,000 random read/write IOPS when hammered to the max.  All capacities can hit the read spec, but write performance degrades as capacity decreases. At the 500GB capacity point, write performance is rated for up to 1.4 GBps. 

The P5 comes backed by a five-year limited warranty, or up to the rated write endurance per capacity. Endurance shouldn’t be much of a concern because the P5 has a half-dozen layers of adaptation, retry, and correction in its multistep data integrity algorithms, as well as LDPC Error Correction Code (ECC). Similar to WD’s approach, the stronger and less efficient correction capabilities are typically used for high bit-error pages as the SSD reaches its end of life, thus optimizing for performance and efficiency during its full lifespan. 

For those needing assurance on write life, these algorithms ensure that the Crucial P5 sustains up to 150TB of writes per 250GB of capacity, which is a solid 1.2 PB of writes for the 2TB model. Additionally, Crucial also overprovisioned the P5, setting aside 9% of the overall NAND capacity for controller use, including RAIN (Redundant Array of Independent NAND), which dedicates some of the NAND strictly to parity rather than user addressable space. The parity ratio at 2TB is 128:1, and this ratio halves as capacity halves. 

The drive also features Integrated Power Loss Immunity, but the SLC caching helps in many cases, too. The Dynamic Write Acceleration (SLC cache) works a little bit differently than most SLC caches we have come across in the past – Crucial built some new tech into the P5. 

Most Phison-based SSDs recover their SLC cache quickly, so it acts more like a buffer. Micron’s P5, on the other hand, retains parts of both OS and user data in portions of the cache for read requests. It also adjusts in size not only based on the amount of capacity used, but also based on the workload so it can optimize write amplification and performance. Additionally, during testing, we saw that it can simply remap its cache on the fly to ensure fairly consistent performance after hammering it time and time again, which is quite clever. 

We couldn’t get the P5 to complete a secure erase with both our motherboard’s UEFI or the 2018 version of Parted Magic’s secure erase tool, at least at first. However, after downloading the latest 2020 version of Parted Magic, we successfully secure erase the P5 without fail. Trim and S.M.A.R.T. data reporting functioned as expected, too. Crucial’s P5 comes with AES 256-bit hardware encryption supporting the TCG Opal 2.0 and IEEE 1667 feature set and is also configurable with Windows BitLocker since it is eDrive-compliant. 

Furthermore, Crucial’s P5 features NVMe Autonomous Power State Transition (APST) like most competing solutions for better efficiency and there is Adaptive Thermal Protection that is linked to the temperature sensors in the NAND components themselves rather than the controller. Adaptive Thermal Protection will throttle performance when the NAND exceeds 70 degrees Celsius. The drive will not shut down until it hits roughly 85 degrees. 

Software and Accessories of the Crucial P5 

Crucial ships the P5 bare of any accessories. However, you can download Crucial’s Storage Executive, the company’s SSD toolbox software. You use this software to update your SSD’s firmware when a new version is available, adjust the security settings, or monitor your drive. It can also enable/disable the Momentum Cache, which buffers random writes to the SSD in a portion of the host system’s DRAM. This speeds performance and writes data to the drive in a less-damaging sequential manner. The company also provides Acronis True Image cloning software so you can clone over your existing operating system and user data over to your new Crucial SSDl. 

A Closer Look at Crucial P5 

Like WD’s Black SN750 and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus, Crucial’s P5 comes in an M.2 2280 single-sided form factor at all capacities. With all components on a single side of the PCB, the P5 is compatible with almost any mobile device that fits an M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. The finish quality on the P5’s black PCB is very good too, especially when compared to the rather rough finish of the PCB on the P2. The sticker design is clean and classy, but the controller IHS bubbles through, taking away from the clean looks. 

Speaking of which, while the P1 leveraged a Silicon Motion SM2263EN NVMe controller and the P2 used Phison’s E13T, Crucial’s P5 features the company’s first, and quite beastly, consumer NVMe SSD controller. The controller interfaces with the host over a PCIe 3.0 x4 link and communicates via the NVMe 1.3 protocol. 

The package measures 17x17mm, which is quite large compared to Phison’s E12 and especially the E12S, measuring 16x16mm and 12x12mm, respectively. The reasoning for the size becomes apparent when we dig down deeper into the architecture. 

The new controller has a DRAM-based architecture featuring dual Arm Cortex-R5 CPU cores and eight NAND channels that interface with the flash, This new Crucial NVMe controller is similar to SMI’s SM2262EN, but with additional co-processors, it is closer in design to Phison’s E12S and E16. Not only does it leverage one or two additional co-processors like Phison’s designs, but also Crucial’s engineers have integrated four Cortex M3 CPU cores into the controller to aid in efficiently offloading some of the NAND management firmware code. 

And, since the R5s on SSDs typically operate somewhere around 500-700MHz, we believe Crucial’s newest NVMe controller’s operating speed isn’t too far off. The M3 cores can operate at up to 200MHz and has dynamic power modes, so you can see that while there are so many, they are very efficient. 

Crucial outfits the 1TB P5 with a 1GB Micron LPDDR4 2,133 MHz DRAM chip to buffer FTL mapping tables and ensure consistent performance. The company also throws in Micron’s latest 96L TLC flash; however, this is only on the 1TB and 2TB models. 

The smaller 250GB and 500GB capacities of the Crucial P5 have last-gen 256Gb 64L TLC. Either way, both designs have four-virtual planes of NAND access per die and interface with the controller at a rate of 667-800MT/s. 

At 1TB, there are sixteen 512Gb dies packed eight per package, which is double the density at 1TB than the NAND powering WD’s Black SN750 and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus. Crucial’s P5 doubles the number of NAND packages per die at 2TB to take advantage of 32 dies for optimal interleaving with 512Gb density flash and thus should have the best performance, but that is only speculation until we receive the 2TB for an update. 

There are a few reasons as to why Micron’s flash is some of the most responsive besides access to four planes per die. This floating gate NAND design is a bit more robust than charge trap designs as it has a lower charge spread which results in less read errors and ECC intervention as well, it has better data retention because of a more stable charge. Micron’s flash also features a tile-based floorplan design that is integrated with the CMOS under Array circuitry for better space efficiency and provides redundancy of elements within the tiles to allow for greater defect tolerance. 

Most SSDs these days come with a page size of 16KB (the smallest unit you can write to in NAND). This tile-based design basically breaks the NAND down into 32 tiles per die which results in a 16KB page that is broken up into 2KB sized tiles that are paired into 4KB tile groups. The four tile groups share a common 16KB page buffer and the SSD controller can perform 4KB partial page read operations that activate only two tiles which result in lower power consumption and reduces the page read time. 

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Comparison Products

Today we’re putting the 2TB Crucial P5 against some of the best SSDs available. As top competitors, we included Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus, Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro, and WD’s Black SN750. We also added in Sabrent’s wicked-fast PCIe 4.0 x4 Rocket NVMe 4.0 as well as the company’s Rocket Q (a fairly cheap QLC NVMe SSD). We included the Intel Optane SSD 905P and a Crucial MX500 for good measure.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Stormbringer is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Crucial’s P5 delivers responsive game load performance, but it’s not the fastest SSD for the task. Aside from the costly Intel Optane 905P, the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro and Samsung 970 EVO Plus respond faster to the benchmark’s requests over multiple game levels. However, the P5 outperforms both the WD Black SN750 and even the Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0. The P5 accomplishes this feat even though it operates on a slower PCIe 3.0 interface, which speaks to the refined firmware.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with our own custom blocks of data. Our 50GB data set includes 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos. Our 100GB includes 22,579 files, with 50GB of them being large movies. We copy the data sets to new folders and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly written 6.5GB zip file and 15GB movie file.

The Crucial P5 is among the fastest high-end PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs when it reads large files. However, while Crucial’s P5 packs a lot of processing grunt, it’s still not enough to help it gain top marks in the large-file copy tests. Sure, it outperformed the Crucial MX500, but it lagged its direct competitors.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.

While the Crucial P5 didn't do so well with all the random files we threw at it in the copy tests, it performed adequately during PCMark 10's light and moderate workloads. The drive landed in fourth place in each test, outperforming the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, WD Black SN750, and Rocket Q. Due to the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro’s blistering speed in random workloads, it took the lead over the P5.

Trace Testing – SPECworkstation 3

Like PCMark 10, SPECworkstation 3 is a trace-based benchmark, but it is designed to push the system harder by measuring workstation performance in professional applications.

Crucial’s P5 is a decent pick for prosumer workloads, but it isn’t nearly as fast as the Intel Optane 905P or Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0. Still, the Crucial P5 outpaces the WD Black SN750 by a few minutes in this test. The QLC Sabrent Rocket Q, however, managed to keep up quite well in most workloads.

Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro may be more responsive than the P5, but with a slow-to-recover cache, it can’t handle successive extended workloads as well as the Samsung 970 EVO Plus or P5.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool, while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD makers commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

We tested Crucial’s P5 at a QD (queue depth) of 1, representing most day to day file access at various block sizes. The P5’s overall write performance looks good, but it lagged behind even the WD Black SN750 during read workloads. Crucial’s multi-core design seems to be a liability here because while the SSD can deliver fast sequential performance at larger block sizes, it suffers at smaller block sizes - especially with write workloads.

After intensifying the workload, the P5’s sequential performance peaks at 3.5/3.3 GBps read/write. The P5’s performance in random workloads is the polar opposite of the trends we see in our sequential tests. The P5’s random read performance is fast at QD1, while its performance in random write tests is much slower than the competition.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The Crucial P5 wrote roughly 200GB of data at 3GBps before degrading to a speed of 1,100 MBps.

Like the 1TB model, the 2TB Crucial P5 has rather unusual write performance characteristics, largely because it comes with one of the most interesting caching mechanisms we've seen.

Some SSDs recover only 4-6GB of SLC cache within a few moments, and then take hours to recover the rest of the cache capacity. In contrast, other SSDs will immediately recover all of the cache as fast as possible, and at a fairly steady rate.

Crucial, however, can recoup its entire cache immediately after a write transfer stops, and the cache also expands when it detects a large sequential workload. This means that while the initial fill shows that the SLC cache is only about 200GB, we measured 350GB after 30 seconds of idle time. After an additional minute of idle time, the SLC cache grew to 500GB.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state faster, which ultimately saves power.

We also monitor the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

The P5 regulates its average and peak power consumption well, but the drives' somewhat weak file copy performance hurts its power efficiency score. Placing third to last place, the P5 is twice as efficient as a SATA SSD but isn't up to par with the competition. Idle power consumption is a little high, too, probably because the controller has six cores. This is the company's first implementation so there's room for improvement, which usually comes from firmware tuning as a design matures.

The P5 runs hot. At idle, the Crucial P5's controller hovers around 50C. That's 10-15C higher than most M.2 NVMe SSDs. After we threw a few 50GB and 100GB file transfers its way, the P5 heated up and ultimately throttled. The controller measured 94C, while the SMART data reported upwards of 100-103C before the drive finally throttled down to speeds of 200MBps. The NAND temperature on the surface of the package got up to 77C while the DRAM peaked at 74C. If you want to use this in a workstation, be sure to provide additional cooling.

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Crucial P5 (1TB)

RATING: ★★★ ½

PROS

+ Competitive pricing and specs
+ Hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption
+ Available in capacities up to 2TB
+ Blacked-out aesthetics
+ 5-year warranty
+ Software suite

CONS

- Lower than average performance
- High heat output
- Runs hot and lacks heat spreader

OUR VERDICT 

Crucial’s P5 is the company’s first PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD with hardware-based AES 256-bit security, but performance falls short of competitors.

Comparison Products

Since it is the top dog from Crucial, we pit the P5 against some of the best SSDs from each manufacturer. Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro is one of our top value recommendations, but Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus is a beast that can sustain heavier abuse, even more than the WD Black SN750, which we also included. 

From Seagate and with both featuring Phison SSD controllers, we added in the FireCuda 510 and 520, the latter having a faster PCIe 4.0 x4 based Phison E16 for higher performance. Additionally, we threw in Team Group’s Cardea Zero Z340, which has the latest E12S controller along with Micron’s latest 96L TLC as well as cheaper alternatives like WD’s Blue SN500, Crucial’s MX500, and a 7,200-RPM HDD for some extra perspective on the absolute difference interface and media type makes.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV 

Final Fantasy XIV Stormbringer is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch. 

Crucial’s P5 delivers competitive game load performance, but it isn’t the most responsive SSD of the bunch. With an average score of roughly 10.6 seconds, the P5 is more similar to the other co-processor based Phison SSDs than the all R5 core competition. Adata’s SXPG SX8200 Pro and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus both put the P5 to shame with load times that beat it by over a second. 

Transfer Rates – DiskBench 

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with our own custom blocks of data. Our 50GB data set includes 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos. Our 100GB includes 22,579 files with 50GB of them being large movies. We copy the data sets to new folders and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly written 6.5GB zip file and 15GB movie file.

Large file transfer performance is fairly good, but again, not quite as good as the best SSDs in the market. Crucial’s P5 landed in the middle of the scoreboard under our copy workloads. Adata’s SX8200 Pro with the dual-core SM262EN powering it trades blows with the P5 during the 50GB and 100GB transfers. Thanks to its newer, 96L TLC NAND, the P5 outperforms the SX8200 Pro in sequential read performance by 100-200 MBps, however. 

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Tests 

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.

With another rather average score, Crucial scores sixth place in the Quick System Benchmark. WD’s DRAMless SN550 outperforms it by a few points overall, but it can’t hang with the Crucial once the heavy workloads hit it. Crucial’s P5 moved up the scoreboard to third place when the going got tough under the Full System Drive Benchmark. However, while Crucial’s newest SSD did well to outperform the Phison E12S-based Team Group Cardea Zero Z340, and even the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, Adata’s SX8200 Pro ranks ahead of them all in this consumer-centric workload. 

Trace Testing – SPECworkstation 3 

Like PCMark 10, SPECworkstation 3 is a trace-based benchmark, but it is designed to push the system harder by measuring workstation performance in professional applications.

Although it managed to deliver twice the performance of the MX500, completing the benchmark in half the time, we were very surprised to see how poorly the Crucial P5 compares to the competition. After multiple rounds of testing, Crucial’s P5 placed eighth in SPECworkstation’s storage benchmark, trailing most mainstream and high-end SSDs.

When being hammered with these professional workloads, the P5 lagged the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro and Seagate’s FireCuda 520 by over 10 minutes. Like the WD Black, the P5 also had low max write speed. However, it was even lower than the DRAMless WD Blue SN550.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly-configurable storage benchmarking tool while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

In ATTO, we tested Crucial’s P5 at a QD of 1, representing most day-to-day file access at various block sizes. The P5 isn’t as responsive as the rest of the devices with the smaller file sizes. It isn’t until the 512KB block size and beyond that the P5 starts to get near its peak read performance. 

Write performance is much better, but not consistent with the degree at which competitors are performing. We measured a peak throughput of 3.5 /3.3 GBps with iometer, although it took a QD of over 8 to reach such a high read speed with a 128KB block size. The Crucial P5’s random 4KB performance scales well and it manages to deliver the third-fastest read result at QD 1, but its write performance lags competitors. 

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery 

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSD makers implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

While typically we see the full SLC cache size by doing our initial 15 minutes of writing to the SSD, the P5’s SLC cache grew after we let it idle and we hit it with more writes. The initial SLC cache size measured was roughly 110GB, However, after 30 seconds of idle, the P5 wrote a total of 160GB of data at full speed and again after multiple idle rounds. It’s not only dynamic, but it’s also adaptive based on workload. So, essentially it detected the write workload and optimized the cache size for further sequential writes. 

The cache on the Crucial P5 is not only interesting because it grew, but also because of the quick rate at which the P5 can recover so much cache space and make it available for new write requests. While Phison’s recovery rate is around 16GB per 30 seconds, Crucial’s P5 can recover its cache at a rate that is 10x faster thanks to some on-the-fly cache remapping rather than pure cache evacuation. However, Crucial wouldn’t get into the details on how that remapping works. With its additional co-processing power, it managed to match the Adata SSD’s cache while maintaining a decent sustained direct-to-TLC write speed, comparable to Phison’s E12 based competitors. 

Power Consumption and Temperature 

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state faster, which ultimately saves power. 

When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Crucial’s P5 isn’t the most efficient SSD on the market, but its power consumption is well managed. Averaging roughly 4W, it scores between the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro and the Samsung 970 EVO Plus in efficiency while copying our 50GB test folder. Idle power consumption is fairly high, but nowhere near as high as the WD SSDs on our desktop test bench. 

The P5 idles rather hot, however. Even while sipping 145mW, the controller temps range from 53-55 degrees Celsius (C) at idle on an open-air test bench in a 24C room. When transferring around 350GB of data, the controller throttled after the NAND hit 70C. However, the controller reached 103C as reported by the SMART data or 90-92C via an IR thermometer, which is quite toasty. We would recommend using your motherboard’s built-in M.2 heatsink or at least give it some airflow when possible.

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With killer components and a sleek, black PCB, the P5 looks to be the enthusiast-class SSD we were wanting from the company for years now. It’s not quite as flashy as Patriot’s flashy Viper VPR100 or Team Groups T-Force Delta Max, but it will tuck away quite nicely under a motherboard’s built-in heatsink, which may be needed since this SSD likes to run hot without any cooling. 

Crucial’s P5 has some incredible engineering and technology built into it, but even with all of that, the P5’s performance was average, at best. The company states that the P5 comes with “thousands of hours of Micron pre-release validation, dozens of SSD qualification tests, and a heritage of award-winning SSDs.” However, based on our experience, Crucial still has some work to do on the P5’s firmware to bring its performance up to more competitive levels. The Crucial P5 isn’t nearly as responsive as Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro, Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus, nor the latest Gen4 NVMe SSDs, where it matters.

The P5’s random 4K read performance is very good, but Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro was able to attain much faster random speeds with only a dual-core SM2262EN NVMe SSD controller from Silicon Motion and Micron’s older 64L flash. Plus, the P5’s random write performance is slower than average and its read performance suffers at small block sizes and low QDs, which results in poor responsiveness to application requests. And, even though its cache recovery speed is super quick, that trick isn’t enough to help it gain dominance in SPECworkstation 3’s prosumer workloads. 

The Crucial P5’s underwhelming application performance doesn’t help its value proposition. However, pricing, warranty, and endurance ratings are all reasonable. At 1TB and warrantied for up to 600TB of writes within five years, the P5 is well within the mainstream territory, but the company could have done more to compete with Phison based SSDS that are boasting incredible endurance ratings that are triple that of the P5. 

While the P5 boasts quad-plane NAND and six Arm cores, the higher 512Gb NAND flash die density resulted in less die interleaving, and thus less performance than the competition at 1TB. The Samsung 970 EVO Plus blows the P5 out of the water with its thirty-two 256Gb NAND dies and penta-core Phoenix controller at 1TB, but the P5 is quite a bit cheaper based on capacity. At $150, Crucial’s 1TB P5 is reasonably priced for the performance it provides and is $40 cheaper than the 970 EVO Plus with similar encryption support, too. However, competition from other manufacturers is still very tough. At roughly $135-$140, we would rather recommend the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro or Gammix S11 Pro for those looking for a responsive gaming experience, although their SLC cache doesn’t recover nearly as fast as the P5’s after heavy write workloads and they lack encryption support.

If you need high-speed sustained write performance for media work, the WD Black SN750 is a very good alternative that can sustain quite a bit of write abuse and is similarly priced, although like the P5, read performance lags a bit at low QDs and during small block requests. 

For those looking to pinch pennies, WD’s Blue SN550 may be a rather reasonable alternative that costs $45 less than the P5 and comes without the extremely slow write performance that most entry-level SSDs suffer from once its SLC cache exhausts. Even without the use of DRAM, WD’s Blue SN550 proved itself to be more responsive to application requests than Crucial’s P5. It even delivers faster game load performance and puts the P5 to shame when handling SPECworkstation’s prosumer workloads. While the P5’s design may be more robust than most, the performance results from today’s review speak for themselves. 

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Keeping with the times, Patriot has expanded its Viper 4 Blackout series with a trio of high-speed memory kits. The new dual-channel memory kits announced this week come in DDR4-4133, DDR4-4266 and DDR4-4400 flavors.

The new memory kits continue to leverage the sleek and RGB-less exterior that's emblematic of the Viper 4 Blackout series. The design will surely be make for some of the best RAM for performance enthusiasts that haven't bought into all this RGB business. The memory modules feature a black PCB with a matching aluminum heat spreader. Coming in at 42.6mm, the Viper 4 Blackout memory modules will easily fit under even the largest CPU air coolers.

Specs

Patriot currently sells the new Viper 4 Blackout memory kits with a density of 16GB. The DDR4-4400 and DDR4-4133 versions come with 18-26-26-46 CAS latency timings and require 1.45V to operate at the advertised speeds. The first retails for $129.99, while the latter carries a $124.99 price tag. The DDR4-4133 kit, on the other hand, comes with timings set to CL18-22-22-42 and only needs 1.4V. The memory kit sells for $119.99.

All Viper 4 Blackout memory kits are XMP 2.0-ready and should work without a hitch on both AMD and Intel platforms. Patriot backs them up with a limited lifetime warranty.

Like many other memory specialists, Patriot has an extended portfolio of products. However, the Viper Steel series is still one of the brand's best-balanced lineups and has made its way into out Best RAM list multiple times. The only caveat with the Viper Steel series is Patriot's prerogative to sell the memory as a single module or in a dual-channel package. The limited combinations effectively keep out quad-channel users unless they opt to combine kits, which is something that we don't recommend. Currently, Viper Steel memory kits start at DDR4-3000 and top out DDR4-4400. The dual-channel configurations come in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB flavors. Here we're specifically looking at the Patriot Viper Steel DDR4-3600 C18 2x32GB kit.

The Viper Steel's aluminum heat spreader comes in a gunmetal grey color with black highlights. The color theme helps the memory modules blend in seamlessly with the majority of PC builds. Doing justice to its name, the Viper Steel flaunts an aggressive exterior that features the brand's Viper logo in the center. The same design is present on both sides of the memory module. 

The Viper Steel memory modules have a height of 45mm (1.77 inches). A matte-black PCB is hidden underneath the heat spreader. Some users might be happy to know that Patriot has restrained itself from putting any RGB lighting on the Viper Steel memory modules. The company only incorporated a simple, black plastic insert on top of the memory modules to represent the Viper branding.

The Viper Steel memory kit is comprised of two dual-rank memory modules with a density of 32GB each. In terms of ingredients, Patriot cooks up the Viper Steel memory modules with an eight-layer PCB and Hynix integrated circuits (ICs), with the H5ANAG8NMJR-VKC part number. The ICs are commonly known as Hynix MJR, or just M-die among memory enthusiasts.

Upon first boot, the Viper Steel runs at DDR4-2666, with timings set to 19-19-19-43. Like any other high-speed memory module, the Viper Steel features one XMP profile that facilitates the entire setup process. In this case, the Viper Steel kit is certified to operate at DDR4-3600 and 18-20-20-40 timings while pulling 1.35V. For more on timings and frequency considerations, see our PC Memory 101 feature, as well as our How to Shop for RAM feature.

Comparison Hardware

Our Intel test system consists of an Intel Core i7-10700K and MSI MEG Z490 Ace on the 7C71v11 firmware. On the other hand, the AMD testbed is based of an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and ASRock B550 Taichi that runs on the 1.30 firmware. Regardless of the platform, an MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio handles the graphical duties.

Intel Performance

For the most part, the Viper Steel DDR4-3600 C18 memory kit outperformed the Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3200 C16 memory kit. There were scenarios where the competition came out on top, such as the Microsoft Office and Cinebench R20 benchmarks. However, the margin of victory in both tests was less than 1%. The Viper Steel was the undisputed winner in the gaming tests, though.

AMD Performance

The Viper Steel solidified its position in terms of general and gaming performance on our RAM benchmarks. On the AMD platform, however, the Crucial Ballistix memory kit took home the crown in 7-Zip decompression, LuxMark, y-cruncher and both HardBrake encoding tests. Once again, the performance difference was less than 1%.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

The highest frequency we got out of the Viper Steel DDR4-3600 C18 memory modules is DDR4-3800. In addition to increasing the DRAM voltage to 1.45V, we also had to loosen the timings to 21-21-21-41 to keep our memory overclock stable.

Lowest Stable Timings

Even though the Viper Steel doesn't shine in overclocking, there's a little bit of room for improvement at DDR4-3600 if you're willing to increase the DRAM voltage. At 1.45V, we successfully tightened the advertised timings of 18-20-20-40 down to 17-19-19-39.

Bottom Line

The Viper Steel DDR4-3600 C18 is a terrific memory kit for content creators or professionals that don't have the luxury of many DDR4 memory slots. Performance isn't a problem because the memory kit excels at everything that you throw at it. 

Patriot practically binned these modules to the max, so overclocking headroom is almost non-existent, even if you're willing to go crazy on the voltage. But running the Viper Steel at the advertised frequency should be more than sufficient in the majority of scenarios.

Patriot prices the Viper Steel DDR4-3600 C18 64GB memory kit very attractively, too. At $239.99, the memory kit is neither cheap nor expensive. The Viper Steel finds itself right in the middle of the competition. Given it stands tall in terms of performance, that makes this kit easy to recommend for those who need speed and density in a dual-DIMM scenario.

Sabrent's new Rocket Q series offers a great mix of value and performance, but it also offers a big first: The first 8TB SSD for us normal folks in the M.2 form factor. That massive capacity will slot right into a notebook for those on the go, or you can just slap one into your desktop PC and never worry about the size of your game folder again. Well, you won't have to worry for at least a few years. 

That massive slab of storage capacity comes with a big price tag, though, with the 8TB Sabrent Rocket Q weighing in at a hefty $1,500. You get some of the best performance we've seen from a QLC SSD in exchange, so splurging on Sabrent's 8TB SSD is worth it if you're after the highest capacity possible. Sabrent also serves up high-performance and high-capacity SSDs for enthusiasts with any need, too, so we also have the 2TB Rocket Q model in for review today.

Up until recently, your only option to go beyond 2TB was to get a 2.5” SATA SSD, like the Samsung 860 series or WD Blue 3D, but those drives are limited to about 4TB and are slower than NVMe SSDs. 

QLC SSDs bring higher capacities at a lower price-per-GB than TLC SSDs, but manufacturers haven’t put much effort into bringing higher-capacity M.2 NVMe drives to the consumer market. This is tied into the choice of matching lower-performing, lower-endurance QLC flash with inexpensive four-channel NVMe controllers. Until now, no company tried pushing the performance boundaries with QLC NAND by pairing it with an 8-channel NVMe controller, so we didn't have an option for both high-performance and high-capacity QLC M.2 NVMe SSDs.

With a high-performance Phison E12S NVMe controller and Micron’s Latest 96L QLC NAND flash, not only does Sabrent’s Rocket Q come in capacities that double and even quadruple the Intel, Samsung, WD, and Crucial drives, it has the performance to keep up with the best of them, too.

Specifications

Features

Sabrent’s Rocket Q comes in capacities as low as 500GB and span up to a massive 8TB. The pricing on most capacities is affordable compared to many TLC and DRAMless SSDs, although the larger capacities are a bit pricey. The sample we're reviewing today comes in at a moderate 2TB capacity and features one of the lowest price-per-GB ratios at its $239.99 price point.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q’s performance places it well above its QLC SSD competition. Sabrent rates the Rocket Q at up to 3.2/3.0 GBps of sequential read/write throughput, but write performance is dependent on its dynamic write cache. About one-quarter of available capacity is set aside as cache space, but beyond that, write performance will degrade to much slower levels. We'll measure that impact on the next page. When taxed with random workloads, the Rocket Q is rated to deliver up to 550,000 / 680,000 read/write IOPS.

The device supports Trim, secure erase, and S.M.A.R.T. data reporting like most SSDs. It also has multiple power states to help save power in mobile devices. 

Although the Rocket Q uses Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) ECC to help ensure data integrity over time, its endurance ratings are low compared to TLC SSDs. In general, it offers about one-half to one-third of the endurance per capacity point. If you opt for the big bad 8TB model, you can still get very good endurance coverage during the five-year warranty, though. But that's only if you register for it: Sabrent’s Rocket Q comes with a one-year warranty that only transitions to a five-year warranty if you register your device within 90 days.

Software and Accessories

The SSD comes bare of any accessories, but the company includes plenty of software support. Downloads include Sabrent’s Sector Size Converter (SSC) in case you need to change between 4Kn and 512e sector formats, a Control Panel app to monitor the device and update the firmware, and a free-to-use copy of Acronis True Image OEM for drive cloning and backup.

A Closer Look

Sabrent's Rocket Q is a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD that comes in an M.2 2280 single-sided form factor, which is especially impressive for a 2TB drive. While we typically dislike the blue PCBs some SSDs have, such as the Rocket Q, not many companies try to tie the color into the aesthetic like Sabrent's design does. Sabrent even left the ugly barcode and compliance stickers on the backside of the device. Kudos to Sabrent for the attention to detail.

Like the Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0, the Rocket Q has a copper label on top of the components to aid with cooling. The SSD uses a Phison E12S NVMe controller, which is the latest variant of the popular Phison E12. It packs a lot of performance while taking up a smaller footprint on the PCB, enabling the single-sided form factor at this capacity. The newer controller is built on a 12nm manufacturing process node, which helps to tame power and temperatures. The dual Cortex R5 CPUs and dual co-processors (CoXProcessor 2.0 technology) operate at the same 666MHz frequency.

For the 2TB model, four NAND packages with four high-density 1Tb Micron 96L QLC NAND flash dies interface with the controller over eight flash channels at 666 MT/s. The SSD has 16 dies total, thus populating about half of E12S's chip enables. The 8TB drive features 64 1Tb dies, which is two dies per chip enable.

This NAND's operating speed is a nice little bump up compared to the Phison E12 and lower density BiCS3 64L TLC NAND based SSDs we have reviewed in the past that operate at 533 MT/s. About 9% of the Rocket Q's raw space is used as overprovisioned space for garbage collection and other background activities, too.

The 2TB SSD has a 512MB NANYA DDR3L 1600MHz DRAM chip for FTL table buffering. The typical DRAM:NAND ratio is 1MB:1GB, so the company must use FTL table compression and/or prioritize hot and cold metadata.

Comparison Products

We lined the massive 8TB Sabrent Rocket Q up against the 2TB model as well as a bunch of the Best SSDs on the market. We include Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.0 SSD, a PCIe 4.0 x4 beast, and the extremely expensive 1.5TB Intel Optane SSD 905P that offers the fastest performance you can buy. We also threw in a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus, WD Black SN750, and Adata XPG SX8200 Pro as high-end competitors. We added in Crucial’s MX500 for good measure.  

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Stormbringer is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q delivers responsive game load times, but it isn’t the fastest SSD on the market. Intel’s Optane SSD 905P delivers the fastest game load times, but Adata’s SM2262EN-powered XPG SX8200 Pro and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus both give it a good run for its money with total game load times under 10 seconds. With a total load time of 12.34 seconds, the 8TB Sabrent Rocket Q slightly lags the 2TB model, ranking last. 

Transfer Rates - DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with our own custom block of data. Our 50GB data set includes 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos. Our 100GB includes 22,579 files with 50GB of them being large movies. We copy the data sets to new folders and then follow-up with a read test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file and 15GB movie file.

With 8TB of capacity and a large write cache to power massive file transfers, our 50GB and 100GB transfers barely scratch the 8TB Rocket Q’s potential. The Rocket Q wasn’t as fast at copying large files as the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0, or Intel Optane SSD 905P, but with speeds that are faster than the 2TB model and similar to WD’s Black SN750, it should do well for most moderate use. Not to mention, Sabrent’s Rocket Q delivers some of the fastest sequential read performance we have seen from a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD.

Trace Testing - PCMark 10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs lightly, while the full benchmark relates more to power users. If you’re using the device as a secondary drive, the data test will be most relevant.

Scoring fourth and third place in PCMark 10’s Data Drive and Quick System Drive benchmarks, respectively, Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket Q proved very responsive during light workloads. The 8TB Rocket Q fell back when we pushed harder with PCMark 10’s Full system Drive benchmark, though. 

Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus gain the edge under this heavier use case, but the Rocket Q still surpasses the WD Black SN750 and outscores the 2TB Sabrent Rocket Q.

Trace Testing - SPECworkstation 3

Like PCMark 10, SPECworkstation 3 is a trace-based benchmark, but it is designed to push the system harder by measuring workstation performance in professional applications.

With multi-gigabyte per second performance at its disposal, Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket Q powers through the benchmark faster than the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, Adata XPG SX8200 Pro, and WD Black SN750. With slower peak read and write performance and higher latency under some of the workloads, it scores lower than the TLC competition. Sabrent’s Rocket Q isn’t necessarily meant to be hammered by prosumer workloads, but it should do fairly well in a variety of tasks. 

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

We tested Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket Q at a queue depth (QD) of 1, representing most day-to-day file accesses at various block sizes. The 8TB Rocket Q performs similarly to the 2TB model and offers similar performance to its competitors. Sequential performance peaks at around 3/2.8 GBps read/write, besting the Intel Optane SSD 905P.  

Synthetic Testing - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices.

Under heavier loads, the Sabrent Rocket Q hit higher sequential speeds of roughly 3.5/3.0 GBps, placing it at a similar level as the WD Black SN750 and topping the Intel Optane SSD 905P. Micron’s NAND usually operates within a very tight latency profile, and here we see that tendency carry over to Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket Q. The drive’s random read performance ties with the 2TB model for third place, and its write responsiveness is faster than Intel’s Optane SSD 905P’s at a QD1. Additionally, we see that the 2TB model is tuned for higher random write performance while Sabrent tuned the 8TB model for higher random read performance and limited random write throughput under heavy load. 

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSD makers implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q features a massive dynamic SLC write cache that spans a quarter of the SSD’s available capacity. The 8TB Rocket Q wrote a little over 2.1TB of data at 2.9 GBps before degrading to an average speed of 276 MBps after the write cache filled. After four hours of writing, it wrote 6.1TB of data overall. This beats the 2TB model in worst-case write performance, and means you can get away with writing hundreds of GB of data at a time, over and over again, given you have enough free capacity. The write cache recovers fairly quickly, too. Give the SSD a few minutes of idle time, usually 2-5 minutes, and a lot of the write cache will recover.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state faster, which ultimately saves power. 

When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q is a fairly efficient NVMe SSD. Averaging 210 MBps-per-watt during our 50GB file transfer, the Rocket Q edges ahead of the faster Rocket NVMe 4.0 and leaves the Crucial MX500 looking just as bad as the Intel Optane 905P. Average power consumption is well regulated. Even with four times the density of competing drives, it consumes less power than Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.0 and Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus. The drive shifts into lower power states at idle, too, consuming just mWs of power compared to the watts of power an HDD sucks down. 

When it comes to heat output, the Phison E12S and 8TB of NAND can run toasty under load, but will usually be fine during light use with little to no airflow. However, we tested the SSD with 100-200GB file transfers without any airflow  and the controller measured a peak temperature of 82.4 degrees Celsius (C). The SMART data read 71C, while the NAND measured 64C. Those temperatures triggered performance throttling. For the most consistent performance under prosumer-like use or large file transfers, it would be best to direct some airflow to the drive or place it under your motherboard’s M.2 heatsink.

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Comparison Products

We put Sabrent’s Rocket Q up against a few mainstream contenders, including the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro, Patriot’s Viper VPR100, a Samsung 970 EVO Plus, WD’s Black SN750 and Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.0. We also added in Intel’s Optane SSD 905P, the Intel SSD 660p, Crucial’s MX500, and a WD Black HDD for good measure.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Stormbringer free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q scores second to last in the game load testing. While the slowest result in the flash bunch, it basically ties the Patriot Viper VPR100 and is only half a second off from the faster Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 throughout five game loading scenes. Compared to the HDD, the Rocket Q provides much faster performance and smoother file loads into memory. 

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with our own custom blocks of data. Our 50GB data set includes 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos. Our 100GB includes 22,579 files with 50GB of them being large movies. We copy the data sets to new folders and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly written 6.5GB zip file and 15GB movie file.

The Rocket Q delivers fantastic read performance and scores sixth and fourth place in the 50GB and 100GB file copies, respectively, which mixes it right in with most of the mainstream contenders. It even outperforms the TLC Viper VPR100 by a significant margin and trades blows with the WD Black SN750. The Rocket Q is proving worthy of its name: Intel’s SSD 660p cannot keep up with its slower 4-channel architecture. When it comes to file processing, the Rocket will leave an HDD in the dust.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs lightly, while the full benchmark relates more to power users. If you are using the device as a secondary drive, the data test will be of most relevance.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q scores third in PCMark 10’s data and quick system benchmarks, which show off its responsiveness to data requests during most day-to-day activity. It didn't do as well when we pushed a bit harder in the full system drive benchmark. The Rocket Q's performance fell behind most of the mainstream competition, but even when we push it hard, it offers better performance than WD’s high-end Black SN750.

Trace Testing – SPECworkstation 3

Like PCMark 10, SPECworkstation 3 is a trace-based benchmark, but it is designed to push the system harder by measuring workstation performance in professional applications.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q performed well after being bombarded by SPECworkstation 3’s many write-intensive tests. It completed the tasks in just under half an hour and delivers a relatively similar experience to the Intel SSD 660p, Patriot Viper VPR100 and WD Black SN750. It also managed to perform the tasks more than five hours faster than WD’s Black HDD. Even with QLC’s slower write performance outside of the SLC write cache, the Rocket Q provided significantly better all-around performance than the WD Black HDD.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

We tested Sabrent’s Rocket Q at a queue depth (QD) of 1, representing most day to day file access at various block sizes. It nearlyes match the Viper VPR100’s, as well as the other mainstream contenders, with peaks around 3/2.8 GBps. The drive even proves much more responsive at smaller file sizes than the WD Black SN750, and offers almost double the throughput of the Intel SSD 660p.

Synthetic Testing - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices.

The Rocket Q’s sequential read and write performance peaks at just under 3.5/3 GBps, with read performance exceeding the rated specification by a healthy 278 MBps margin. 4KB random read and write responsiveness is amongst the fastest of the bunch, coming in third place in reads and first place in write latency at QD1. The Rocket Q even beats the costlier Rocket NVMe 4.0’s results at low queue depths because the Gen 4 interface gives the Rocket NVMe 4.0 the upper hand in sequential workloads and lower latency at higher QDs.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSD makers implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Sabrent’s Rocket Q features a large dynamic write cache. The SLC write cache will measure about a quarter of the total free capacity, meaning that, if empty, the drive can sustain about 520GB of writes before write performance degrades. Performance tanks when the cache is full, just as one would expect from a QLC SSD. The drive averages about 200 MBps after the cache is full. It will recover a lot of the cache quickly after some idle time, though. Our 2TB model recovered at about 40GB per minute. After five minutes of idle time, the drive freed up about 200GB of write cache.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state faster, which ultimately saves power.

When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

On average, the Rocket Q's combination of the Phison E12S controller and Micron 96L QLC flash consumes less power than any other mainstream or high-end SSD in our test pool. This propels it into second place on our efficiency-per-watt chart, trailing only the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro. At idle, Sabrent’s Rocket Q will fall into lower power states to help save on power consumption (if you enable the feature in the UEFI and Windows).

The Rocket Q manages its temperature by thermal throttling based on the S.M.A.R.T. data. The controller is rated to start throttling around 75-80 degrees Celsius (C). We hammered the drive, moving around 400GB of data to and from the drive. The SSD performed fine without throttling as long as we provided adequate airflow. Without airflow, however, thermal throttling may occur during large copy operations and write workloads.

The S.M.A.R.T. data reported a maximum temperature of 64C in a 24C room, but that measurement must come from the NAND, as that is what we measured with our infrared thermometer. The controller measured a little higher at around 71C, which triggered throttling. 

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At $1,500, the 8TB monstrosity of an M.2 SSD will set you back the average price of a decent gaming laptop. But the Sabrent Rocket Q doesn't just push capacity to the highest we've seen with a slim M.2 SSD; it also impresses with the great performance and efficiency that comes courtesy of the new Phison E12S controller and 96L QLC flash.

QLC flash does have its downfalls, like lower endurance and slower write performance after the SLC write cache gets filled up during large file transfers, but the Phison E12S controller helps push the Rocket Q to the fastest performance we've seen from a QLC drive. The large dynamic write cache, a benefit of the massive capacity, also helps reduce the inherent performance issues that typically plague QLC SSDs.

There are a few things to keep in mind, though. The Rocket Q comes with a sophisticated LDPC error correction engine that helps provide viable write endurance during the warranty period. However, it's still about one-half to one-third of normal TLC SSD endurance. The warranty is a bit tricky, too. The drive comes with a one-year warranty, but you can extend that to five years if you register the drive within the first 90 days of purchase. That's a bit of a hassle.

Adata's XPG SX8200 Pro is a close competitor. Adata uses a very responsive overclocked SMI controller and Micron's equally-responsive TLC flash, so the SX8200 Pro is the better buy if you're looking for higher performance and longevity. The 2TB SX8200 Pro costs only a few dollars more at $260, which is well worth considering given the benefit of TLC flash. Otherwise, if you want to save a few bucks, the Rocket Q is close on performance and costs less. It even beats the WD Black SN750.

The same goes if you compare the Rocket Q to most other low-cost QLC NVMe and SATA competitors. The Sabrent Rocket Q M.2 NVMe SSD offers a lot of performance for your dollar against Intel's 660p, 665p, and Crucial's P1, and WD's Blue 3D.

But many people looking at the Sabrent Rocket Q are probably interested in its big capacity: The 8TB model leads the market in such a form factor. The only real drawback, besides the typical slow write speed we see with QLC SSDs after the write cache fills, is its hefty $1,500 price tag. Intel's Optane SSD 905P stands out as the only drive that can command such high pricing, but it doesn't offer the sheer capacity of the Rocket Q.  

While it can't beat the mainstream TLC NAND-based SSDs in terms of write endurance, as long as the workload is within its cache, Sabrent's Rocket Q will perform wonderfully.

Sabrent's Rocket Q qualifies as one of the best bang-for-your-buck M.2 SSDs in the entry-level segment. You can pick and choose from the different capacity points, offering an upgrade for almost any budget. It can set you back a month's worth of rent for the spacious 8TB model, though.

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Viper Gaming, Patriot Memory's elite gaming sub-brand, expanded its Viper Steel family today with 32GB DDR4 RAM modules available in the smaller SO-DIMM form factor as well as UDIMM.

The new memory modules retain the gunmetal grey heat spreader that has characterized the Viper Steel series thus far. The dual-channel kits are compatible with the latest Intel and AMD platforms, whether they be in a desktop PC or laptop. 

The Viper Steel memory kits are available with one or two 32GB modules. Patriot offers the UDIMMs with memory speeds spanning from DDR4-3000 to DDR4-3600. The SO-DIMMs range from DDR4-2400 to DDR4-3000.

Patriot Viper Steel 32GB DDR4 Specifications

It's impressive to see Patriot cram 32GB onto one SO-DIMM module. Since these are smaller than the DIMMs used in desktops, Patriot's new SO-DIMM kits may be some of the best RAM to consider for anyone looking to fit a lot of memory into a laptop, or even a NUC or Mini-ITX PC build.

On the SO-DIMM side, the DDR4-3000 module has 18-20-20-43 CAS latency timings and runs at 1.25V. The DDR4-2666 and DDR4-2400 offerings come equipped with CL18-18-18-43 and CL18-18-18-43 timings, respectively, and require 1.2V.

On the UDIMM side, the Viper Steel sticks rated for DDR4-3600 are configured to CL18-22-22-42, while the DDR4-3400 and DDR4-3000 parts come with CL16-18-18-36 timings. The modules operate with 1.35V at their corresponding memory speeds. 

As is the norm, Viper Steel memory comes with support for XMP 2.0, making the setup process a breeze.

The Viper Steel 32GB memory kits are available for purchase on Amazon and Newegg now. If you're in the market for SO-DIMM, the 32GB DDR4-3600 module carries a $144.99 price tag, and the DDR4-2400 module will set you back $139.99. The 64GB UDIMM kits cost $309.99 for DDR4-3600 and $279.99 for DDR4-2400. 

Patriot’s been on fire lately, releasing some appealing SSDs. The company’s Viper VP4100 is one of the fastest money can buy, and the Viper VPR100 offers solid PCIe Gen 3 performance with some tasteful RGB illumination. But, while these SSDs are great picks for enthusiasts, they're too expensive for those searching for NVMe flash storage on a tight budget. Enter Patriot's P300.

Significantly outpacing SATA competitors, the P300 is the company’s latest M.2 NVMe SSD, offering up multi-GB performance figures thanks to a Phison E13T DRAMless NVMe controller and Kioxia’s latest 96L TLC flash. But while the price is appealing (starting at just $35 for the 128GB model), the P300 falls behind competition in terms of overall value. In short, you won't find it on our list of best SSDs, though that doesn't mean it's not worth considering, especially if you find it on sale.

Specifications

Patriot is offering the P300 in 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities, although the smallest 128GB capacity is not yet available. Patriot prices the P300 at around $0.12-$0.20 cents per GB, depending on the capacity, with our 1TB sample being one of the best values at $120 shipped.

The company rates these SSDs to hit sequential performance figures of 2.1/1.7GB/s read/write and upwards of 290,000/260,000 IOPS read/write in random performance. The smallest capacities take a slight performance hit, however. As an entry-level NVMe SSD, the endurance rating on the P300 is lower than mainstream competitors, but is still more than enough for most users. Patriot backs the P300 by a three-year warranty, too.

A Closer Look

Patriot’s P300 comes in an M.2 2280 form factor. Our 1TB sample is single-sided, meaning all components are on just on side of the PCB to ensure compatibility with mobile devices that have thin size constraints. If you're installing the drive in a desktop and care about aesthetics though, you may want to look elsewhere. The P300 sports a distracting white sticker over an ugly blue PCB on our U.S. version. Those not in the U.S. will receive one with a black PCB and a Silicon Motion SM2263XT NVMe controller. 

Powering our U.S. version is Phison’s PS5013-E13T PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe 1.3-compliant 4-channel SSD controller. This 28nm controller utilizes a single-core Cortex R5 CPU that operates at 667MHz, plus a CoXProcessor to aid with NAND management tasks.

The P300 was built with a DRAMless architecture to reduce manufacturing costs. Without the DRAM on the device, the SSD’s potential performance compared to DRAM-based SSDs is hindered. Phison’s E13T mitigates this a bit with Host Memory Buffer (HMB) support, which lets the controller utilize the host system's memory as a DRAM cache for accelerating the flash translation layer (FTL) interaction, offering improved performance than without this feature.

The controller interfaces with Kioxia’s (Formerly Toshiba Memory) BiCS4 96L TLC NAND flash. At 1TB, our sample features four NAND packages that each utilize four 512Gb dies. They operate at 1.2V and interface with the controller at a speed of 800MT/s.

If the controller gets too hot, there is thermal throttle support to prevent data damage. As well, it boasts end-to-end data protection and Phison’s fourth-gen LDPC and RAID ECC to ensure data integrity. Along with S.M.A.R.T. data monitoring and TRIM, the controller also supports secure erase capability to wipe it clean and has support for APST, ASPM, and L1.2 power saving modes.

Comparison Products

Up for comparison, we threw in a handful of entry-level NVMe competitors, including the WD Blue SN550 1TB, Intel SSD 665p 1TB, and Crucial P1 1TB. We added in Team Group’s MP33 1TB, which is close to what the non-US version of the P300 would perform like with its SM2263XT controller and 96L NAND flash. Additionally, we threw in Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro and Corsair’s Force MP600, two top-ranking NVMe SSDs as well as Crucial’s MX500 and WD’s Black HDD, SATA based competitors, for good measure.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

The Final Fantasy XIV StormBlood and Stormbringer are two free real-world game benchmarks that easily and accurately compare game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

Patriot’s P300 lags the competition when it comes to serving up game data. With total load times that exceed the SATA-based Crucial MX500, it falls into eighth place. That doesn't exactly make the drive slow though. It still offers significantly faster performance than an HDD.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with our own custom blocks of data. Our 50GB data set includes 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos. Our 100GB includes 22,579 files with 50GB of them being large movies. We copy the data sets to new folders and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly written 6.5GB zip file, 8GB test file, and a 15GB movie file.

When reading large files from Patriot’s P300, the performance was snappy and much faster than the Crucial MX500, closer to that of the WD Blue SN500. But, while large file reads were quick, large folder copy tests show sluggish performance in comparison to the rest of the NVMe-based competitors. Still, it was about twice as fast as the MX500 at copying our large test folders and 4 times faster than the WD Black HDD.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs lightly, while the full benchmark relates more to power users. If you are using the device as a secondary drive, the data test will be of most relevance.

Like Team Group’s DRAMless MP33, the P300 ranks slower than any of the DRAM-based SSDs. Both perform relatively similar overall, but SMI’s SM2263XT is a bit more responsive here. Again, the P300 maintains a lead over the MX500, meaning that when dealing with application data, the P300 will offer a snappier user experience over SATA competitors.

Trace Testing – SPECworkstation 3

Like PCMark 10, SPECworkstation 3 is a trace-based benchmark, but it is designed to push the system harder by measuring workstation performance in professional applications.

In contrast to its performance in PCMark 10, Patriot’s P300 shows a bit stronger performance than the Team Group MP33 here. Completing the test about 14 minutes quicker, it showed stronger read and write performance when pressed with heavier loads. Both the P1 and 665p, QLC-based competitors, deliver faster performances, however, with the additional DRAM buffers onboard their PCBs.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

In ATTO, we tested Patriot’s P300 at a QD of 1, representing most day-to-day file access at various block sizes. The device’s read performance at small file sizes leaves it clearly lagging behind the competition. Patriot’s P300 display’s responsive sequential write performance, however. These differences may explain why PCMark 10 favored the Team Group MP33 while SPEC workstation 3 favored the Patriot P300.

Synthetic Testing - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices.

We measured Patriot’s P300 to hit peak throughput speeds about 2.6/1.8 GBps read/write. But it takes multiple transfers to attain that read speed. Random performance is weak compared to competitors as well. When randomly reading from it at a QD1, the P300 lags behind the MX500. Compared to a plain old HDD, however, the P300 offers a significantly faster performance any way you look at it.  

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery, and Temperature

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSD makers implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.  

When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Peaking at about 1.6 GBps, the P300 wrote a little over 24GB of data before the write speed degraded to an average speed of 430 MBps from then on out. Thanks to its relatively small SLC write cache, the P300 is capable of much more consistent write performance over the Team Group MP33 featuring the SMI SM2263XT controller. And, given just 30 seconds of idle time after writing is complete, the 24GB write cache is recovered and ready for more.

When moving files around without airflow in a 25C environment, the controller reported temps in the mid-60s, peaking at 68C after moving 400GB of data to the drive. Thus, Patriot’s P300 usually won’t need any sort of heatsink or airflow to aid in cooling it in most use cases.

Power Consumption

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is a very important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a new drive for your laptop. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state faster, which ultimately saves power.