Transcend is probably a name you’re familiar with, and for good reason. The multi-faceted company is best known for its memory with a long history of reliable, if unassuming, products. The MTE260S, or 260S, SSD is no different, adorned with a simple graphene heatspreading label that hides a drive with a lot of potential. It’s not one you should overlook if you’re searching for power and consistency from a brand you’ve actually heard about.

In that respect, the 260S has a lot in common with Kioxia drives like the Exceria Plus G4. While such drives are using licensed controllers like most other brands, you will usually have custom firmware and potentially hand-picked flash. The hardware also tends to be more consistent. As these drives are made for environments where reliability is important – in pre-builts, for small businesses, etc, this usually means they have a better track record. Performance may not be as good, but that’s often a worthwhile compromise. The 260S uses mature flash and has a simple but effective design that, while winning it no prizes, makes it a good alternative in this challenging market.

Transcend 260S Specifications

The Transcend MTE260S, or 260S, is available at 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. Currently, the drive is out of stock, but this is one of those models you might be able to catch randomly at a good deal. Transcend drives are often available for good prices. They also tend to be more reliable than drives from generic brands.

This is a very fast drive with maximum performance around 14,500 / 13,500 MB/s for sequential reads and write workloads and up to 2,000K / 1,400K read and write IOPS in random workloads. The IOPS count might be lower than you’d expect from a drive in this class, but this needs to be taken within the proper context. Transcend makes OEM or client drives – drives used for prebuilts, businesses, etc – which usually have stricter operating requirements. The drives will often be more robust and consistent, and this could mean custom firmware that is, as a side effect, more restrictive of peak performance. This actually isn’t a bad thing, as you’re generally not reaching anywhere near two million IOPS. The given sequential numbers are also from ideal workloads with very high queue depths. So take that into consideration when comparing this model directly against the competition’s numbers.

Transcend doesn’t skimp on the warranty, covering the full five years with up to 750 of data writter per TB of capacity (750TBW). This is 25% above the normal 600TBW. Often, OEM drives, particularly low-end ones like the WD Green SN3000, will skimp on shorter warranties and lower TBW. Not so with the high-end 260S.

Transcend 260S Software and Accessories

Transcend offers a surprising number of downloads for its products. For the 260S we’re most interested in SSD Scope which is Transcend’s SSD toolbox. While not fancy, SSD Scope has all the features you need. You can monitor drive health and diagnose problems, run secure erase or TRIM, update the firmware, and backup/clone your data, all in a single app. These are essential tools for any storage device and make it easier to transition to a new drive. While by no means a requirement, it’s nice to have this standard functionality.

Transcend 260S: A Closer Look

The Transcend 260S is a double-sided drive at all capacities and is rated for around 10W. This is perfectly in line with expectations for a high-end PCIe 5.0 SSD. Transcend also has a graphene label and heatspreader on the drive, which is a nice bonus. This material can be effective even with high-end drives because, for one, newer controllers are more efficient to begin with, and two, full-length M.2 2280 drives have enough distance between components to make heatspreading more effective. There are two NAND flash packages on the rear that do not benefit directly from this, though.

If we uncover the drive top drive components, we see the SSD controller, a single DRAM package, and two more NAND flash packages. The controller is the Silicon Motion SM2508, which is one of our favorites. For the non-volatile DRAM cache, Transcend uses Samsung DDR4. If we look at the coding we see “8G16” on the module which means 8Gbit, or 1GB, in a 16-bit configuration. This gives a total of 2GB of DRAM with the usual DRAM:NAND memory ratio of 1GB:1TB for optimal operation even under heavy workloads.

Deciphering the flash is more challenging, but we know these are 4Tb packages – 512GB each, for a total of 2TB – and were manufactured in week 17 of 2025. Underneath, we know these are using Micron 232-Layer TLC flash, which, although not the newest, is relatively good flash. Transcend uses smaller BGA packages for this, which is not unusual, but some users might be expecting larger ones.

Smaller packages have advantages with tight PCBs, and it can be better for I/O sensitive flash, which is definitely the case with Micron’s – consider the multiplexors we’ve seen on the 4TB Crucial T500 and other drives with this same flash. Theoretically, smaller packagers can also limit how much you can stack flash and can reduce the surface area for cooling. The 260S caps out at 4TB, and the graphene label on the controller and DRAM side is more than adequate. Further, as we mentioned under the specifications section, this drive is designed to operate more consistently as it’s a client drive – that is, made for consumer use but specifically for pre-installation with stricter operating standards – so any concessions made with component selection are not an issue within the intended thermal and performance envelopes.

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Comparison Products

We’re not going easy on the Transcend 260S. We’re putting it up against the very best drives we’ve tested, including the SanDisk WD Black SN8100, the Samsung 9100 Pro, the Crucial T710, and the Corsair MP700 Pro XT. The first two are proprietary designs, while the latter two use the best controller from Silicon Motion and Phison, respectively. Using the same controller as the T710, but with Kioxia BiCS8 TLC flash, instead of Micron’s 276-Layer TLC, is the Kingston Fury Renegade G5. If we take this controller and drop in older, 232-Layer flash, we have the Lexar NM1090 Pro, which has the same hardware as the 260S but potentially different optimizations.

To round things out, we have lesser PCIe 5.0 drives with the high-end but DRAM-less Biwin Black Opal X570 and mid-range DRAM-less Kioxia Exceria Plus G4. This is skipping the earlier Phison E26-based drives – the hot-running, early adopter models – because we generally recommend avoiding them at this time. This puts more pressure on the 260S to perform.

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 an evaluation for future-proofing is included where applicable.

The Transcend 260S finishes in the middle of the pack in 3DMark. Its performance is more than good enough for gaming, approaching drives like the 9100 Pro. Something with the same controller and BiCS8 TLC – flash found on the Black SN8100, MP700 Pro XT, or Fury Renegade G5 – will potentially be more responsive if you’re looking for the very fastest drive. The 260S will provide an excellent experience regardless and should feel good against HDDs, SATA SSDs, and even PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs.

Trace Testing — PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is an industry standard 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.

The drive also falls into the middle of the pack in PCMark 10. This is adequate performance for all but the heaviest of tasks. This drive is up against the fastest ones on the planet, and we feel that getting close to the T710 here – a drive that Crucial dialed in to be its flagship – is a win. If you’re serious about PCIe 5.0 performance, you will be running multiple high-end drives, and in that case, the 260H is sufficient for your second or third.

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. Based on our extensive 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.

Would this drive make an excellent PS5 SSD? Yes. It’s overkill, though, and we would not recommend it. However, if you were to use it for that purpose – even only temporarily – the included graphene label is probably sufficient to cool the drive in the console.

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.

Disk copy performance is acceptable with excellent read and write performance. It’s right in the mix with all of the other drives for the latter two, which means it’s great as your second or third drive for slinging files. Copy performance – reading and writing files to itself – is slower due to the flash being used. While this is relevant, you’re less likely to engage in such I/O operations unless it’s the only drive in your system.

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.

The 260S has pretty solid results in ATTO and, more importantly, it doesn’t have the same drops we saw in the NM1090 Pro. These two drives use the same hardware, so we can assume Transcend has made sure to nail down its firmware. The result is better CDM sequential read performance at QD1, too, which is a good improvement. Low-QD reads are a common consumer workload, so every bit helps. Yes, the drives with better flash still perform better, but the 260S is the best of the “lower tier” drives.

Random performance is also very good, particularly for 4KB QD1 writes. For 4KB QD1 reads, which are often held as being the all-important workload for system responsiveness, it’s more average. It still lines up with good drives like the 9100 Pro and similar client drives that lean towards reliability like the Exceria Plus G4. It’s certainly not the fastest drive around, but it’s going to outdo any slower PCIe 5.0 drive and any PCIe 4.0 drive, as well.

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, 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, including the steady state write performance.

Most modern consumer SSDs have three “modes” in which they will write data. The first is the cache mode, where it writes to single-bit pSLC flash to get the highest performance possible. For the 260S, this is at 12.65 GB/s for over 31s with a cache of around 400GB. Because the drive is converting its three-bit TLC flash to single-bit pSLC, the maximum cache size for the 2TB model is on the order of ~700GB. So the 260S’s cache, while large, could be larger. The advantage of a smaller cache is that you will have faster, more consistent writes with a depleted cache, a situation which can happen with longer writes and/or with a fuller drive.

The second mode is when the drive writes to its native flash, TLC in this case. For the 260S, this is at over 3.7 GB/s, which is very fast but about what we would expect for Micron’s 232-Layer TLC. This is a good result, and the drive is very consistent here. We would expect that, especially from a Transcend drive that is seeking reliable performance. While the flash can write faster, the drive is also trying to free up space by emptying and converting pSLC in the background. The drive does prioritize incoming writes, but if you write long enough, you will out-run its ability to do that.

That leads to the third mode, or folding, where the drive must wait for data to move out of the pSLC cache before it can handle more incoming data. This is where QLC-based drives, in particular, can be horrid. The 260S manages this quite well at 1.73 GB/s, which by most rights is pretty good. Don’t be deceived by the high steady state numbers other drives can achieve, but rather look at the whole picture. The 260S is very consistent and competently fast in all three modes, which is better than a faster drive that lacks consistency. It’s also a design choice not to be too fast for these writes because you want to maintain flash endurance – or rather, reduce unnecessary wear – and you also don’t want the drive to die prematurely from being pushed too hard in unfavorable environments. That choice will make more sense when taking in the details of the next section.

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 in terms of capacity and performance. Desktops are often more performance-oriented with less support for power-saving features so we show the worst-case for idle.

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 but real-world temperatures will vary due to the environment and workload factors.

The 260S is decently power-efficient. It beats the 9100 Pro and the NM1090 Pro, the latter having the same hardware. This is important to point out because it reinforces our hypothesis that Transcend has honed this firmware. While it’s not as efficient as drives with newer flash, it’s better than pretty much any PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 4.0 drive. Its ability to be consistent with sustained workloads, combined with the graphene label for improved thermal flow, means that this drive is suitable for use in laptops.

Often, OEM drives will have stricter thermal limits, and if we look at SMART, we see that this drive starts to throttle at 83°C. This isn’t low, but it isn’t high, either. Is this worthy of concern? In our testing, not really. The drive topped out at 59°C, which is almost 25°C below the initial throttling point. We consider 20°C to be enough headroom in most cases. So while the 260S is not the fastest drive around, it is very consistent and should be very reliable even against drives that have the same hardware. While heat isn’t a top drive killer per se, generally speaking, it’s better to have a drive like the 260S, which is designed to be functional in a wider range of environments. This is an important consideration if you’re buying a drive and have reliability concerns in the back of your mind.

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.

Transcend 260S Bottom Line

The Transcend 260S is actually a really good drive, but we can’t give it a higher score when it only performs in the middle of its drive class. However, we do think it punches above this score for certain use cases. If you’re someone who values reliability and consistency more than performance, the 260S is among the best drives out there today. Transcend has a long history of designing OEM memory products, and this means it has a lot of experience with making reliable drives. No-name brands are more likely to use questionable hardware and have poor support. So while the hardware on the 260S is nothing to write home about, you can safely put this drive in any machine with a reasonable expectation of success.

We still recommend drives like the Black SN8100 and Samsung 9100 Pro if you want the reliability that comes with proprietary or semi-proprietary designs and top-tier performance. The Black SN8100 does not use a SanDisk controller, but the firmware on its SM2508 is definitely custom, and WD has a relationship with the BiCS8 flash. Transcend is closer to that type of design, as our results show it has some custom input, making it align more closely with Kioxia’s Exceria drives. In our experience, such drives are more reliable than generic off-brands. This is because they are held to a certain standard for OEM environments and, while this often means narrower thermal and performance envelopes, the drives usually operate more consistently as well. The 260S’s cache design reflects this intent.

This doesn’t mean we recommend it over drives like the MP700 Pro XT or Fury Renegade G5, either. Trusted brands with the newest hardware are going to give you an excellent experience. However, availability and pricing are big issues right now for SSDs. If you’re already willing to settle for a high-end drive that’s a step or half-step down – this would be E26-based drives and drives with older flash, like the 260S or NM1090 Pro – then the 260S should be near the top of your list. You’re compromising a bit on performance, but there’s no reason to compromise in other areas like power efficiency – that would be with the E26 drives – or with DRAM – that would be drives like the Black Opal X570. The 260S’s performance is solid enough to make a great high-end PCIe 5.0 drive and an alternative to these, so grab it if you see it.

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record: if there's any computing or computing-adjacent device you're thinking of buying, better do it now. The latest development in the story of AI-driven shortages comes from Transcend, which has just let its resellers know that manufacturing of its wares will be delayed due to shortages at upstream suppliers stemming from the ongoing AI datacenter boom.

In a letter sent to its customers on Tuesday, Transcend said that SanDisk and Samsung, both of whom supply the requisite NAND flash chips, have delayed their deliveries a second time. In turn, that means that Transcend hasn't gotten any chip deliveries since October and consequently its Q4 2025 allocation of chips has been further reduced.

Predictably, Transcend listed the usual reasons for the situation, stating that "the market is experiencing a serious shortage of both DRAM and NAND Flash". The Taiwanese maker notes that the situation is particularly dire in this quarter, "due to growing demand from large data centers and hyperscalers." The company even says the quiet part out loud: "all major chip makers are prioritizing those customers first".

Transcend sates its supply costs rose 50 to 100% in just the last week, and that this situation is expected to continue for at least three to five months, affecting deliveries of its SSDs, SD cards, and USB flash drives. Naturally, the company also stated that lead times are now longer and that prices will be higher than in the previous quarter.

DigiTimes Asia reached out to Transcend, which stated that the message "does not represent the company's official position" and "does not fully reflect the actual situation", though it reportedly acknowledged dwindling supplies in the past weeks.

This entire situation is sadly predictable, against the backdrop of the swarm of AI locusts devouring every major computing resource, from chips, to RAM, to hard drives, to SSDs. Hard drives have risen about 20% in the past couple months, SSDs are 10 to 20% higher (with larger capacity models in higher demand), and RAM simply launched into orbital flight and isn't planning on coming back soon.

Additionally, graphics cards are rumored to see price increases, Intel CPUs are going up, Nvidia's 5000 Super line might get a paper launch due to GDDR7 shortages, and companies like Adata, TeamGroup, and Framework have all issued alerts about availability and pricing. Yesterday, Micron even outright put the kibosh on its long-running consumer brand Micron . Things are looking just peachy for us mere mortals looking to build or buy a PC.

Bigger isn't always better, and sometimes the act of miniaturizing technology has benefits, one of the biggest stand-out benefits is ease of transportation. If you're not intending a gaming laptop to be a full-on desktop replacement and you're just looking for something that you can use while traveling or popping around a friend's house then a 14-inch laptop screen is more than enough for some quick gaming. It takes up a lot less space in your bag, weighs less, and sometimes makes the laptop cheaper - sometimes.

Currently, at Best Buy, you can shave $300 off of the MSRP price of HP's Omen Transcend 14 gaming laptop, lowering the purchase price to $1,699. That's a pretty sweet price for a high-spec gaming laptop that was only released earlier this year.  See our review of the HP Omen Transcend 14 that we posted in March of this year. It was for a slightly less powerful version, but we still cover all the parts of the laptop which remain the same in this model. 

The Omen Transcend 14 features a 14-inch, 2880 x 1800 pixel display, not only that, but the display is an OLED panel with a 120 Hz refresh rate and colorful display. The system is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H 16-core processor and an Nvidia RTX 4070 laptop graphics card, all stuffed into a svelte 3.6-pound black anodized aluminum chassis.

The HP Omen Transcend 14 still incorporates a full-size keyboard even given its small size. The keyboard features pudding-style keycaps with a 4-zone RGB backlit, shadow black keyboard, and 26-key rollover anti-ghosting key technology. It features Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (2x2) + BT 5.3 and comes with support for the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard. However, there's not much in the way of upgradability, the only component that can be upgraded is the M.2 SSD. The RAM is integrated into the motherboard, so the 32GB installed in this model is the maximum.

In the gaming laptop market, we can sometimes get caught up in the “excess” when it comes to specs. By that, I mean laptops with the biggest displays and batteries, along with the fastest available processors and discrete graphics. However, not everyone needs a 17.3-inch desktop replacement, which is why we’re glad to see that companies like HP still make machines at the other end of the spectrum: witness the Omen Transcend 14.

The Omen Transcend 14 features a 14-inch, 2880 x 1800 display. More importantly, it’s a colorful OLED panel with a 120 Hz refresh rate. The system is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card crammed into a relatively svelte 3.6-pound chassis.

However, while the specs look good at first glance, real-world performance is just as important when it comes to being considered for our best gaming laptops list. But in this case, HP has prioritized thinness and portability. You'll have to decide if you're willing to make that trade.

Specifications for the HP Omen Transcend 14

Design of the HP Omen Transcend 14

The first thing you’ll notice about the Omen Transcend 14 when you pull it out of the box is its size. There’s not a lot of wasted space, with a full-size RGB keyboard, ample touchpad and a display surrounded by minimal bezels. The top display bezel is home to the 1080p webcam, although you won’t find a physical shutter.

The black anodized aluminum chassis has a nice flat finish. If you look closely, you’ll notice the “D14” etched onto the ride side of the keyboard deck. We assume this refers to the 14-inch OLED display that sits front and center. Speaking of the display, the lid doesn’t sit flush with the back of the chassis when it’s closed. Instead, the bottom of the chassis juts out behind the lid when closed, like what we see with some Alienware laptops.

At the back, you’ll find exhaust vents for the two system fans and two ports smack dab in the center: a USB-C port for power and an HDMI 2.1 port. I much prefer this position for power and external display as both cables can sit behind the computer rather than stick out from the side. It allows for a much cleaner desktop when it comes to cable management.

There are two USB-A ports on the right side of the chassis, while a 3.5mm audio combo jack and a Thunderbolt port sit on the left side. Since we’re talking about ports, let me put out this public service announcement to prospective Omen Transcend 14 buyers. While the laptop’s 71 WHr battery can charge with either of the two USB-C ports, only the rear port will deliver enough power from the 140-watt brick to ensure maximum performance. The side USB-C port will charge the laptop, but you’ll witness a significant drop in gaming performance by doing so.

The Omen Transcend 14 measures 12.32 x 9.19 x 0.71 inches and weighs 3.6 pounds. To put those dimensions into perspective, the 2023 Razer Blade 14 measures 12.23 x 8.97 x 0.70 inches and weighs 4.05 pounds. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is 3.3 pounds and measures 12.24 x 8.66 x 0.64 inches. Finally, the Dell G15 (5530) is in a slightly larger class, as witnessed by its 6.19-pound frame with dimensions of 14.07 x 10.80 x 1.06 inches.

Gaming Performance on the HP Omen Transcend 14

The Omen Transcend 14 features a Core Ultra 7 155H withs six performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and two low-power efficiency cores. It also boasts a maximum turbo frequency of 4.8 GHz. The processor pairs with 16GB of LPDDR-7467 memory and a 65 watt GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU. That's not a ton of power to the GPU, but HP is promoting portability over performance here.

We lined up three competitors to keep things interesting: the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (Ryzen 9 8945HS, 32GB, RTX 4070, 1800p), the Razer Blade 14 (Ryzen 9 7040HS, 16GB, RTX 4070, 1600p) and the Dell G15 (Core i7-13650HX, 16GB, RTX 4060, 1080p). We should note that in the case of the ROG Zephyrus G14, it features a 90W RTX 4070 that performs more like an RTX 4060 in our previous testing.

I first got my hands first got my feet wet with a bit of Grand Theft Auto V, now that the Cluckin’ Bell Farm Raid is now available with GTA Online. At 1800p resolution (Very High), I saw frame rates hover mostly around 50 fps, dipping down to around 30 with a lot of action on the screen.

A common theme that you’ll see with the Transcend 14 is that it underperforms in the gaming benchmarks compared to its peers. While we’d expect it to fall short of the RTX 4070-powered competition, even though some of those were using versions of the GPU with low TDPs. It also tracked well behind the G15, which also is equipped with an RTX 4060 GPU. We should note that the RTX 4060 used in the Omen Transcend 14 has a 65W maximum graphics power compared to 140W in the G15. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest settings), the Omen Transcend 14 was at the back of the pack at 1080p resolution with 73 frames per second (fps). The G15 put up 103 fps, while the Blade 14 took the lead with 114 fps. Running at native resolution (2880 x 1800), the Omen Transcend 14 dropped to 36 fps compared to 48 fps for the ROG Zephyrus G14 and 67 fps for the Blade 14.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Ray Tracing Ultra settings) is one of our newer gaming benchmarks, so we don’t have current results for the Blade 14 to compare. However, the Omen Transcend 14 again fell to the back of the pack, managing just 21 fps at 1080p compared to 34 fps and 39 fps, respectively, for the G15 and ROG Zephyrus G14. At 1800p, the ROG Zephyrus G14 and Omen Transcend 14 weren’t really playable (you'd have to turn down the settings), with each falling below 20 fps.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings) was more of the same, with the Omen Transcend 14 falling well off the pace of the G15 at 1080 resolution (62 fps versus 87 fps). Pushing the resolution to 1800p, the Omen Transcend 14 dropped to 40 fps, while the more potent RTX 4070 allowed for more headroom in the Blade 14 (68 fps) and ROG Zephyrus G14 (55 fps).

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) again saw the Omen Transcend 14 trampled by the competition. The G15 mustered 68 fps compared to 46 fps for the Omen Transcend 14 at 1080p, while the Blade 14 bested all challengers at 73 fps. Shifting to 1800p, the Omen Transcend 14 scored 24 fps compared to 33 fps for the ROG Zephyrus G14.

Finally, Borderlands 3 (Badass settings) saw the Omen Transcend 14 deliver 63 fps at 1080p compared to 85 fps for the G15. Bumping the resolution to 1800p booted the Omen Transcend 14 down to 34 fps versus 46 fps for the ROG Zephyrus G14.

We look to Metro Exodus for stress testing, during which the benchmark runs 15 consecutive times while we monitor clock speeds and component temperatures. The Core Ultra 7 155H performance cores averaged 2.59 GHz, the efficiency cores clocked in at 2.15 GHz, and the low-power cores hit 1.06 GHz. The chip package averaged 69.32 degrees Celsius (156.76 degrees Fahrenheit). The RTX 4060 ran at 1.76 GHz and measured 59.5 C (139.1 F).

Productivity Performance on the HP Omen Transcend 14

The Omen Transcend 14 might have underperformed in the gaming benchmarks, but its Core Ultra 7 155H, 16GB of LPDDR-7467 memory, and 1TB SSD fared slightly better in our productivity suite. For comparison, the ROG Zephyrus G14, Blade 14, and G15 use a Ryzen 9 8945HS, Ryzen 9 7940HS, and Core i7-13650HX, respectively. 

Starting with Geekbench 6, a popular synthetic CPU benchmark, the laptop turned in single-core and multi-core scores of 2,362 and 13,248, respectively. The single-core figure placed it last by a little bit, but its multi-core performance took first place.

Our file transfer test involves copying 25GB of files on the same drive, and here, the Omen Transcend 14 chalked up another win, hitting 1,729.51 MBps compared to 1,417 MBps for the second-place G15.

In our Handbrake test, we transcoded a 4K video to 1080p, and the Omen Transcend 14 completed the task in 4 minutes and 59 seconds. That put it in third place, ahead of the G15 (5:25) but well behind the first-place ROG Zephyrus G14 (4:16).

Display on the HP Omen Transcend 14

HP outfitted the Omen Transcend 14 with a 14-inch OLED panel with a resolution of 2880 x 1800 and a 120 Hz refresh rate.

Like most OLED panels today, the Omen Transcend 14 has a glossy finish. This coating makes colors pop but does have a habit of amplifying reflections, which can be an annoyance while gaming.

I watched the trailer for Despicable Me 4, which did a good job showcasing the display’s potential when it comes to representing colors. During one scene in a grocery store, the red of the shopping car burst with color, as did the turquoise of Lucy’s dress and her fire-orange hair. Another scene showcased a soda “grenade” being tossed into a vending machine, which exploded with a brilliant flash of pink.

The Omen Transcend 14's OLED panel covered 135 percent of the DCI-P3 gamut, while sRGB coverage reached 191 percent. Both figures put it well ahead of the second-place Blade 14, which also uses a 14-inch OLED panel. However, the tables were flipped regarding brightness, as the 392 nits that the Omen Transcend 14 achieved (tied with the ROG Zephyrus G14) was no match for the 465 nits of the Blade 14. However, brightness was never an issue in use, even when sitting on my back porch during a partly cloudy afternoon.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the HP Omen Transcend 14

HP uses what it calls a lattice-less RGB keyboard on the Omen Transcend 14. With this design, each key cap has a translucent border near the base and a solid-color top. This arrangement allows additional light to emanate from the keys, presenting a more intense glowing effect around each key. It is quite striking in person, and the four zones are customizable using the Omen Gaming Hub utility. At about $1,800 as tested, it would be nice to see per-key RGB, but at least HP didn't fall back to single-zone lighting as Asus did on the Zephyrus G14.

It's not the most comfortable keyboard I've ever used, and my typing speed also suffered. I usually type at around 80 to 90 words per minute on laptop keyboards, but according to keyhero.com, I was down to 73.45 words per minute with 92 percent accuracy.

Given the trim dimensions of the Omen Transcend 14, there’s obviously no room for a numberpad. However, HP had plenty of room to add a spacious touchpad. It measures 3.13 x 4.88 inches and accepts clicks from anywhere on the touchpad. With some top-hinged Windows touchpads, clicks don’t register as you move closer to the top hinge point – this wasn’t the case with the Omen Transcend 14.

Audio on the HP Omen Transcend 14

The Omen Transcend 14 features dual HyperX-tuned speakers. It also has a custom onboard 2.4GHz chip with ultra-low latency (ULL) for wirelessly connecting to the HyperX Cloud III wireless headset (included in the box). You don’t have to worry about losing a USB port to a wireless dongle when connecting to a supported wireless headset.

Despite the HyperX tuning, the speakers were just average concerning audio quality. I played Queen’s “One Vision” – a song of great importance to me due to my childhood love for the movie Iron Eagle, in which it was prominently featured. Freddy Mercury’s unmistakable vocals soared, but the lead guitar and clarity of the drums were a bit lacking. I also played a bit of Cyberpunk 2077 with the audio cranked, and the sound was good (voiceovers, gunfire, ambient noise), but it wasn’t an Earth-shattering experience.

Another thing of note is that you must crank the volume quite a bit to overpower the system fans, which whir loudly when the CPU and GPU are going at full tilt.

Upgradeability of the HP Omen Transcend 14

There are only four screws to remove on the bottom of the Omen Transcend 14. With the screws removed, it was easy to stick a fingernail in the corner to pry off the bottom panel.

Once removed, you have full access to the interior. However, the only component that can be upgraded is the M.2 SSD. The RAM is integrated into the motherboard, so that’s a no-go on the upgrade front.

Battery Life on the HP Omen Transcend 14

The Omen Transcend 14 uses a 71 Whr battery to provide juice for the Core Ultra 7 155H and the GeForce RTX 4060. Unfortunately, battery life was last place in this grouping of laptops. Our battery life test involves web browsing, light graphics work and video streaming while connected to Wi-Fi with display brightness set to 150 nits.

It lasted for 5 hours and 10 minutes, putting it 40 minutes behind the third-place G15. The first-place Blade 14’s endurance was three hours longer.

Heat on the HP Omen Transcend 14

We measured the surface temperature of the laptop at various locations during the test. The coolest spot was the touchpad, which registered 27.11 C (80.8 F). Measurements taken between the G and H keys and on the underside of the chassis resulted in the same 34.78 C (94.6 F). The hottest part of the laptop was the bottom center, which hit 36.38 C (97.5 F).

The fans were very audible during our Metro Exodus stress test. However, the fans were not audible during everyday tasks in Windows (using a word processor, browsing the web, etc.).

Webcam on the HP Omen Transcend 14

The Omen Transcend 14 uses a 1080p webcam and an IR sensor to unlock the laptop using your face. There is no physical privacy shutter for the camera or a keyboard shortcut/hotkey to deactivate it quickly.

The webcam is leaps and bounds beyond the 720p webcams of yore, but in today’s highly competitive field of laptops, it is simply average. There is noticeable noise in the image, even with sufficient lighting in the room. Colors were also skewed warmer than they should. The camera also had trouble picking up fine details like the hair on my mustache and the stubble on my face.

It meets the bare minimum requirement if you just need a basic camera to hop on Zoom or Google Meet.

Software and Warranty on the HP Omen Transcend 14

HP throws in a lot when it comes to added software bloat. The most important piece of third-party software included is HP Omen Gaming Hub. It’s here where you’ll find currently-installed games, and even purchase games if you wish. There’s also GeForce Now integration for the game-streaming crowd. The software utility includes system-specific information like system vitals, access to performance and power profiles, and the ability to adjust basic RGB lighting for the keyboard. You can optionally install the HP Omen Light Studio for more advanced color options and light patterns.

Other HP-specific apps that come preinstalled include HP PC Hardware Diagnostics, HP Documentation, HP Smart, HP Privacy Settings, myHP, HP Support Assistant, and HP System Event Utility. But we’re not done; there’s also the HyperX Ingenuity app for syncing HyperX-branded devices. Although Windows Defender is probably sufficient for most people, HP installs a trial of McAfee by default.

The usual Windows 11 bloat is also there, like shortcuts to Adobe apps, Spotify, and Dropbox. You’ll want to spend a few minutes after the first boot removing many of these unnecessary bits.

HP Omen Transcend 14 Configurations

There are five baseline configurations for the Omen Transcend 14, starting with a $1,499 SKU only available directly from HP. It features the Core Ultra 7 155H, 16GB of RAM, a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display, 512GB SSD, GeForce RTX 4050 and Intel Wi-Fi 6E. 

However, our review unit had the same display, CPU and RAM allotment but upped the SSD, GPU, and wireless card to 1TB, RTX 4060, and Intel Wi-Fi 7, respectively, for $1,809.99. You also get the HyperX Cloud III wireless headset in the box, which is a nice bonus.

The range-topping SKU costs a hefty $2,049.99, and comes with a Core Ultra 9 185H with 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD an RTX 4070 and Intel Wi-Fi 7.

Bottom Line

The HP Omen Transcend 14 was a mixed bag in our tests. It was at the back of the pack for most gaming tests with a 65W RTX 4060. The Dell G15 is much thicker, but its higher power RTX 4060 outperformed. Productivity performance was more promising, but the laptop was again disappointing with its last-place battery endurance.

The $1,809.99 laptop has its pluses, including an attractive aluminum chassis, an RGB keyboard, support for the nascent Wi-Fi 7 standard, and a bundled HyperX Cloud III wireless headset. However, at the around $2,000 price point, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a compelling alternative with a similar footprint, though it uses a low-power RTX 4070 to fit in its thin chassis. 

HP offers a config with a Core Ultra 9 185H, 32GB of RAM, and an RTX 4070 for $1,999 (although you give up Wi-Fi 7 in favor of Wi-Fi 6E). That option could allay our gaming performance concerns and would be our preferred configuration. The one we tested has the capacity for gaming, but you'll have to turn down some settings and value portability and sleekness over all else.

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HP has a new design in its gaming lineup. The 16-inch Omen Transcend ($1,249.99 to start, $2,539.99 as tested) is the upper crust of HP’s gaming portfolio. It impresses like a high-end model should, with a sleek metal chassis, a per-key RGB keyboard, and Thunderbolt 4. Its optional mini-LED screen is its real selling point, though, and to say it exceeded our expectations is an understatement. We’ve never seen brightness and color like it delivers.

Mini-LED doesn’t come cheap, though, since it’s only available with the highest-end configurations, and if you’re not willing to spend north of $2,000, slightly thicker but better-performing laptops can be had for less.

Design of the HP Omen Transcend 16

HP’s Omen gaming laptops sit above its more budget-friendly Victus machines. The Omen Transcend I’m reviewing is closely related to the Omen 16 but is a fundamentally different machine, offering a thinner chassis and a taller 16:10 screen. The thinness does cost the Omen Transcend some performance, as you’ll see later.

Gaming laptops tend to be status symbols, but the Omen Transcend doesn’t try too hard to show off. It has no external lighting beyond its keyboard and the Omen branding is limited to subtle lettering on the lid. A cyber-like “16” embellished on the right palm rest seems out of place, though, especially since this is the Omen Transcend, not the Omen 16 (which has the same lettering).

I find the Omen Transcend’s semi-professional look refreshing next to more garish gaming laptops, of which there’s no shortage. This is a laptop you could use in an office environment without attracting attention. HP offers the Omen Transcend in a contrasty ceramic white, though for some reason it can’t be ordered with the GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card or the mini-LED display as of this writing.

The Omen Transcend’s magnesium-aluminum chassis feels strong and of high quality – it’s way more upscale than plastic. All of its edges are smoothly rounded off and the gaps between parts are minimal. I saw some flex in the palm rest when I pressed on it, but that’s not unusual for a laptop this size. Design-wise, the only clunky aspect is the thick bezel under the display.

The Omen Transcend is 14.04 x 10.59 x 0.78 inches and 4.62 pounds, making it noticeably thinner and almost 0.8 pounds lighter than the Omen 16 (14.53 x 10.21 x 0.93 inches, 5.4 pounds). The Asus ROG Strix G16 (13.94 x 10.39 x 0.89 inches) is also heavier, at 5.51 pounds, as is the Razer Blade 16 (13.98 x 9.61 x 0.87 inches, 5.4 pounds).

The Omen Transcend’s port selection is identical to the Omen 16. Starting on the left is a pair of Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports and a 3.5 mm headphone/microphone jack.

The right edge has only one 5 Gbps USB Type-A port; it supports device charging when the laptop is powered off.

There are also rear ports including Ethernet, an HDMI 2.1 video output and a 5 Gbps USB-A. The barrel-style power connector is also here.

HP Omen Transcend 16 Specifications

Gaming and Graphics on the HP Omen Transcend

The Omen Transcend reviewed here has an Intel Core i9-13900HX processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 8GB graphics card, 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM (2x 16GB), and a 2TB Gen 4 SSD. This maxed-out configuration is considerably more capable than the base model. (See the Configurations section below.)

I saw between 60 and 70 frames per second (fps) playing Cyberpunk 2077 at 2560 x 1600 with almost all settings turned to their highest. This doesn’t come close to utilizing the 240 Hz refresh rate, but the action still appeared smooth. Lowering the detail settings, especially ray tracing, will significantly boost performance.

In our gaming tests, I compared the Omen Transcend to the Asus ROG Strix G16 (Core i9-13980HX, 140W RTX 4070), HP’s Omen 16 (Core i7-13700HX, 145W RTX 4080) and the Razer Blade 16 (Core i9-13950HX, 115W RTX 4070).

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Omen Transcend trailed the group with 104 fps at FHD; even the Blade 16 was faster (113 fps) despite using a lower wattage RTX 4070. Things looked even worse for the Omen Transcend at 2560 x 1600  — but note that it has the highest native screen resolution in this group. The Omen 16 has the next highest (2560 x 1440) while the Asus and Razer are just 1920 x 1200. At native resolutions, the Transcend is pushing more pixels.

The Omen Transcend looked better in Grand Theft Auto V (at very high settings), topping the ROG Strix G16 and the Blade 16 with 97 fps at FHD. It dipped to 60 fps at 1600p.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) is notoriously difficult to run – none of these laptops broke 100 fps at FHD – though the Omen Transcend’s 70 fps was again in line with the RTX 4070 machines. (That is, all but the Omen 16, which uses an RTX 4080.) Its 41 fps at 1600p wasn’t very playable.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings) saw the Omen Transcend in a near tie with the others, producing 96 fps at FHD. Its 1600p screen dragged down its performance by about 35% to just 63 fps. By contrast, the Omen 16’s numbers dipped only about 15% from FHD to 1440p (98 to 83 fps), but it uses a stronger RTX 4080 and its native screen resolution is slightly lower.

In our last test, Borderlands 3 (“Badass” settings), the Omen Transcend was the only laptop that didn’t clear triple-digit fps at FHD, with 90 fps. It dropped to 56 fps at 1600p.

Though the Omen Transcend was a touch off the overall pace of the others, it’s important to remember this laptop is noticeably lighter and thinner than they are.

We ran the Metro Exodus benchmark at RTX settings 15 times sequentially, which simulates half an hour of gaming, to thermally stress the Omen Transcend. It averaged 74.1 fps across all runs, usually not deviating more than 1-2 fps between runs. The average package temperature of the Core i9-13900X was 76.8 degrees Celsius; its P-cores averaged 3.05 GHz and its E-cores averaged 2.6 GHz. The RTX 4070’s average temperature was 70.7 degrees and its boost clock averaged 1,989.6 MHz.

Productivity Performance on the HP Omen Transcend 16

The Omen Transcend we’re testing has an Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB Gen 4 SSD. It’s a strong performer as we’ve come to expect from Core HX-based laptops, with plenty of performance for gaming and just about anything else you’d want to do on a laptop.

Starting with Geekbench 6, a synthetic performance test, the Omen Transcend had the highest single-core score (2,809 points) of the group. The Razer’s Core i9-13950HX proved stronger in multi-core, with 17,065 points versus the Omen Transcend’s 15,643 points, but it’s also more expensive.

Our 25GB file transfer test saw the Omen Transcend at the top of the charts at 2,176.84 MBps, followed by the Omen 16’s 1,989.7 MBps. The last-place Asus tallied 1,238.04 MBps.

The Omen Transcend also led the pack in our Handbrake video transcoding test, taking 3 minutes and 45 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. The Razer was in a distant second place at 4:08 and the Asus picked up last with 5:05.

Display on the HP Omen Transcend 16

Screen quality is where the Omen Transcend sets itself apart from most other gaming laptops. The model I’m reviewing has the priciest 240 Hz, 2560 x 1600, mini-LED panel, which HP rates for an astounding 1180 nits of brightness. The other available screens (there are two, one 1920 x 1200 / 165 Hz and the other 2560 x 1600 / 240 Hz) are rated for 400 nits, which would normally be considered plenty of brightness. Only quadrants of the mini-LED screen can be 1180 nits at a time, not the entire screen, but it nonetheless still proved to be far brighter than the average panel.

The mini-LED screen is indeed a strong selling point for this laptop. Its colors, brightness, and contrast are so engaging that I found myself trying more content than I normally do to test laptops. Nighttime recordings of live music shows on YouTube seemed more true to life since the stage appeared so bright and lighting effects danced off the screen. I was also borderline entranced playing Cyberpunk 2077; Night City’s iconic neon lights and storefronts were just as vibrant as they seem walking through a city after dark. Starting a firefight in a dark alley with flame-inducing weapons was especially gratifying. (Come to think of it, I should have replayed Doom 3 and Dead Space.)

That long bar at the top is the amazing 810 nits produced by the Omen Transcend at full-screen SDR; even the Razer Blade 16, which is also mini-LED, wasn’t anywhere close. At HDR, we found that with 10% of the screen white, it reached 1,210 nits.The Omen Transcend also far surpassed the others in color gamut range, covering 173% of sRGB and 123% of DCI-P3. The Razer was the next closest, respectively covering 132% and 93.7%.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the HP Omen Transcend 16

Unlike the Omen 16, the Omen Transcend comes standard with a per-key RGB backlit keyboard. The layout is spacious – even the top function row is taller than the half-height keys I’m used to seeing. HP didn’t try to squeeze in a number pad but wisely filled that area with full-size navigation keys, including a proper inverted-T arrow key cluster. Top row shortcut keys open the Omen Command Center and the calculator. The power button is also a keyboard key in the top row.

The keyboard backlighting isn’t piercingly bright like it is on the Razer Blade 16 but it’s more than bright enough to be visible during the daytime. The WASD keycaps are translucent so they stand out.

The Omen Command Center (discussed more later) provides basic backlighting configurations; there are preconfigured effects and you can create your own color schemes, though there are no layered effects. The Razer Blade 16 is more advanced in this regard. Profiles are available to save your settings.

Keyboard feel is just average, with flat feedback and more limited key travel than I expected. None of that hurt my accuracy, though; I breezed through Monkeytype at 110 words per minute with 99% accuracy.

The Omen Transcend’s touchpad is large and properly proportioned for the 16:10 screen. My fingers effortlessly glided across its matte surface with good accuracy. The physical clicks make a subdued sound; I wished the travel to make a physical click was slightly shorter, but I struggle to complain about this pad.

Audio on the HP Omen Transcend 16

The Omen Transcend has two side-firing speakers that sound clear but lack bass. The vocals in Halsey’s “Without Me” exemplified the clarity but I missed the song’s all-important bassline. Games fared better; gunfights in Cyberpunk 2077 were loud and I got the sense of bullets whizzing to my left or right, though the lack of bass meant I didn’t appreciate the impact of grenades or large projectiles.

Strangely, I didn’t see an app included on the Omen Transcend to control EQ or audio presets.

Upgradeability of the HP Omen Transcend 16

The Omen Transcend’s RAM, SSD, and battery are user serviceable. Its bottom panel is held on by six equal-length Phillips screws; once removed, you’ll need a plastic pry tool to get between the chassis edges and pop the clips free. I started on one of the front corners and moved down the edges until the whole panel came free.

The two DDR5 SODIMM slots are in the middle, the M.2 2280 SSD slot is to the right, and the M.2 2230 wireless card slot is left. The battery spans the top part of the chassis.

It’s good to not see the wireless card soldered down as has become a common practice on thinner laptops. (The RAM is often soldered, too.) If I must nitpick, it would have been nice to have another M.2 2280 slot like the Omen 16 offers.

Battery Life on the HP Omen Transcend 16

The Omen Transcend ran for 4 hours and 51 minutes in our battery rundown, which involves web browsing, video streaming, and OpenGL graphics tests. It outlasted the Omen 16 by a good amount (4 hours and 8 minutes) and was just shy of the Razer’s 5 hours and 6 minutes, but it couldn’t compete with the astounding 8 hours and 49 minutes from the ROG Strix G16.

Heat on the HP Omen Transcend 16

We measure laptop surface temperatures while running the Metro Exodus stress test. I saw the Omen Transcend reach 104.9 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 degrees Celsius) between the G and H keys and 78.4 F (25.8 C) on the touchpad. The highest temperature I saw on the surface of the laptop was 110 F (43.3 C) above the keyboard, but you wouldn’t normally put your hands there. Meanwhile, the highest temperature on the laptop’s underside was 120.2 F (49 C). Overall, the Omen Transcend runs relatively cool for a gaming laptop. The fan noise is noticeable while gaming but doesn’t have annoying whine or motor noise.

Webcam on the HP Omen Transcend 16

The Omen Transcend has an FHD webcam with a sliding privacy shutter over its lens. Its images are sharper than the usual 720p variety and it seemed to expose my face properly both outdoors and indoors. The webcam also supports infrared (IR) for Windows Hello facial recognition support.

My biggest issue with the Omen Transcend’s webcam, though, has nothing to do with its picture quality, but the fact I had to tilt the display nearly vertical (45 degrees from closed) for it to capture my face, otherwise it only saw the top of my head. This was due to me not being the tallest person and the fact this laptop has a tall screen with an extra-thick bottom bezel, so the webcam sits up relatively high next to the average laptop. I’d probably invest in one of the best webcams for this reason.

Software and Warranty on the HP Omen Transcend 16

HP loads the Omen Transcend with several unwanted apps, including a McAfee security software trial and a Dropbox promotion. They don’t take too long to remove, but I don't think they belong on a premium laptop.

Omen Gaming Hub is the most important included app. Navigation is confusing at first; to control the Omen laptop, you need to click its icon on the main screen. You’ll then be greeted with sections to control the keyboard backlighting, performance, and graphics. On the Performance tab, you can choose from eco, balanced, and performance modes, with balanced being the default (and the one we used for all testing). Eco mode restricts fan noise at the expense of performance while Performance mode does the opposite.

To test the performance modes, I informally ran the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark at 2560 x 1600 with the Highest preset. The 115 fps I saw in Balanced mode increased to 126 fps in Performance mode, so it does help, but the significant increase in fan noise wasn’t worth it to me.

The graphics tab lets you disable Nvidia Optimus graphics-switching if you don’t want to deal with input lag, but I didn’t notice any input lag in the games I played. (Esports players might, though.) Switching graphics requires a restart.

The Omen Transcend has many, many HP-branded apps installed, and I can’t help but think they could be consolidated. The list includes HP Documentation, HP PC Hardware Diagnostics Windows, HP Privacy Settings, HP QuickDrop (which lets you move files and photos between your laptop and phone), HP Smart, HP Support Assistant, and HP System Event Utility.

The Omen Transcend has a standard one-year warranty.

HP Omen Transcend Configurations 16

We tested the Omen Transcend in its most powerful configuration, with a Core i9-13900HX processor, an 8GB GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD, for $2,539.99 on sale from $3,149 at the time of this review. This price notably included a HyperX Cloud II Core Wireless gaming headset (retail $119.99).

The base model is $1,249.99 ($450 off from $1,699.99) and includes a Core i7-13700HX, a 6GB RTX 4050, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. That’s pricey for an RTX 4050 laptop, but the Omen Transcend has numerous high-end features that a budget model wouldn’t have, such as a metal chassis and a per-key RGB keyboard.

The RTX 4060 is offered on mid-tier models and is the fastest graphics card you can get if you want the ceramic white color. The Omen Transcend can only be ordered in black if it’s equipped with the Core i9 processor, RTX 4070, or mini-LED screen. Getting a higher-end GPU than the RTX 4070 means stepping up to the heavier Omen 16.

Bottom Line

The Omen Transcend is a standout laptop from HP, one of the few offering a mini-LED screen. It’s very well made and has all the hallmark features of a high-end gaming laptop.

The mini-LED screen is doubtlessly this laptop’s calling card, with a picture so good that you won’t be able to tear yourself away from it. Nonetheless, we can’t help but feel the 2560 x 1600 resolution is a touch high for the RTX 4070 GPU in some games, so you might find yourself tweaking some visual-quality settings.

That brings us to the alternatives. Unless mini-LED is a must-have, the Asus ROG Strix G16 delivers similar performance and much better battery life in an admittedly thicker (but still well-built) chassis for over $500 less. But if you are going mini-LED, the Omen Transcend is a superior choice than the Razer Blade 16, which is very pricey and doesn’t have as vibrant of a screen anyway. Overall, we’re impressed by the Omen Transcend and it’s the one to get if a stunning screen tops your list.

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HP is adding a new gaming laptop to its Omen lineup and updating some of its existing mainstays. The company today announced the Omen Transcend 16, designed to be thin and light, with the first-ever mini LED screen on an Omen.

HP is pushing the Transcend as a sort of hybrid machine, being used for gaming, but also for a number of other creative endeavors (though really, this is the case for just about any system with a discrete GPU). But it's designed to be light and portable, coming in under 2.1 kg (4.6 pounds) thanks to a magnesium frame. HP claims the 97 WHr battery will last 11 hours on a charge (we'll have to test that), though there's also a 70 Whr option.

The Transcend 16 goes up to Intel's 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (a Core i7 option will be available, as well as RTX 4050 and 4060 graphics cards). The system has a TGP up to 130 W, with Omen Dynamic Power

HP's 16-inch mini LED display is 2560 x 1600 with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 240 Hz refresh rate. There are also standard displays, one at the same resolution and speed, and one at 1920 x 1200 at 165 Hz. It also goes up to 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD.

The Omen Transcend 16 is set to launch "early this Spring" starting at $1,669.99.

Beyond the new Transcend laptop, HP is refreshing its Omen 16 and budget Victus 16. The new Omen 16 will go up to an Intel Core i9-13900HX and the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, as well as 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and a 2TB PCIE SSD. It will start at $1,299.99 when it launches this spring.

The Omen will have metal and plastic versions, with the metal version getting a few fancier specs, like the highest-end QHD 240 Hz monitor with G-Sync support.

The Victus 16 will go up to an Intel Core i7-13700HX or AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU, as well as up to an RTX 4070 GPU. For the first time, HP is adding the Omen's "Tempest" cooler to the Victus, and the system will start at $1,049.99 when it launches this spring. It will start with a 60 Hz FHD display and go up to a QHD 240 Hz screen.

HP is also announcing a slew of new gaming monitors, including the flagship Omen 27k — HP's first Omen monitor with a KVM switch to control multiple computers at once.

Transcend displayed its first NVMe SSD at Embedded World in Germany last week. This week, the company officially announced the new NTE850 M.2 SSD with Micron 3D MLC paired with the Silicon Motion, Inc. SM2260 dual-core controller.

Historically this combination of controller and NAND flash has been a disappointment, even with 256GB MLC. Crucial was the first to announce a similar product just over a year ago, but it canceled the Ballistix (By Micron) TX3 just days before its release. At the time, all of the data writes were fed to the SLC buffer first regardless of whether or not space was available. The data would then fold into the MLC or TLC area. We saw this firsthand with the inconsistent performance of the Intel SSD 600p products.

The Transcend MTE850 is different from other products we've tested with the Silicon Motion, Inc. SM2260 controller. We spoke with SMI and learned this is the first product to ship with the a new Direct-To-MLC write system that's similar to the Direct-To-Die write feature found on some Toshiba and Phison controllers. The feature increases sustained sequential write speeds while also improving performance consistency. At this time it's an undocumented feature but one that will positively impact the user experience.

We talked extensively about the feature in our OCZ Trion 150 Review in which we compared the drive to the Trion 100 without the feature. We observed a 50% sequential write performance increase over the older model just by enabling the new write algorithm. Bypassing the SLC portion of the NAND when full does have one small negative impact: the wear on the NAND increases. This shouldn't impact Micron's 156GB 3D MLC as much as it does planar TLC found in the OCZ Trion series.

Transcend didn't publish too many details in the press release but we do know the MTE850 supports up to 2,500 MBps sequential read and 1,100 MBps sequential write speeds. The series also features a 3-year warranty that is limited by the amount of data written to the flash. The endurance will change between the three capacity sizes that range from 128GB to 512GB.

Updated

Transcend sent over some additional details. We've updated the chart with pricing and capacity specific performance details.

At this time we don't have any pricing details, but the SM2260 paired with MLC flash has fallen in the mainstream NVMe pricing category with similar products from other companies. We expect the 512GB drive to sell for between $225 and $250 but have yet to confirm a street price. 

Transcend has quietly built up a solid foundation of SSD products with value-add features users appreciate. Many of the SSDs in the current line cost less than similar configured products from other manufacturers. Transcend also includes SSD Scope, a software tool used to check the status of the SSD, clone existing products and update firmware. The software also includes other features that we'll detail in an upcoming review of the MTE850.

Specifications, Pricing, Warranty And Accessories

Now that Crucial has discontinued the BX100 and replaced it with a TLC-based disaster, other entry- and mid-level SSDs have an opportunity to shine. Transcend's SSD370S uses roughly the same configuration as the BX100 and Mushkin Reactor—two products that offer excellent value at the 512GB and 1TB capacity points.

This is the second SSD370 we've tested. The first, a 256GB implementation, shipped to us in a plastic case with undesirable SpecTek flash (read the Transcend SSD370 Review). After discussing that drive's issues with Transcend, we learned that the aluminum SSD370S differs from the base SSD370 in more ways than its product page indicates. Transcend tells us that its SSD370S employs Micron flash exclusively, addressing our biggest concern with the SSD370.

As a result, we expected our SSD370S to utilize genuine Micron 16nm synchronous MLC, but that's not what we found when we opened the SSD up. Transcend is either packaging flash, or purchasing NAND at the wafer level and having it binned and packaged. There is no way for us to tell what type of flash the SSD370S actually uses, other than to take Transcend's word that this model ships with the Micron stuff it claims.

Specifications

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Transcend released its SSD370S in capacities ranging from 32GB to 1TB. The two largest models offer the best value and serve up the highest performance. Transcend isn't explicit about each capacity's performance, but rather conveys specifications with an "up to" ceiling.

The SSD370S uses a rebadged Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller paired with Samsung DDR3 and Micron 16nm MLC synchronous flash. According to Transcend, sequential read performance tops out at 560 MB/s and sequential writes peak at 460 MB/s. Random reads and writes are both rated at 75,000 IOPS. That number is higher than what Mushkin specifies its Reactor for, but lower than Crucial's no-longer-made BX100.

Pricing, Warranty And Accessories

We found the SSD370S 512GB for as low as $176 at B&H Photo and Amazon. Newegg also has it in stock, but at a higher price of $206. Transcend covers the SSD370S with a three-year warranty.

The drive ships with a desktop adapter bracket, mounting screws, a paper manual, an installation guide and a few advertisements for Transcend's other products. This model also works with Transcend's SSD Scope software for easy access to secure erase, viewable wear indicators and other tools.

A Closer Look

The SSD370S ships in a retail-friendly package that lists performance specifications and limited warranty terms. It's rare to get a desktop adapter these days, but we don't mind the value-add.

Everything about the drive's physical dimensions is standard. Its 2.5-inch form factor features a 7mm z-height, so it fits in newer notebooks that require the slim design. You can only get the SSD370S in a silver-painted aluminum enclosure adorned with a few logos.

Inside the SSD, we find Transcend's TS6500 controller, a rebadged Silicon Motion SM2246EN with custom firmware. This is a low-power, four-channel processor that supports DevSlp. Transcend pairs its controller with Samsung DRAM and Micron 16nm MLC flash.

Four-Corner Testing

Comparison Products

To read about our storage tests in-depth, please check out How We Test HDDs And SSDs. Four-corner testing is covered on page six of our How We Test guide.

Sequential Read

We're using entry-level and mid-range drives to compare against the SSD370S. This segment has seen a lot of activity lately with the addition of Crucial's BX200, Adata's SP550 and OCZ's Trion 100. All three SSDs join the Samsung 850 EVO as three-bit-per-cell-based contenders.

None of the drives in our chart have any problem reading back data sequentially. With deep command queues and large blocks, almost all of them hit the upper limits of SATA 6Gb/s. Transcend's SSD370S 512GB does appear at the bottom of the list in comparisons of two 128KB reads from the drives simultaneously.

Sequential Write

Sequential writes are more problematic, as three TLC-based drives struggle with inconsistent performance. They all rely heavily on small emulated SLC layers to mask the native behavior of TLC NAND. But those small caches only last for a few seconds before they're exhausted, exposing transfer rates averaging between 70 and 100 MB/s at this capacity point. Samsung's 850 EVO uses the same caching mechanism (branded TurboWrite), but its native TLC write performance is much higher.

The SSD370S falls in line with the other two SM2246EN-based drives. Its sequential write performance is consistent across the queue depth range.

Random Read

The SSD370S lands in the middle of the group in our 4KB random read test. At a queue depth of one, this drive ranks third on our list of low-cost SSDs, just behind the class-leading 850 EVO and recently-discontinued BX100.

Transcend's SSD also scales well through the queue depth range, peaking at just over 71,000 random read IOPS. Most enthusiasts don't exceed a queue depth of four though, even under heavy workloads.

Random Write

It's easier to encounter deep queues when you're working with random writes. From multi-tasking to installing software and performing other common tasks, it's certainly possible to feel the difference between these SSDs. Higher random write performance is also closely associated with lower latency between writes.

The three Silicon Motion-controlled drives again turn in nearly identical performance through the queue depth range. Their numbers far exceed the three TLC-based SSDs armed with Micron and Toshiba flash, but they all fail to match Samsung's 850 EVO. 

Mixed Workload And Steady State

80 Percent Sequential Mixed Workload

Our mixed workload testing is described in detail here, and our steady state tests are described here.

Mixed workloads give us a better measuring stick for determining real-world client SSD performance. After all, it's rare to read or write exclusively on a drive with an operating system installed on it, since so much activity happens in the background that you never see.

In previous tests, the SSD370S and two other SM2246EN-based SSDs clumped together on the charts with very little separation. Now we do see some white space between them as Transcend's SSD370S trails the BX100 and Reactor.

80 Percent Random Mixed Workload

Our random mix also differentiates the SM2246EN-powered drives. This time, the Reactor and SSD370S trail Crucial's BX100. All of the SSDs trail the 850 EVO though (a common theme in every mid-range review these days). 

Sequential Steady State

SATA is a half-duplex interface; it can't read and write at the same time. Some drives have problems queuing data, so when commands are stacked in a mixed workloads, performance is affected, resulting in the curve with high reads and writes like you see here. Most of the TLC-based drives give this test a new purpose. In it, we're able to identify native TLC write speed using 128KB blocks.

Again, the SSD370S trails both of the other SM2246EN-based drives. Interestingly, in the workstation (70 percent read) and desktop (80 percent read) workloads, some of the TLC drives actually perform a little better.

Random Write Steady State

We don't use the random 4KB steady state test to evaluate this enterprise-oriented workload condition. After all, these drives weren't meant for that application. Rather, we run it as a means of gauging performance consistency, and to identify the drives that may work well in desktop RAID. We've yet to find a value-class SSD that performs exceptionally well consistently once it's in steady state. The Transcend SSD370S is no exception.

Real-World Software Performance

PCMark 8 Real-World Software Performance

For details on our real-world software performance testing, please click here.

Transcend's SSD370S consistently appears toward the bottom of our charts. We expected it to deliver better performance than what we observed in our real-world software workload. At the very least, we thought it'd outmaneuver Adata's 480GB SP550, a TLC-based drive, in every test. However, the SP550 out-muscles the SSD370S in all but one benchmark.

Looking at the combined throughput results, Transcend's SSD370S barely manages to squeak past the SP550, but only because it performs better in the Photoshop-heavy test where sequential writes influence the outcome disproportionately.

PCMark 8 Advanced Workload Performance

To learn how we test advanced workload performance, please click here.

The same workloads used in the previous section are also used for our advanced workloads, where we see how heavy writes rob you of throughput. When the drives are given time to recover (via five-minute pauses between each set of tests), performance improves. Some of the drives recover faster than others. In this price range, we're only really worried about recovery performance, since it best represents the loads we'd expect value-oriented builders to apply.

The SSD370S performs well against the other drives in its class, aside from the segment's leader, of course, Samsung's 850 EVO.

Total Access Time

Again, we really want to focus on the recovery phase. I consider this to be the review's most important test because I spend a lot of time on my PC and require fast access times while switching among applications. The line chart really quantifies what you'll perceive as a fast storage subsystem.

Notebook Battery Life

SSDs utilize a number of different power states, depending on what they're doing. After a write to the drive is completed, the controller shuffles data around to other cells. This operation can actually use more power than the original write transaction.

We measure power consumption over time, rather than taking a snapshot that'd yield unreliable results.

Firmware plays heavily into our power numbers. With the right optimizations, battery life can be extended by a large margin. This is illustrated by Crucial's BX100 and Transcend's SSD370S, which use the same controller and 16nm flash. Their DRAM caches are different, but we doubt that's the source of what we see in our chart. 

Conclusion

As more products come to market with three-bit-per-cell NAND, drives like Transcend's SSD370S with MLC become increasingly attractive. Micron, SK hynix and Toshiba all failed to make planar TLC as fast as Samsung's existing V-NAND flash. And so very low-cost drives will continue to enter the market, bringing down the average selling price of all SSDs. However, the quality and user experience will slide alongside them.

Micron hasn't said too much about dialing back the MLC flash sold on the spot market or by contract, but for the last several years, the company has cut back production. At this time, Toshiba's MLC is more expensive than Micron's. SK hynix is finally sharing flash with some companies, and when its new fabs are finished, we'll see more from that company. What we don't know is how the increased emphasis on shipping TLC will affect MLC output. I suspect that third-party companies without NAND manufacturing capabilities, such as Transcend, will have a problem securing MLC for final assembly. 

At this point, we can only really recommend grabbing an MLC-based SSD while you can. That's not to say Transcend's SSD370S is the drive to buy, though. Prior to writing this review, I dug into the state of 512GB-class pricing and found that this isn't the best deal at its $176 price point. It's also not the fastest option out there. Samsung's 850 EVO is priced lower, and the SanDisk Extreme Pro was recently discounted to an even lower price than the 850 EVO. Compared to those SSDs, Transcend's 512GB SSD370S just isn't a viable option.

Prices will certainly change over time, and that may be when the SSD370S 512GB emerges as a better value. As MLC slowly phases out, we'll see more TLC-based drives with their own shortcomings. We've already seen this from the BX200, which replaced Crucial's BX100. If Transcend can keep this model around as the competition transitions away, the SSD370S will be worth keeping an eye on. 

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Introduction

Transcend makes solid-state drives (SSDs) for both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and channel customers. The SSD370 overlaps both groups and is the company's premium client SSD product.

The Transcend SSD370 appeared on my radar when I noticed the 512GB model selling for nearly the same price as Mushkin's Reactor SSD. The Reactor was our choice for the best value product in the 1TB capacity size, selling for significantly less than Samsung's 850 EVO until this month. We reached out to Transcend to get a few of the capacity sizes for testing, and the company came through.

The Transcend SSD370 is an odd product that ships in either a black plastic case or a brushed-aluminum case. Transcend doesn't specifically guarantee the flash used in the drive. We will talk about that issue later on in the review. Going into the review, we should focus mainly on the early facts: This is a low-cost SSD that sells with a decent accessory package and is widely available.

Technical Specifications

Transcend released the SSD370 in six capacity sizes that range from 32GB to 1TB. The two smallest sizes were left off the chart. They are intended for other roles, such as digital signage. We were surprised to see Transcend use the same model number for the smallest-capacity products.

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Transcend didn't make it easy to find all of the product specifications. We tracked down a few documents and pieced together the above information. If you research the SSD370 model, you will quickly notice two different designs. Transcend made the SSD370 that we're testing today with a plastic case, but the company also offers a SSD370 model with an aluminum case. To spot the aluminum model while you're shopping, you need to look for the specific model number — TS512GSSD370 refers to the 512GB model we're testing today. Add an "S" on the end — TS512GSSD37S — and you have the silver brushed-aluminum model.

Controlling the drive is a Transcend TS6500 processor based on Silicon Motion's SM2246EN controller. Transcend added DEVSLP, a feature not always found on SSDs using the SM2246EN.

The NAND flash used in it is not as cut and dry. All but one unit shipped for review previously used genuine Micron Grade A flash. One reviewer in Russia received a drive with SpecTek flash, as we did on our 512GB sample. The SpecTek -AL flash is the Micron subsidiary's best NAND flash part, but it's not considered the same 20-nm 128-gigabit Tier 1 Grade A flash that Micron sells to customers or uses in-house. SpecTek sells Micron flash that often doesn't pass full performance or quality-control tests. At one time, OCZ Technology (prior to the Toshiba acquisition) shipped products with SpecTek flash, and other SSD vendors spoke up:

"When we took the cover off of this third, direct from OCZ SSD, we found a 'S' stamped over Micron logo on all the flash devices (see the image to the left). This indicates the device is 'off spec' product because it failed some parameter of Micron's full performance and/or quality specification testing. 'Off spec' memory is typically used in low-level applications such as toys, offering considerable cost savings over Tier 1 level to an SSD manufacturer." - Grant Dahlke, formally of Other World Computing (OWC)

The SpecTek 20-nm 128-gigabit part number we found in our SSD370 512GB sample is SpecTek's highest-grade offering. We still don't like seeing this flash used in products like SSDs where reliability trumps low cost. . Most users will not have an issue with it, but we were told by engineers in the industry that any part using this flash will have higher return merchandise authorization (RMA) rates than parts using Tier 1 Grade A flash. One SSD retailer we spoke with noted an increase in RMAs on products using less than Grade A flash. The difference is 1 in 300 products returned with Tier 1 Grade A flash, compared with 9 in 300 products returned using the lower-grade flash.

Our 256GB SSD370 sample did ship with genuine Micron 20-nm MLC flash. Given that nearly all of the reviewers have received Micron flash but products shipping in the wild are mixed, we can't say what flash you may receive in your retail product. Transcend never discloses which type of flash is guaranteed. This topic has come up with other low-cost SSDs from other manufactures in years past. The backlash from end users has never been positive, even when those users never experienced a single problem. 

Pricing, Warranty and Accessories

Using Google Shopping, we managed to find all six capacity sizes at B&H Photo Video online. The company even lists the -S brushed-silver-aluminum parts for the same price as the plastic-case models. The 1TB SSD370 model sells for $359.99. The 512GB and 256GB models we're testing today sell for $175.99 and $89.99, and the 128GB SSD370 comes in at just $57. B&H also shows the 64GB and 32GB drives in stock for $49.99 and $39.99, respectively.

The Transcend SSD370 carries a three-year warranty but is limited by endurance. The company's own SSD toolbox software, called SSD Scope, can measure the wear on the drive. When the indicator reaches zero, the warranty is void, even if it's still within the three-year time period.

Transcend does ship the SSD370 products with a full retail kit that includes a desktop adapter bracket, mounting screws and access to SSD Scope for drive maintenance. The software also allows users to clone existing drive data to the Transcend SSD.

A Closer Look

Our sample drives arrived in a plastic anti-static bag and were not part of the full retail kit. This is possibly how the SSD370 is sold to OEMs or other bulk purchasers. We also received the plastic model with what we assume are brass inserts for securing the drive in place with screws. The aluminum drive should offer greater processor and NAND flash heat dispersion, but many other low-power SSDs have performed perfectly fine with a plastic case.

The SSD370 measures 7 mm in height,so it will fit in Ultrabooks and notebooks that require the thinner design. Most new SSDs use the new, thinner design to ensure the highest level of compatibility. The spec isn't used just in Ultrabooks; we've seen the 7-mm limited space on full-size Lenovo notebooks as well.

Both of our samples used a Transcend-branded SSD controller based on Silicon Motion's SM2246EN. Silicon Motion works with partners to customize firmware, adding or subtracting features as well as adjusting settings to increase compatibility. Transcend paired the custom controller with Samsung LPDDR2 DRAM that caches the table map for the flash translation layer.

On the left, we see the Transcend SSD370 256GB model with Micron 20-nm flash. The PCB is nearly half the length, and has four NAND flash packages on each side.

The SSD370 512GB uses a full-length PCB, with eight NAND flash packages on each side. This configuration uses all of the available Chip Enable (CE) spaces from the controller to deliver the best performance from the selected components. 

In the Transcend SSD370, we have an issue with the selected components. Not every Ford Pinto ended in a fireball, but nonetheless, it could have happened to every family driving one on the road. We'll use that analogy for the Transcend SSD370: Not every family will lose their pictures, tax documents or other important data, but it could happen and is more likely to than with SSD370 parts using genuine Micron flash.

Data Type Comparison

We have two new drives on the bench today: the Transcend SSD370 512GB and the Transcend SSD370 256GB version. We're using the 512GB capacity size to compare to other 512GB-class products currently on the market.

We used Anvil's Storage Utilities test to look for differences in performance with data types. The SSD370 is a custom controller but is based on a design that does not use compression, to ease wear on the flash. We can report that incompressible and compressible data pass through the SSD370 at the same rate. Users working with previously compressed data like JPEGs or video files will not see a reduction in performance with those types of data.

Sequential Read

To read about our storage tests in-depth, please check out How We Test HDDs And SSDs.

Both of the Transcend SSD370 products come in near the bottom of the sequential read performance charts when we isolate at a queue depth of two. At higher queue depths, the drives match many of the best on the market, but in a desktop or notebook environment, users will never reach high queue depth sequential reads.

Sequential Write

It doesn't come as a surprise that the 256GB SSD370 writes sequential data at a lower rate than the other drives in the chart. Transcend's own performance data show a large divide between these two capacity sizes. We were surprised to see the 512GB model trailing some of the other drives, including the two models using 3-bit-per-cell (TLC) flash, SanDisk's Ultra II and Samsung's 850 EVO. The Transcend SSD370 512GB uses all four channels and all available CE lanes of the SM2246EN controller, but it can't muster enough sequential write performance to keep pace with these TLC products.

Random Read

The 4KB random read performance delivered by the two Transcend SSD370 products run parallel until queue depth eight. That is where we start to see some separation. At the same point, the SSD370 products also start to pull away from the Intel SSD 530 armed with an aging SandForce SF-2281 controller.

Random Write

At least the SSD370 products managed to outperform the SF-2281 controlled drive in the random write test while using incompressible data —  the worst-case scenario for any existing SandForce product. Throughout the queue depth range, both SSD370 products deliver performance at expected rates — roughly in the middle of high performance and value models in queue depths that matter for client workloads.

Sequential 80 Percent Read Mixed Workload

SATA is a half-duplex interface, so when a hard drive or SSD is asked to read and write at the same time, the drive needs to prioritize and schedule the transaction. Some products handle this task better than others. The 80-percent read marker is an industry standard measuring point for client workloads. This test better represents daily use over the isolated test that uses 100-percent read or 100-percent write loads. 

The larger-capacity SSD370 delivers higher performance than the 256GB model in the sequential mixed workload test. Again, this doesn't surprise us because the sequential write performance is lower. Compared to other products on the market, the Transcend SSD370 512GB delivers just middle-of-the-road performance and fails to stand out from the crowd and, more importantly, the Samsung 850 EVO 500GB.

Random 80 Percent Read Mixed Workload

Moving over to random mixed workload performance with 80-percent reads, we again observe that the Transcend devices being tested failed to exhibit high enough performance for us to recommend the SSD370 over existing products in the market.

Sequential Steady State

Most professional users are not shopping for SSDs in the Transcend SSD370 price range for heavy use, but we still run the steady-state tests to look for products that stand out. We've been surprised in the past when a low cost model exhibited exemplary performance in workstation tasks.

The Transcend SSD370 512GB isn't that product, but the drive does manage to close the gap on the Crucial MX200, another low-cost SSD that competes with the 850 EVO 500GB for market share.

Random Write Steady State

With client SSDs we measure 4KB random write steady-state performance to gauge performance consistency. Products like the Intel SSD 730 manage to deliver a high level of random performance in this state while keeping the IOPS and latency at a steady rate. The 730 is a very good drive for RAID environments because the deviation between high and low random performance is fairly small. RAID users will have a better user experience because of this trait.

The Transcend SSD370 products are the polar opposite of the Intel 730. The SSD730 drives deliver a very low 4KB random read rate for most of the test but also surge to peak performance that is intermittent and unreliable. The peaks can tax your CPU at seemingly random intervals.

PCMark 8 Real-World Software Performance

The synthetic tests allow us to pick apart a drive's performance to see where it may perform well and where it may falter. Keeping that in mind, we can look at real-world software performance and elaborate on how the synthetic performance carries over to applications.

The Transcend SSD370 didn't knock us off our feet in any of the previous tests, but because this is a budget product, we didn't have very high expectations. The real-world software tests using examples most of us use daily puts the SSD370 into perspective. Found at the bottom of nearly every test result, the SSD370 drives are no match for Samsung's 850 EVO 500GB or Crucial's MX200 500GB, each of which costs about the same as our Transcend examples.

Total Storage Bandwidth

In the combined results, shown measured in throughput, we get a clearer picture of the performance standings. The push to make SSDs cheaper by using four-channel controllers and flash manufactured using smaller lithography isn't paying off in the performance department. 

PCMark 8 Advanced Workload Performance

Here, we look at more strenuous workloads with heavy preconditioning and a controlled descent out of steady state. The two Transcend SSD370 products manage to keep performance pace with SanDisk's Ultra II 480GB SSD with SanDisk A19nm TLC flash for most of the test. In the moderate workload section, even the Ultra II TLC drive with an SLC buffer regains composure a bit better and separates itself away from the SSD370 drives.

Latency Test

The service time tests really bring it all into perspective and show the SSD370 products for what they are. Under heavy workloads, the two SSD370 products need a lot more time to complete the tasks. These are not competitive products for any type of heavy write environment or for professional users who require consistent latency. Even under moderate use, the SSD370 products failed to impress us. 

Notebook Battery Life

Transcend advertises DevSlp support, but we found that some other power-saving capabilities are not active in this drive. Many Silicon Motion-controlled products we've tested produce some of the best notebook battery life numbers. But Transcend's SSD370 drives fall back into the pack. This is a corner-case test that many users ignore. However, when you need long battery life in your notebook, it may be the most important metric of all.

The Transcend SSD370 512GB and 256GB perform well in reduced-power environments.

Final Thoughts

Transcend uses the word "premium" next to the SSD370 product name in a number of places on the company's website. We really have to question that claim in all aspects of this product, starting with the controller. The SiliconMotion SM2246EN was designed as an entry-level to mainstream component, at best. Every other company using the four-channel SM2246EN controller in a product places it at the lowest client SSD tier. Some companies even use the controller in embedded applications like digital signage, machinery storage and so on. The SM2246EN is a solid, reliable controller, but calling it a "premium" component is a stretch.

Now let's move on to the flash, where premium could only mean Tier 1 Grade A NAND from reputable SSD manufacturers. The 256GB drive we received did arrive with genuine Micron flash, but the 512GB model contained less-desirable SpecTek flash. This is the first time a company sent a client SSD to me with this flash for review, but we do know that other companies have shipped it in other retail drives. It's funny how that works: Reviewers get the good stuff, but customers get whatever is obtainable at the time.

It has become common for companies to change the build of materials on NAND flash, and even do a complete controller swap. I've broken several stories about it in the past, from synchronous to asynchronous flash and SiliconMotion controllers to older SandForce controllers. Every time, we've heard the same excuse: The build of materials is not guaranteed, and end users will not notice the difference. If that is the case, then why do reviewers get the premium parts 99 percent of the time, and end users get the slower or less-reliable parts?

Our sample drives were shipped well after the initial launch, and in OEM-style packaging. We're confident this represents what Transcend is shipping at this time. Like other nonfab companies that buy NAND on the spot market, whatever is available and within budget is used to make the products.

Fab companies like Samsung, Intel, Micron, SanDisk and Toshiba are always reminding reviewers that they make the flash and always have access to the best flash coming from the factories. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how important that is, since we are almost always given sample drives with premium NAND, DRAM and other components. With SSD prices getting lower and lower, the only way to ensure you get Grade A components in your low-cost SSD is to buy from a NAND-flash manufacturer like Samsung or Crucial.

That doesn't mean the SpecTek flash isn't SSD grade. The -AL in the model number correlates to SpecTek's highest-quality flash, per a document we found on the company's website. We reached out to a few SSD product managers and engineers without telling them the circumstances of our questioning. None said they would use any SpecTek flash in a retail product designed for client use. One engineer even said he would never use it in his own computer system. I pressed further to ask if this flash would be viable for other uses, like digital signage, where most of the data is read and very little write activities take place. All of the people I spoke with said digital signage was an appropriate application.

The Transcend SSD370 scales a wide range of capacity sizes, from 32GB to 1TB. Given the price and limited use, we couldn't recommend the two smallest capacities for anything remotely like what our readers use storage for. The smaller products should be limited to embedded use. Given the questionable flash used in the larger models and no guarantee of getting genuine Micron flash, the others can stay there as well.

Before I conclude, I would like to make a note about the different models. One drive is brushed aluminum, and the other is black plastic. If I hadn't spotted the small difference in the part number on a reseller's site, we wouldn't even know about the difference. Transcend uses the same product page for both models and doesn't do much to educate customers (or reviewers) about the differences. The situation is hokey, at best, to put it nicely.

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Transcend announced its new StoreJet 35T3, which offers a whopping 8 TB of storage in a USB 3.0 external storage enclosure. The world of high-capacity external storage is heating up, and it is all fueled by a new HDD recording technology that offers the lowest price-per-GB on the market.

There are currently only two 8 TB HDDs available, the Seagate Active Archive HDD and the HGST Ultrastar He8 (reviewed here). The HGST offering is designed for cutting-edge datacenter applications, and its price reflects that. The Transcend JetStore, which is available in 3 TB, 4 TB, and 8 TB capacities for $159, $209 and $409, respectively, costs less than a single Ultrastar He8. This indicates the StoreJet enclosure employs the Seagate Archive 8 TB HDD.

The Seagate Archive HDD utilizes SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording), which is a new technique being used to increase the density of HDDs. The standard form of data recording, PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording), lays data tracks out in parallel with a nice space between them to avoid interference when reading data. SMR lays data tracks over one another, much like the shingling on a roof, which boosts capacity (as noted in the graphic above).

Unfortunately, SMR has performance implications that relegate it to the backup/archival space. The Seagate Archive HDD doesn't handle random write data very well, but its industry-low price of only 3 cents-per-GB offers a great "cheap and deep" storage solution. However, this class of HDD isn't recommended for desktop usage.

The Transcend StoreJet boasts speeds of up to 200 MBps, but the Seagate Archive HDD is only spec'd at 190 MBps on the outer portions of the platter. SMR drives do have a large cache that can speed up bursty data transfers, and that is likely the source of Transcend's estimates.

The enclosure also offers a One Touch auto-backup button that instantly backs up users' data. This functionality is enabled by the free Transcend Elite data management software, and the product also features AES-256 file and folder encryption. 

Like the Archive HDD itself, the Transcend StoreJet comes with a three year warranty. This is actually longer than the woeful one year warranty offered for most desktop HDDs. The internal 3.5" HDD requires too much power for the USB bus, so the enclosure requires an external power source.

Seagate offers its own Backup Plus 8 TB model with an MSRP of $299, but you can often find it for $250 when it is on sale. Transcend's competition will be stiff.

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Transcend, a maker of flash memory and SSD drives, announced several new USB flash drives in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities. They include the 256 GB JetFlash 780, the rugged 128 GB JetFlash 810, the classic JetFlash 700/730 and the capless JetFlash 790K/790W.

Along with one of the highest capacities on the market, the JetFlash 780 flash drive supports read speeds of up to 210 MB/s and write speeds of up to 140 MB/s, which should make transferring files blazing fast.

At 256 GB, in terms of storage capacity it's almost like you'd be carrying a whole computer drive with you, but in a much smaller package. Transcend said its 256 GB flash drive can store up to 120,000 images, 64,000 mp3s or 64 hours of Full HD video. There are also JetFlash 780 variants that range from 8 GB up to 128 GB.

The JetFlash 810 is a "rugged" flash drive that is splash, dust and shock resistant. It has a rubber housing that meets U.S. MIL-STD-810G 516.6 standards for drop-tests. The drive is available in five colors for each storage capacity.

The JetFlash 700/730 flash drives come in white and black, with a classic design and a LED indicator that turns on when the drives are in operation. The USB 3.0 drives offer speeds of up to 90 MB/s read and up to 40 MB/s write. The 700/730 flash drives are available in storage options from 4 GB to 128 GB.

The JetFlash 790K/790W offers a choice of capless and retractable designs that protect the drives and their contents. They also offer USB 3.0 speeds of 90 MB/s read and 40 MB/s write and can be found in capacities from 8 GB to 128 GB.

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Transcend Information, a Taiwan-based company focused on manufacturing digital storage products, announced the launch of its new EMC210 eMMC storage solution. The flash memory chip comes with an integrated memory controller, which leads to a faster product development.

The eMMC, or embedded multi-media card products, are usually found in mobile devices such as the so-called "internal storage." Internal storage tends to have faster speeds than most mainstream SD cards on the market, and Transcend's new flash memory chip is no exception.

The EMC210 is compliant with the JEDEC 4.51 specification and offers read speeds of up to 140 MB/s and write speeds of up to 60 MB/s. This is in contrast to, for example, Samsung's eMMC 5.1-compliant memory chips that promise read speeds of up to 250 MB/s and write speeds of up to 125 MB/s.

eMMC 5.1 is the latest JEDEC specification for flash memory chips. Samsung's chips also promise 11,000 IOPS read and 13,000 IOPS write performance. Transcend didn't mention its chips' IOPS performance in its press release, but it's likely to have a significantly lower write speed.

The eMMC standard is about to be replaced by the even faster UFS 2.0, which Samsung already uses in the Galaxy S6; Xiaomi has also hinted at using it this year in its phones. However, the eMMC standard will continue to be used in lower-cost smartphones and tablets for the foreseeable future, especially considering that the biggest volume of smartphone sales is represented by low-cost devices.

It's important to note that the flash chips' speeds tend to be significantly slower in the real world, and the ones promised are more theoretical than anything else. Still, the official numbers give us a rough idea about how they compare to each other.

Trascend's eMMC solution will come in capacities of 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB. This, along with the support for an older and lower performance JEDEC specification, implies that the chip is meant for lower-cost devices, which don't tend to have more than 32 GB of internal storage.

Transcend's EMC210 includes a number of extra features such as Enhanced Reliable Write, which ensures there won't be any data loss in case of sudden power loss during a write operation. It also comes with Automatic Sleep Mode, which tries to put the chip in standby after a short period of inactivity to minimize power consumption.

Other features include Quick Health Info to help with monitoring the erase count of the flash, TRIM, ECC and Secure Erase. Secure Erase is a feature that can be useful for when you want to sell your phone. Data isn't completely erased when you reset/format a phone, but Secure Erase can purge all the leftover data to clean the flash chip.

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Introduction

With many gamers waiting for AMD's FreeSync initiative to bear fruit or cheaper G-Sync-capable monitors to show up, it’s easy to forget that the prices for high-speed screens without those features are dropping to saner levels. A year ago, 144Hz displays in the 24-inch form factor were selling around $400. That was quite a premium when 60Hz panels went for $200 or less.

Today we’re looking at one such display – LG’s 24GM77. It won't sync to the output of your graphics card, but it does have many other features that will be of interest to gamers. In addition to a maximum refresh of 144Hz, you get an excellent blur-reduction option called Motion 240. There’s also a Black Stabilizer gamma control to aid in shadow detail rendering. If you like to change your picture to suit particular titles, there are six gaming modes that do just that. Finally, there’s a Dynamic Action Sync (DAS) option purported to cut input lag in half.

Like almost every other high-speed screen out there, the 24GM77 employs a TN-based panel. Naturally, this one uses a part manufactured by LG. It offers high brightness, an 8-bit color depth and again, refresh rates as high as 144Hz. The only capabilities gamers will miss are Nvidia's G-Sync and AMD's FreeSync technologies. We’ve already seen several monitors with G-Sync, and are starting to receive FreeSync-capable displays.

The white LED backlight dispenses with PWM (pulse-width modulation), which can cause flicker for some users, and exposes an excellent blur-reduction feature called Motion 240. We’re usually guarded in our opinions of backlight strobing because it can significantly reduce light output. Here, LG chooses to omit any sort of pulse-width adjustment, but it isn't missed. Our contrast tests show a mere 15-percent reduction in peak white level when Motion 240 is turned on.

Of course, the main reason to buy a monitor like this one is speed. Running at 120 or 144Hz means there is very little motion blur, even without backlight strobing. Also, you're able to enjoy the full performance of your high-end graphics hardware with v-sync turned on. Variable refresh technologies are great, but at the very least you need a monitor that won't limit your frame rates.

The 24GM77’s most attractive feature, in our opinion, is its price tag. Selling for around $300, it represents a good deal when G-Sync adds at least $100 to the cost of a 24-inch monitor. All we need to see now is good color accuracy, and that’s where our benchmark tests do the talking.

Correction: This article was updated at 2:15 pm ET to include the proper proper size of the monitor — 24-inches, not 27.

Packaging, Physical Layout, And Accessories

The 24GM77 comes well-packaged in a lay-down-style carton. The upright is already attached to the panel, so all you need to assemble is the base with its captive bolt. Bundled cables cover the DVI and VGA inputs, and that DVI port supports 144Hz operation. You also get a USB 3.0 (A-to-B) cable and an IEC power cord for the internal power supply. A CD-ROM, quick-start guide and cable clip round out the accessory bundle.

Product 360

The 24GM77 uses the 3H-rated anti-glare layer seen on most monitors today. It promotes image clarity and rejects reflections in equal measure. It’s surrounded by a fairly narrow bezel that is a good candidate for multi-screen setups. Aside from the base, with is polished to a high gloss, the entire chassis is made of a hard textured plastic.

LG puts gaming functionality front and center with a small control panel under its logo. It allows direct access to the Black Stabilizer (a low-end gamma control), game modes and DAS low-input-lag mode. If you’re looking for the power switch and OSD buttons, they’re underneath in the form of a tiny joystick. We’ve seen this control mechanism on other LG products and we like it. It’s a quick way to move through menus and becomes intuitive right away.

An excellent stand is provided with the 24GM77, allowing for a full range of height, tilt and swivel adjustments, along with a portrait mode. One quirk we noticed is that the base moves when you turn the monitor. A ring underneath maintains contact with your desktop to prevent skid marks.

USB and headphone jacks are around the left side of the panel surrounded by a nice red accent. The power bulge is flat enough for wall mounting, if that is your preference. Otherwise, the 24GM77 is about the same thickness as other 24-inch screens.

From the back, you can see a 100mm VESA mount and the LG logo prominently displayed. All of the inputs and connectors are labeled in white, which is a nice touch. Ventilation is generous along the top of the bulge.

There are no speakers built into this display; audio output comes only from the headphone jack.

The input panel covers today's most popular interfaces, including (from the left) DisplayPort, VGA and DVI. Then you get two HDMI ports and a USB 3.0 upstream connector. To run at 144Hz, use either DVI (dual-link) or DisplayPort. HDMI is limited to 60Hz.

OSD Setup And Calibration

LG is a fan of the OSD joystick controller, and so are we. Aside from BenQ’s excellent S-Switch and puck-style units, LG’s joystick is the fastest and most intuitive way to navigate any monitor’s menu system. Touch-sensitive keys and buttons work as well, but next to these newer interfaces, they’re starting to look old-school.

OSD Tour

Press the joystick once to turn on the power. If there is an active video signal, click right to open the input selector. Otherwise you can go left for the main menu or up to change picture modes.

Pressing one of the three labeled buttons on the center control pad brings up this menu. It allows direct access to the Black Stabilizer, Game Modes and Dynamic Action Sync (DAS). Black Stabilizer is a low-end gamma adjuster. In most cases, you can leave it alone. But if you’re having trouble seeing shadow detail, turn it up. The Game Modes are like image presets. You still have access to Brightness, while other parameters are grayed out. The DAS mode cuts input lag by about half, so we suggest leaving it on unless you’d rather engage the Motion 240 blur-reduction feature. You can’t use both features at once.

The Easy Control menu presents basic adjustments. The Volume control only applies to the headphone jack (remember, there are no built-in speakers). The Ratio option refers to the on-screen aspect ratio. Wide fills the screen, regardless of input resolution. Original preserves the input signal’s aspect, but expands it to fit either horizontally or vertically. Choosing 1:1 displays the incoming signal without scaling. Lower resolutions are therefore windowed.

You can either choose Picture Mode or Game Mode. Engaging a Game Mode grays out the Picture Mode menu and vice versa. Except where noted, we ran all our tests in Custom. The game modes lock out many of the image adjustments.

Dynamic Action Sync should not be confused with FreeSync or any other rate-matching technology. It merely reduces input lag. We recommend leaving it enabled. If you want to use the Motion 240 blur-reduction feature, you have to run at 100 or 120Hz, and DAS is disabled. We’ll talk about the effects of both options in the benchmark tests.

Super Energy Saving throttles brightness and should be left off for optimal image quality.

These are the five picture modes. Only Custom allows for a full calibration, though, as we discovered, it’s not really necessary. Custom is the most accurate mode right out of the box. Reader 1 and 2 warm the image significantly, while Photo and Cinema take a somewhat cooler approach to color temperature.

There are six game modes that work separately from the picture modes shown above. They don’t look bad, but we don't like that they turn on Super Resolution+, which adds ringing (edge enhancement) to the image. This may appear sharper at first glance. However, it actually reduces detail and resolution. Again, just stick with Custom for all content.

As mentioned, Super Resolution should be left off for best results. Sharpness is fine set to 50, as shown. The Black Level option only applies to HDMI signals. Set it on High to see the full dynamic range. Black Stabilizer is a low-end gamma control. The 24GM77’s gamma is already fine, so use it only if you’re having difficulty with shadow detail in specific content. Response Time is an overdrive option, and it works fine set to High.

The Color menu offers three gamma options (number one is the best), a color temp control with three presets plus Custom and a full color management system (six-color). The 24GM77 is so good out of the box that we barely had to change anything. A few RGB slider tweaks took us from great to superb. If you get lost during a tweaking session, there is a Reset option that only affects this menu.

The OSD is available in 16 languages. If you find the power LED distracting, there's an option to toggle it off. Automatic Standby turns the 24GM77 off when there is no activity. The timeout can be four, six or eight hours. And finally, the entire menu system can be locked out to prevent changes. You’ll still have access to brightness, contrast, volume and input, though.

To return everything to factory defaults, engage the Reset function.

Calibration

The 24GM77 generates some of the best default-state test results we’ve ever seen. Most of the professional monitors we’ve reviewed pale in comparison. Even though calibration is unnecessary, we did it anyway using the LG’s Custom picture mode. The RGB sliders start at center-range, so there is no loss of contrast from our adjustments. There is a full CMS in the Color menu, but we didn’t need to use it. The color is that good. The only attribute we couldn’t fix was a small dip in the gamma tracking (there are more details about that on page five). Please feel free to try our recommended settings below.

One quick note: to engage Motion 240, set your input signal to 100 or 120Hz and turn DAS Off.

Results: Brightness And Contrast

To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please check out Display Testing Explained: How We Test Monitors and TVs. Brightness and Contrast testing is covered on page two.

Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level

Today we’re stacking the 24GM77 up against five other high-speed gaming monitors. G-Sync-capable screens include AOC’s G2460PG and Asus’ ROG Swift PG278Q. Representing plain ol' 144Hz displays are AOC’s G2460PQU and two XL-series models from BenQ, the XL2430T and XL2720Z. Every monitor in the group offers motion blur-reduction by way of backlight strobing.

The 24GM77 is fairly bright at 359.5390cd/m², landing a tad over LG’s claimed 350cd/m² spec. Is it bright enough to back up the Motion 240 backlight strobe feature? Other screens reduce their output by half or more when using comparable functionality. And LG chooses not to include a pulse-width adjustment like the competition.

For the maximum backlight setting, this is a pretty good black level. With the latest games looking more and more like interactive film, deep blacks are an important facet of the experience.

The 24GM77 handily beats our preferred contrast ratio of 1000:1 and takes the top spot. High contrast is important, regardless of a monitor’s intended use. But in games and movies, we’d place a higher value on that than color accuracy.

Uncalibrated – Minimum Backlight Level

It’s always nice to turn off the lights and experience games and movies in total darkness. When you’re sitting two feet away, a quality image can really make the room melt away and pull you into a virtual world. The 24GM77’s minimum output of 66.6293cd/m² is a great way to make that happen.

The minimum black level stays solid relative to our comparison group. So far, we’re liking the LG’s image depth a lot. There’s plenty of punch available at all backlight levels, making this a particularly flexible display.

Minimum contrast drops only slightly from the max number. That consistency we look for in monitors at every price point is clearly evident. LG is using a high-quality panel in a value-priced display.

After Calibration to 200cd/m2

This is where we show you the effect of Motion 240. There is no adjustment for pulse width; it’s either on or off. As you can see, the drop in output is small (less than 15 percent). In fact, you can barely tell the difference when looking at actual content. Motion-blur, however, is quite obviously reduced. We checked out the tests available on Blur Busters and saw improvement in every instance. This is the best-implemented motion-blur reduction we’ve seen.

Unlike other screens, where backlight strobing only affects peak output, the 24GM77 takes a hit in black level too. It roughly doubles when Motion 240 is turned on. Fortunately, the monitor has excellent native contrast to begin with, so image quality is not significantly reduced.

Without Motion 240, calibrated contrast is a class-leading 1104.4:1. When you turn on the backlight strobe, contrast drops by almost 36 percent. The light output penalty is negligible, but you have to decide if the contrast reduction is worth it for a little less motion blur. There’s only one caveat to consider – when you turn on Motion 240, you can’t use the input lag-reducing DSA feature. We’ll show you that data on page seven.

ANSI Contrast Ratio

Though some enthusiasts would consider the 24GM77 a throwback, given its TN panel, the quality is certainly there. We haven’t measured many screens able to crack the 1000:1 barrier for ANSI contrast, regardless of technology. We’d have no trouble using this monitor for any computing task. It’s not just for entertainment.

Results: Grayscale Tracking And Gamma Response

Our grayscale and gamma tests are described in detail here.

We’d like to think our monitor reviews inspire manufacturers to improve their out-of-box accuracy. Indeed, it seems like more of the screens landing in our lab look fantastic at their default settings. The above chart shows a tiny bit of red, but check out the actual error levels – they’re well under the threshold of visibility at 3dE. There is no need to calibrate the 24GM77 or even to change its picture mode from Custom.

We adjusted our sample anyway, making improvements to all grayscale levels except 90 and 100 percent, which rose ever so slightly. Since there’s no reduction in contrast, you might as well calibrate if you have the means.

Once you engage the game modes, accuracy shifts from excellent to merely good. The FPS1 mode shown above is just one example. Aside from a blue tint at 100 percent, grayscale tracking remains solid. Unfortunately, as you’ll see on the next page, color saturation does not fare as well.

Here is our comparison group:

A 1.12dE unadjusted grayscale average is hard to beat. We’ve only measured two professional screens that could do better.

After making slight adjustments to the RGB controls, we realized a .37dE reduction in grayscale error. Since overall contrast only dropped by .07 percent, we’ll call that a win. Yes, this really is a $300 gaming monitor. Bravo LG!

Gamma Response

Gamma tracking is the only place where the 24GM77 has room for improvement. It’s perfect until the 70-percent level, where it takes an abrupt slide downwards (too bright). It’s not bad enough to crush detail, though bright objects like clouds become a bit flat-looking. It’s a minor criticism and could be fixed with a firmware update.

This is the same FPS1 game mode we measured above. The gamma rides high (too dark) from 50 percent on up, making middle and bright tones look murky. The game modes also engage some rather unattractive edge enhancement, so we prefer to avoid them in our usability tests.

Here is our comparison group again:

The 90-percent gamma value of 1.50 spoils what could be a much better result. In this one metric, the competition is well ahead. Hopefully LG addresses the problem through an update of some sort.

We calculate gamma deviation by simply expressing the difference from 2.2 as a percentage.

Since most of the gamma trace is right on the 2.2 mark, the average value is 2.11, representing a 4.09-percent deviation. In general, image quality isn’t impacted too much, though it could be better in bright content. On the bright side, color and grayscale accuracy are not affected by this.

Results: Color Gamut And Performance

For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, please click here.

Again, we’re looking at a fantastic result. These are the monitor’s calibrated measurements, but they’re almost identical to the out-of-box chart. The green/cyan/yellow end of the gamut is pretty much perfect. On the blue/magenta/red side, there is slight oversaturation until you get to the edge where all colors are right on target. Even though the 24GM77 has a full color management system, it just isn’t needed.

In the FPS1 gaming mode, color saturation and luminance are visibly altered. Take a look at the green, yellow and cyan saturation levels in the top CIE chart. Eighty and 100 percent are almost exactly the same, which indicates detail clipping in those colors. Red and blue are over-saturated until they reach the gamut edge.

If you check out a color bar pattern, even untrained eyes will notice that things don’t look quite right. Use the game modes only if you feel they enhance the look of your specific content.

Now we return to the comparison group:

A result of 1.12dE represents the calibrated color gamut error with luminance taken into account. Before calibration, we measured an error of 1.28dE. The difference is negligible. LG's 24GM77 offers impressive accuracy in any comparison; it certainly raises the bar for gaming screens.

Gamut Volume: Adobe RGB 1998 And sRGB

A near-perfect 100.49 percent sRGB gamut volume means you could use this display for color-critical work without calibration. Very few monitors come this close to every standard in our color tests. And don’t forget, it sells for around $300.

Results: Viewing Angles, Uniformity, Response, And Lag

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, please click here.

The image above reflects typical TN panel performance. The horizontal plane shows a green shift and an obvious drop in light output, while the vertical plane gives up a lot of detail at a 45-degree angle. In light of the results we’ve seen so far (and are about to see in the input lag test), this is an acceptable trade-off. Plus, it’s pretty easy to find a good viewing sweet-spot for the 24GM77.

Screen Uniformity: Luminance

IPS panels usually perform better in our uniformity tests. However, the newest gaming displays show a lot of improvement over their predecessors. Any value under 10 percent is a solid result. Really though, the LG and BenQ screens are the ones that excel in our black field test. Don't be concerned about light bleed when you consider the 24GM77.

Here’s the white field measurement:

The LG creeps a bit over 10 percent mainly due to a center hotspot. If that zone were on par with the surrounding area, this result would have been the best we’ve ever recorded. Overall uniformity looks just fine to the naked eye.

Screen Uniformity: Color

A result of .86dE is one of the best we’ve seen in our color uniformity test. None of the group's displays have any visible issues. Still, LG and AOC are a cut above the rest.

Pixel Response And Input Lag

To perform these tests, we use a high-speed camera that shoots at 1000 frames per second. Analyzing the video frame-by-frame allows us to observe the exact time it takes to go from a zero-percent signal to a 100% white field.

Testing a 144Hz gaming monitor means we can’t use the AccuPel generator, which is limited to 60Hz. So, we hooked the 24GM77 up to a GeForce GTX 780-equipped PC and filmed a mouse movement that triggers the field pattern’s appearance. Since this is less precise than using the generator, we average five measurements. Here’s the screen draw result:

A refresh rate of 144Hz yields much faster screen draws than what a 60Hz display is capable of. Even though the 24GM77 has motion blur-reduction available, you may not need it with a panel this fast. We ran our test with Dynamic Action Sync turned on and off, and recorded the same result.

The lag results are different, however, depending on the DAS setting.

If you want the lowest possible input lag, you have to give up the Motion 240 blur-reduction feature. You can’t have it and DAS active at the same time. With that said, you experience very little delay without DAS. And since there’s hardly any brightness penalty for using the backlight strobe, it comes down to user preference. You truly can have your cake and eat it too with the 24GM77.

LG 24GM77: A Solid Gamers' Choice

We’ve stated in other gaming monitor reviews that we don’t hold these screens to quite the same color accuracy standards as professional or luxury business-class displays. LG’s 24GM77 transcends our more lax standards, delivering some of the best accuracy we’ve ever recorded.

Here we have a monitor with every feature a gamer could ask for (except one of the two variable refresh capabilities) and pro-level image quality with fantastic out-of-box color and grayscale accuracy. You even get above-average contrast levels and one of the best-implemented backlight strobes we’ve seen. The icing on the cake is that it sells for around $300, which isn't significantly more than a well-built 60Hz display at 24 inches.

Even though there is plenty of brightness available, LG chooses a minimalist approach with its Motion 240 blur-reduction feature. By only cutting output 15 percent, there is almost no visible change in the image except for less motion blur. The fact is, when it comes to backlight strobing, it doesn’t take much to see a noticeable improvement. Other gaming monitors employ a variable pulse-width feature that just isn’t necessary on the 24GM77. You truly get the best of both worlds.

We only observed two minor flaws during our evaluation. Gamma tracking is almost perfect except for that dip at the 80- and 90-percent brightness levels. Since the rest of the trace is right-on, we believe a firmware update could solve the problem.

The other issue, and it’s a minor one, is the reduction in contrast caused by Motion 240. Typically, a backlight strobe reduces output but does not affect black level. In the 24GM77’s case, the black level doubles, causing a 36-percent drop in contrast. Considering how good the blur-reduction is otherwise, we think it’s a reasonable tradeoff.

You may find yourself leaving Motion 240 off for two other reasons, though. First, you can’t use it with a 144Hz refresh rate. And second, it locks out the input lag-reducing DAS feature. Speed is the principal reason to buy a monitor like this, so ultimately we think that makes a greater impact on gaming than blur-reduction. When we turned DAS off, it almost doubled the input lag in our 144Hz test. That alone may convince many users to simply leave it on and dispense with the backlight strobe.

If you’re still holding out for FreeSync or a cheaper G-Sync screen, the 24GM77 may not be for you. But gamers shopping for fast refresh rates from a well-built monitor sporting accurate color, a solid feature-set and a low price may want to give serious consideration to the this new LG.

For its superb out-of-box accuracy, gaming-oriented features and good value, we’re giving the 24GM77 our Tom’s Hardware Editor Recommended award.

Transcend And JMicron Pair Up For The SSD340

If you're a storage enthusiast like I am, then you probably know about the third-party controller vendors and how they package their wares. For instance, Marvell won't sell firmware to go with its processors, while SandForce can't sell you silicon without the software to go with it. For certain companies putting SSDs together, this presents an interesting challenge. So many of them got into SSDs as an extension of their branded memory products. Over the years, some of them, like OCZ, developed engineering resources and intellectual property around solid-state storage. Others were content to hitch their wagons to SandForce's star as it rose to prominence, and didn't really compete in the same IP arms race.

That meant most of SandForce's partners didn't need the infrastructure necessary to build a high-quality SSD. SandForce did most of the heavy lifting by selling turnkey solutions, which made entering the business a relatively trifling matter. That company's last major revision to its controller hardware debuted in 2011, though. Three years later, there isn't anything to replace it yet.

Enthusiasts don't like to wait that long. So, the drive makers had to adjust their trajectories. Adata, for instance, reached out and got its hands on a Marvell-powered platform courtesy of Micron. In the value space, Silicon Motion is making some inroads, and that's a story we'll be telling another day.

Transcend plays the field between both ends of the spectrum, using controllers from Silicon Motion, SandForce, and JMicron. The JMF667H sits at the heart of Transcend's SSD340, a value-oriented offering designed to slug it out with drives like Crucial's M500 at 120 and 240 GB. Despite its low-cost billing, the SSD340 still manages to offer compelling performance.

How do speed and pricing come together? We'll sort that out in the lab. But first, have a look at the line-up:

Transcend Information (as it's formally called) is selling the SSD340 at three capacity points. There may actually be a 32 GB model at some point, though we don't see a need for it. Even as a cache drive, its performance would suffer with 128 Gb dies.

Worryingly, Transcend doesn't list performance specifications for anything other than its 256 GB drive. Since that's the only one I have, we cannot comment on how the other two versions will run. We'd like to see Transcend update its performance data for the other two SSD340s.

Inside Transcend's SSD340

We begin our tour with the SSD340's chassis:

There aren't any screws holding the plastic exterior together, except for one under the warranty sticker. The top and bottom halves are secured largely by molded clips.

You probably won't have to worry about this, but I've taken the drive apart and put it back together several times now, and the plastic holds up well. Of course, if you open your SSD340, you void the warranty.

Transcend uses Micron's L85A 20 nm NAND in 128 Gb dies. This is more or less the same flash we saw on Crucial's M500 and more recently on the Adata SP920. It seems like the 128 Gb stuff is truly ready for prime time. In the past, only Micron/Crucial was really using it. Now it's popping up all over the place. Our 256 GB sample employs 16 placements of MT29F128G08CBCABH6-6:A. Each package sports a single die on a synchronous interface.

With 256 MB of Samsung LPDDR3 serving as data cache, the only other component to point out is the controller. This is the first time we've put our hands on JMicron's JMF667H in a retail product.

The JMicron JMF667H Processor

We've already covered this controller in great depth. Check out JMicron Returns: The JMF667H Controller On Four Reference SSDs for more information. In essence, though, the JMF667H is a 32-bit processor based on the ARM9 instruction set. It's a four-channel design with eight chip enables per channel, so 512 GB is really the top-end capacity right now. In a lot of ways, it's similar to the Silicon Motion SM2246EN we previewed last year, also sharing a bit with Marvell's 9188.

There is clearly an appetite for value-oriented four-channel designs, and we've seen our share( Marvell's 9175, the SM2246EN, and the new Marvell 9188). By and large, each of the SSDs we've tested based on those controllers was admirable. Now, with its 128 Gb L85A flash, Transcend's SSD340 isn't going to optimally represent what the JMF667H can do. My JMicron preview showed it takes Toshiba's A19 to really hit the afterburners. Shipping products would likely use more economical NAND, I suspected. And that's what the SSD340 gives us.

How We Tested Transcend's SSD340

Our consumer storage test bench is based on Intel's Z77 Platform Controller Hub paired with an Intel Core i5-2400 CPU. Intel's 6- and 7-series chipsets are virtually identical from a storage perspective. We're standardizing on older RST 10.6.1002 drivers for the foreseeable future.

Updates to the RST driver package occasionally result in subtle performance changes. They can also lead to some truly profound variance in scores and results as well, depending on the revision. Some versions flush writes more or less frequently. Others work better in RAID situations. Builds 11.2 and newer support TRIM in RAID as well. Regardless, results obtained with one revision may or may not be comparable to results obtained with another, so sticking with one version across all testing is mandatory.

Results: Sequential Performance

Fantastic sequential read and write performance is a trademark of modern SSDs. To measure it, we use incompressible data over a 16 GB LBA space, and then test at queue depths from one to 16. We're reporting these numbers in binary (where 1 KB equals 1024) instead of decimal numbers (where 1 KB is 1000 bytes). When necessary, we also limit the scale of the chart to enhance readability.

128 KB Sequential Read

We're pitting the SSD340 against a select group of 256 GB-class offerings. All four use 16 KB page sizes, and all four employ 128 Gb dies.

Right out of the gate, there aren't many meaningful observations to make. The dip we've seen from other 128 Gb L85A-equipped SSDs with a single outstanding 128 KB read command affects Transcend's drive as well. Only Adata's SP920 stands out from the group.

128 KB Sequential Write

These results are somewhat disappointing, at least compared to the pricier drives in our comparison. The Adata sells for $150, Transcend's SSD340 is $115, and Crucial's slightly quicker M500 is also priced at $115. But Transcend can't catch the comparably-priced Crucial drive in our sequential write speed benchmark, and that was already one of the slower drives we've tested recently.

Meanwhile, Plextor's four-channel M6S hangs the rest of the field out to dry with its complement of 128 Gb Toshiba A19 Toggle-mode flash. That's a $145 offering.

Here's a breakdown of the maximum observed 128 KB sequential read and write performance with Iometer:

Results: Random Performance

We turn to Iometer as our synthetic metric of choice for testing 4 KB random performance. Technically, "random" translates to a consecutive access that occurs more than one sector away. On a mechanical hard disk, this can lead to significant latencies that hammer performance. Spinning media simply handles sequential accesses much better than random ones, since the heads don't have to be physically repositioned. With SSDs, the random/sequential access distinction is much less relevant. Data are put wherever the controller wants it, so the idea that the operating system sees one piece of information next to another is mostly just an illusion.

4 KB Random Reads

Testing the performance of SSDs often emphasizes 4 KB random reads, and for good reason. Most system accesses are both small and random. Moreover, read performance is arguably more important than writes when you're talking about typical client workloads.

Plextor's M6S aces the other three drives with 32 outstanding commands. Transcend falls notably short at 68,000 IOPS. But when the queue drops to levels more typical of desktop PCs, the field tightens quite a bit. That's where you should focus your attention; most drives are so fast that commands hitting the controllers are serviced before they're able to back up.

4 KB Random Writes

Random write performance is also important. Early SSDs didn't do well in this discipline, seizing up even in light workloads. Newer SSDs wield more than 100x the performance of drives from 2007, though we also recognize that there's a point of diminishing returns in desktop environments.

The two SSDs with four-channel controllers succumb to the two drives with eight-channel Marvell processors between queue depths of two and four. Eventually, the M6S reasserts itself thanks to a capable Toggle-mode flash interface. But the SSD340 taps out at a queue depth of four.

Given the performance levels demonstrated by all four drives at a queue depth of one, though, it'll be interesting to see how they fare in our trace-based workloads.

Here's a break-down of the maximum observed 4 KB sequential read and write performance with Iometer. The order the drives appear in our chart is determined by maximum combined read and write performance.

Results: Latency And Performance Consistency

Random Performance Over Time

My saturation test consists of writing to each drive for 12 hours using 4 KB blocks with 32 outstanding commands. But first I secure erase each drive. Then, I apply the write load, illustrating average IOPS for each minute (except for the last 20 minutes, where I zoom in and show you one-second average increments).

The write saturation test has always been more about characterizing drive behavior than pure performance. In that way, it's necessary to push client SSDs harder at times. Once they start sweating, we get a better idea of what might be going on under the hood.

This chart comes from The SSD 730 Series Review: Intel Is Back With Its Own Controller. The 100% write (in pink), 50% write (in green), and 30% write (in blue) workloads are tightly grouped. More important, as the workload gets progressively more read-biased, speed improves. Writes are the limiting factor, so as we turn the dial up on those, distinct performance bands emerge with the 100% write workload on the bottom.

As you're about to see, most drives don't look as neat and orderly as Intel's exception SSD 730. But you get the idea.

After hammering on the SSD340 for a while, we start seeing some unusual activity. The drive creates the tightly-grouped bands seen in the chart above, with little separation between minimum and maximum performance. We just don't get much of an improvement as the workload shift from write-only (most demanding) to 50% writes to 30% writes. The SSD340 is value-oriented, so it's understandable that Transcend doesn't sacrifice usable capacity for more over-provisioning, which would have helped improve degraded performance. Instead, you get 7% spare area, and that's probably going to hurt the SSD340 through our testing.

Results: Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0

Storage Bench v1.0 (Background Info)

Our Storage Bench incorporates all of the I/O from a trace recorded over two weeks. The process of replaying this sequence to capture performance gives us a bunch of numbers that aren't really intuitive at first glance. Most idle time gets expunged, leaving only the time that each benchmarked drive is actually busy working on host commands. So, by taking the ratio of that busy time and the the amount of data exchanged during the trace, we arrive at an average data rate (in MB/s) metric we can use to compare drives.

It's not quite a perfect system. The original trace captures the TRIM command in transit, but since the trace is played on a drive without a file system, TRIM wouldn't work even if it were sent during the trace replay (which, sadly, it isn't). Still, trace testing is a great way to capture periods of actual storage activity, a great companion to synthetic testing like Iometer.

Incompressible Data and Storage Bench v1.0

Also worth noting is the fact that our trace testing pushes incompressible data through the system's buffers to the drive getting benchmarked. So, when the trace replay plays back write activity, it's writing largely incompressible data. If we run our storage bench on a SandForce-based SSD, we can monitor the SMART attributes for a bit more insight.

Host reads are greatly outstripped by host writes to be sure. That's all baked into the trace. But with SandForce's inline deduplication/compression, you'd expect that the amount of information written to flash would be less than the host writes (unless the data is mostly incompressible, of course). For every 1 GB the host asked to be written, Mushkin's drive is forced to write 1.05 GB.

If our trace replay was just writing easy-to-compress zeros out of the buffer, we'd see writes to NAND as a fraction of host writes. This puts the tested drives on a more equal footing, regardless of the controller's ability to compress data on the fly.

Average Data Rate

The Storage Bench trace generates more than 140 GB worth of writes during testing. Obviously, this tends to penalize drives smaller than 180 GB and reward those with more than 256 GB of capacity.

As I spent time with Transcend's 256 GB SSD340, it became increasingly apparent to me that this SSD is a lot like Crucial's old m4. Obviously it employs a different controller and flash. However, it seems to be right there with the m4 in a lot of my performance benchmarks.

This is one of them. The SSD340 slots in just behind that once-favorite from 2011. Eventually, Crucial replaced the m4 with its M500, and that model doesn't land but a few slots away. That Transcend can hang with this contingent is laudable, given the tools (or lack thereof) it's working with.

Results: Tom's Hardware Storage Bench v1.0, Continued

Service Times

Beyond the average data rate reported on the previous page, there's even more information we can collect from Tom's Hardware's Storage Bench. For instance, mean (average) service times show what responsiveness is like on an average I/O during the trace.

It would be difficult to graph the 10+ million I/Os that make up our test, so looking at the average time to service an I/O makes more sense. For a more nuanced idea of what's transpiring during the trace, we plot mean service times for reads against writes. That way, drives with better latency show up closer to the origin; lower numbers are better.

Write service time is simply the total time it takes an input or output operation to be issued by the host operating system, travel to the storage subsystem, commit to the storage device, and have the drive acknowledge the operation. Read service is similar. The operating system asks the storage device for data in a certain location, the SSD reads that information, and then it's sent to the host. Modern computers are fast and SSDs are zippy, but there's still a significant amount of latency involved in a storage transaction.

Transcend pushes past some of the less attractive drives we've benchmarked to its own spot adjacent to some 180 GB Intel SSDs, the 256 GB m4, and Crucial's newer M500 at 240 GB.

Mean Read Service Time

The other three highlighted drives punish Transcend's SSD340. Clearly, it's just not as good at servicing burst I/O in our trace, though we'd stop short of calling its failure something to worry about. The delta isn't large, and the outcome doesn't fall out of bounds.

The same story is written by this chart, more or less. When it comes to burst write activity, the 256 GB SSD340 registers the same service time as Crucial's 240 GB M500.

Results: PCMark 8 Storage Consistency Testing

Futuremark's PCMark 8 expanded storage tests are awesome. With so much data and a comprehensive testing regimen, we can really drill down on drive performance.

First, the raw block device (there is no partition) is preconditioned twice by filling the entire accessible LBA space with 128 KB sequential writes. Once that is completed, the first Degradation Phase randomly writes blocks between 4 KB and 1 MB in size to random LBA spaces on the drive. Since the writes aren't 4 KB-aligned much of the time, the SSD's performance drops quickly. After all, non-4 KB-aligned accesses create overhead and generally increase write amplification significantly.

The first Degradation Phase begins with 10 minutes of those punishing random offset writes, after which each PCMark 8 activity trace is played against the SSD being tested. The successive degradation rounds are similar, except an additional five minutes are tacked onto each iteration. After eight repetitions, that write period expands to 45 minutes.

Next comes the Steady Phase. Each of five Steady Phases writes 45 minutes worth of random offset data prior to trace playback, pushing the drive even harder and making it more difficult to perform housekeeping duties. With fewer blocks available for writing, latency increases substantially.

Lastly, PCMark 8 moves into a Recovery Phase, which consists of five idle minutes before trace playback. Repeat that five times, and the test concludes.

For more information on the test and how it works, check out a more in-depth description, check out the Plextor M6e 256 GB PCI Express SSD Review: M.2 For Your Desktop.

Storage Consistency With PCMark 8's Adobe Photoshop (Heavy) Trace

Because there are 18 individual rounds packed with 10 traces each, we need to focus. We'll choose one trace, Adobe Photoshop (Heavy), and keep tabs on it through the entire extended run.

Bandwidth

A few pages ago, I mentioned that the lack of additional over-provisioning on Transcend's SSD340 was going to hurt it. Well, this is where we see the pain first. The JMicron-powered drive just doesn't get much of a bandwidth boost in the later Recovery phases. In fact, it's only slightly faster than it was in the Degrade phases.

Of course, that's disappointing, though, given what we saw on page five, the numbers make sense. At least the SSD340 beats the more expensive Plextor M6M.

Latency

In this test, we're taking that same Adobe Photoshop (Heavy) trace and using average read and write latency to illustrate responsiveness. We'll sprinkle in some competing drives for comparison, too.

The Tom's Hardware Storage Bench trace test on the previous page made it clear that Transcend's SSD340 encounters higher read service times than competing solutions. We see the same behavior yet again.

Write latency falls in line with some of the other drives we're using for comparison. That L85A flash doesn't do JMicron's JMF667H any favors.

Best and Worst Score Reference

Results: TRIM Testing With DriveMaster 2012

We've been utilizing ULINK's DriveMaster 2012 software and hardware suite to introduce a new test for client drives. Using JEDEC's standardized 218A Master Trace, DriveMaster can turn a sequence of I/O (similar to our Tom's Hardware Storage Bench) into a TRIM test. JEDEC's trace is months and months of drive activity, day-to-day activities, and background operating system tasks.

ULINK strips out the read commands for this benchmark, leaving us with the write, flush, and TRIM commands to work with. Execute the same workload with TRIM support and without, and you end up with a killer metric for further characterizing drive behavior.

DriveMaster is used by most SSD manufacturers to create and perform specific measurements. It's currently the only commercial product that can create the scenarios needed to validate TCG Opal 2.0 security, though it's almost unlimited in potential applications. Much of the benefit tied to a solution like DriveMaster is its ability to diagnose bugs, ensure compatibility, and issue low-level commands. In short, it's very handy for the companies actually building SSDs. And if off-the-shelf scripts don't do it for you, make your own. There's a steep learning curve, but the C-like environment and command documentation give you a fighting chance.

This product also gives us some new ways to explore performance. Testing the TRIM command is just the first example of how we'll be using ULINK's contribution to the Tom's Hardware benchmark suite.

On a 256 GB drive, each iteration writes close to 800 GB of data, so running the JEDEC TRIM test suite once generates almost 3.2 TB of mostly random writes (it's 75% random and 25% sequential). By the end of each run, over 37 million write commands are issued.

The first two tests employ DMA to access the storage, while the last two use Native Command Queuing. Since most folks don't use DMA with SSDs (aside from some legacy or industrial applications) we don't concern ourselves with those. It can take up to 96 hours to run one drive through all four runs, though faster SSDs can roughly cut the time in half. Because so much information is being written to an already-full SSD (the drive is filled before each test), devices that perform better under heavy load fare best. Without TRIM, on-the-fly garbage collection becomes a big contributor to high IOPS. With TRIM, 13% of space gets TRIM'ed, leaving more room for the controller to use for maintenance operations.

TRIM Testing

Average

To avoid adding too much data, I have the average performance for each benchmarked SSD with and without TRIM support enabled. Displayed in IOPS, this helps us make comparisons more quickly.

The SSD340 does benefit from TRIM. And although overall performance is not spectacular, the difference between using and not using the command is palpable. In fact, again, Transcend's submission is a dead ringer for the Crucial M500 that appears right below it. Unsurprisingly, both drives are equipped with 256 GB of L85A flash from IMFT.

Instantaneous

But I also want results for the instantaneous average of my TRIM test. How does the drive fare servicing writes with and without TRIM during each 100,000-command window? The purple line represents IOPS across the entire trace, without TRIM. The teal line is with TRIM. Each data point represents write IOPS per 100,000-command test reporting period.

This chart tells the whole story. The run with TRIM enabled demonstrates higher performance as the test progresses, pulling several hundred percent over the run without TRIM at times.

I'm curious about the relationship between Transcend's SSD340 and Crucial's 240 GB M500. Previously, we saw that the averages at the end of the run with TRIM enabled were basically identical. But when we overlay the two graphs, the story appears different. That average belies periods where the M500 just can't hang with the SSD340, despite using the same flash and sporting an eight-channel controller.

Throughput

We collect and report the total throughput of each drive in the NCQ with TRIM test. It's one number that helps capture overall performance in the test.

The M500 and SSD340 land next to each other in our average throughput benchmark. It takes a chart like the one we just looked at to tell the real differences.

Power Consumption: Now With DevSlp Testing

Sometimes I find it unfortunate that most of our storage analysis is in the context of desktop PCs, where the power consumption of an SSD doesn't really matter. The topic is far more meaningful in the enterprise and mobile spaces though, so I find it critically important to benchmark power thoroughly and as precisely as possible.

On a laptop, every milliwatt matters. So much so, in fact, that Intel's Haswell-based CPUs and corresponding chipsets on the mobile side support a new mode for reducing SSD power consumption. DevSlp, or device sleep, is a sideband signal sent to the storage device to indicate that it should drop into a super-low power state. Essentially, everything that can be off is.

This is a great way to get a little extra battery life out of an Ultrabook (particularly in light of Intel's targets for runtime and standby connectivity). But you do pay a price: it takes longer to enter and exit the DevSlp state. Granted, the delay is less than powering the SSD down and back up as needed, a process that can take seconds. Worse, an drive may use substantial amounts of power as it's readied again. DevSlp should need only 50 ms in contrast, along with a few milliwatts.

To measure power consumption in a DevSlp state, we need two things. First is an Ultrabook with a Haswell-based CPU on a compatible platform. I'm using Lenovo's ThinkPad T440s. It's reasonably versatile, including a 2.5" SATA bay and two M.2 slots (for M.2 2242s) wired to the PCH's SATA ports. I typically don't need more than one slot, but it's nice to have the option at least.

The second item is a test platform able to initiate the DevSlp command, measure the current draw, and record the results. To do that, ULINK Technologies sent over some hardware designed expressly for this purpose. I've been using the company's DriveMaster software and SATA/SAS power hubs for a year now, and they confer a spectacular amount of control over what drives under test do. In this case, DevSlp testing is made possible in a way that's informative and easy to manage.

Using a test script to record amperage and issue the appropriate commands, this is what we end up with:

This is an example from my Plextor M6S review. The test script begins at active idle, then issues write commands (the first big increase in power). After 20,000 I/Os, the drive gets issued the DevSlp signal (denoted by the vertical purple bars). In this DevSlp zone, it takes a few tens of milliseconds before the drive enters DevSlp as commanded, but it stays at the state using just 2.5 mW until DevSlp exits (noted by the second purple bar). More I/O is then issued, and then it's back to idle before the script ends. The results are recorded in milliamps, and I convert to watts.

DevSlp State Testing

This is what we end up with when we apply the same methodology to Transcend's SSD340. It draws considerably more power than the M6S when it drops into DevSlp. That's 2.5 mW from Plextor and 53 mW from Transcend. Under 5 mW is what we're looking for.

Elsewhere, we observe 3.03 W maximum consumption in the script, with active idle settling at 0.444 W (or about one-sixth of the maximum).

We can also sort power use in slumber and partial slumber states. These are mostly important for mobile applications. On the desktop, you'd want to turn them off since it takes time to transition from power-saving to active states. The deeper the sleep, the more delay is incurred getting back.

Here are some results for a couple of other SSDs:

Sadly, the SSD340 really does use more power in DevSlp (like ten times as much). After a lot of head-scratching and retesting, I can confirm these numbers are accurate on my Lenovo T440s test rig.

I'm not particularly worried though. This is only important news if you're upgrading an Ultrabook with a Haswell-class processor in it. And in that subcategory, there are few platforms with 2.5" SATA bays. Lastly, 53 mW still isn't much.

SSD340: An Attractive Price, But Not Differentiated

In its high school yearbook, the SSD340 was probably voted "Most Likely to Blend In". Without much to set it apart from a pile of other drives in our lab, it'd be easy to overlook. There's just so much good storage out there.

I have to believe that most enthusiasts start their SSD search on the value end of the spectrum and most choose to stay there when it comes time to buy. In that way, the SSD340 lives its life in a target-rich environment. But it probably has a harder time closing the deal.

Still, armed with JMicron's JMF667H processor and economical L85A flash, the SSD340 does a lot with relatively modest firepower. As such, it does deserve a mention from the crowd of mainstream 256 GB-class SSDs swimming around the $120 price point. Crucial's M500 is the SSD340's closest competitor, which sucks for Transcend because the M500 has one feature the SSD340 lacks: TCG Opal 2.0 and Microsoft eDrive support for hardware-based encryption with Bitlocker. It's a small addition. But given that most performance metrics put the drives on equal footing, it tips the scales in Crucial's favor. Samsung's 250 GB 840 EVO is definitively faster. However, it's also about 15% more expensive. Instead, the SSD340 is going to appeal to folks out shopping for 128 GB drives, who decide to treat themselves to 256 GB for a few dollars more. The same applies to the M500, but that model might not be around much longer.

You do get one cool unique feature: a piece of software called SSD Scope, which is the Taiwanese firm's toolbox. With it, system images can be cloned, TRIM can be sent, firmware updated, and secure erasures performed. I like a good SSD management utility bundled with my SSDs, and Transcend's is surprisingly excellent.

There is one competitor I haven't mentioned yet, which could be a problem for Transcend, and that's PNY with its Optima 240 GB using the SM2246EN processor. We loved four-channel controller last year when we looked at Silicon Motion's reference platform. Now that products based on that chip and JMicron's JMF667H are available, the mainstream segment is loaded with compelling hardware.

With all of the talk about SATA Express and PCIe, it's easy for enthusiasts to adopt a "wait a little while longer" approach to storage. For most, however, that's not a great idea. There's a good chance you won't notice the difference between a fast SATA 6Gb/s SSD and something plugged into M.2. And this is from a guy who tests SSDs all day, every day.

And the SSD340 certainly is quick. But I can't say I envy Transcend right now. Selling drives at the value end of the market must be difficult. But thanks to cheap flash and solid third-party controllers like the JMF667H, those vendors without their own foundation of IP still stand a chance in the aftermarket.

On Friday, Transcend introduced a new portable solid-state drive, the ESD400. This new model arrives in capacities ranging from 128 GB to 1 TB, and has a durable, compact design that can withstand five times the shock or vibration of your typical external hard drive. Pricing for the ESD400 starts at $109 USD.

According to Transcend, the new ESD400 has read speeds of up to 410 MB/s and write speeds of up to 380 MB/s. The drives are equipped with USB 3.0 connectivity, allowing them to send data to and from a connected device 10 times faster than USB 2.0. Thus the SSD is capable of transferring a full 4.7 GB DVD movie in just 13 seconds.

"Due to the absence of moving parts, Transcend's flash-equipped ESD400 runs cool and silent," states the PR. "Taking full advantage of solid-state storage technology, the ESD400 not only offers superior durability and reliability, but is also much smaller and lighter."

The playing card-sized drives measure just 92 x 62 x 10.5 mm and weigh a mere 56g, making them easy to slip into your pocket. The ESD400 also comes with Transcend Elite software that enables the one-touch auto-backup button to instantly backup and synchronize the files. Transcend Elite can be downloaded from Transcend's website and used for free.

The ESD400 line of SSDs are available now in 128 GB ($109), 256 GB ($189), 512 GB ($349) and 1 TB ($699) capacities. The drives also come with a three-year limited warranty.

In addition to the ESD400, Transcend also offers the ESD200 in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities, and the StoreJet Cloud Wireless SSD, which provides its own wireless network so that up to five devices can stream video and transfer files simultaneously. For more information about the company's SSD line of products, head here.

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Transcend has added to its line of M.2 SSDs by releasing the MTS series. There are three new SSD M.2 models: MTS400 (Type 2242), MTS600 (Type 2260) and MTS800 (Type 2280). They measure 22 x 42/60/80 x 3.5 mm, respectively.

These new M.2 SSDs are geared for portable devices that require an SSD, including ultrabooks, tablets and smartphones. They come with Transcend's own TS6500 controller, DDR3 DRAM cache, and MLC NAND Flash.

Transcend's MTS series also features DevSleep (Device Sleep Mode) which offers fast response times/power saving mode and results in longer battery life for portable devices. This is fairly standard on new M.2 SSDs. According to Transcend, the max read/write speeds for the MTS 600/800 is 560/310 MB/sec.

These SSDs include Transcend's 3-year limited warranty. Pricing for the MTS400/600/800 models are $39 (32 GB), $59 (64 GB), $99 (128 GB) and $169 (256 GB), while the MTS600/800 also comes in 512 GB capacity for $319.

Transcend has released a number of new SSDs, some of which are in the M.2 format, along with others in the mSATA format.

The MSA340 is an mSATA SSD, with a SATA3 interface. The unit measures 51 x 30 mm and is 4 mm thick. Read speeds are set at 520 MB/s while the unit can write at 280 MB/s. It is built using MLC flash.

The N8S750 SSD is SATA3-based M.2 SSD. It measures 80 x 22 mm and is 3.5 mm thick. Aboard users will find MLC flash along with DDR3 DRAM cache. The drive can write at speeds of up to 330 MB/s, though it can read even faster at 520 MB/s.

Both of the units also support SATA DevSleep, allowing the drives to go into low power states when not in use, but wake up very quickly when needed. Desktops might not benefit much, but for mobile devices DevSleep is particularly interesting due to the power savings, allowing for longer battery life.

The mSATA MS340 will come in capacities ranging from 32 GB to 256 GB, while the M.2 N8S750 will have capacities ranging from 32 GB to 128 GB.

Asus At Computex 2013

This month our editorial teams from Germany, Italy, and the U.S. were on the ground in Taiwan, covering the Taipei International Information Technology Show (better known as Computex) to bring you information about upcoming and prototype products. In this third and final installment, we have information from 19 different manufacturers!

Asus

Beginning with Asus' booth, we caught a glimpse of the MB168B+, an external 15.6" 1080p display driven by a USB power for mobile multi-monitor functionality. With a thin 8 mm profile and weighing in at just 800 grams (less than two pounds), it's as easy to tote as a tablet. The screen's carrying case doubles as a stand, and the MB168B+ adjusts its orientation automatically if you have it in landscape or portrait mode.

Asus' 27" VN279QLB was the second display we checked out. Boasting a resolution of 1920x1080, this IPS-based screen is clearly intended for use in multi-display configurations, owing to that super-thin bezel. Expect it show up for sale sometime in July.

The PQ321 is Asus' first 4K monitor. A 31.5" diagonal measurement and resolution of 3840x2160 yield a 0.182 mm dot pitch. It comes equipped with one DisplayPort and two HDMI 1.4 inputs. It's expected to arrive this month at a $3800 MSRP. Later this year, the company says it's planning to launch a 39" model, pictured to the right.

The upcoming Zenbook Infinity Ultrabook employs a 2560x1440 multi-touch screen, Gorrilla Glass 3, and a fourth-gen Core processor based on the Haswell architecture. This svelte machine weighs in at 2.6 lbs and should be available in September.

Perhaps the most interesting mobile platform at Computex was Asus' Transformer Book Trio. The three-in-one design includes a 10" Atom-powered tablet that runs Android 4.2.1 and a keyboard/docking station equipped with a mobile Haswell-based CPU driving Windows. You can plug the tablet into the dock and use the combination in Windows or Android. Or, use the dock separately with an external monitor (not included) as a workstation. When the dock and tablet are joined under Android, both batteries combine to deliver a purported 15 hours of runtime. Availability is expected in September.

Another mobile device, Asus' MeMo Pad HD7 is a 7" tablet also running Jellybean. It includes a 10-point multitouch IPS panel at 1280x800, a MediaTek quad-core processor, 16 GB of on-board storage, front and rear cameras, a microSD slot, and a Type D Micro HDMI output. According to company representatives, the MeMo Pad HD7 offers up to 10 hours of battery life.

None of those specifications sound particularly impressive, until you hear that it's supposed to cost about $150. Expect this tablet to surface in the third quarter in four different colors.

On to the PC components. We went hands-on with Asus' new ROG Poseidon graphics card design, featuring what the company claims is the world's first hybrid air/liquid cooler on a GPU. It will launch aside GeForce GTX 700-series boards in the near future, we're told.

Asus' mini-ITX ROG Maximus VI Impact motherboard was on display as well, and it earned Tom's Hardware's Best Of Computex 2013 award for high-end features like an 8+2-phase voltage regulator, 802.11ac Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 4.0, an overclocking tool panel placed near the rear I/O panel, including LED debug display, power, reset, and clear CMOS buttons, and a SupremeFX audio card with high-end capacitors, amplifiers, and shielding. Expect it to arrive in the $300 range.

The Mini-ITX Z87I-Deluxe is pretty much a cheaper $200 counterpart to the ROG Impact, with a similar multi-phase power daughterboard and 802.11ac connectivity. It sports six SATA ports, and Asus claims it's the first mini-ITX board with four controllable fan headers.

We also saw some artistic-looking Z87-based motherboard mods that were worth checking out.

Finally, we scoped out Asus' ET2702IGTH all-in-one PC with a 27" 2560x1440 display, Haswell-based Core i7 processor, Radeon HD 8890A graphics, 16 GB of DDR3, Thunderbolt connectivity, SonicMaster audio, and an external subwoofer. This system is expected to be available in July for $2000, including a Blu-ray combo drive.

Corsair And Quantenna At Computex 2013

Corsair

In Corsair's booth, we started with its newest enclosures. The Carbide Series Air 540 is a double-wide dual-chamber EATX case that puts actively-cooled components on one side of the motherboard, and passively-cooled items on the other. The idea is that with cables and drives out of the way, air flows freely in the chamber that holds the CPU, PCIe cards, 3.5" hot-swappable drives, and fans. It's designed for air cooling, but liquid cooling is supported. According to Corsair, the case will cost about $139 when it hits retail.

Next up was the 330R, an enclosure designed for quiet operation with sound dampening material on every panel. Everything else about the 330R is the same as Corsair's 300R. The company says the 330R will sell for $89.

A representative at the booth mentioned that customers have been asking for different mechanical switches in Corsair's keyboards, so it had a number out on display at Computex. Additionally, Corsair acquired Raptor Gaming, a German company that also makes peripherals.

Speaking of, the K50 is the first Corsair-developed Raptor keyboard. It's backlit, with a full set G keys, and features anti-ghosting functionality. This model costs $100.

The K70 is not new, but it can be had with Cherry MX Brown and Blue switches now.

We got a kick out of the K65 portable keyboard due to its size and the fact that it sports the same key spacing as a full-sized model for $89.

There are two new mice from Corsair in the shot above. The M30 (right) is an updated version of the Raptor M3DKT, sporting a 4000 DPI sensor and a $50 price tag. The M40 (left) sits at the high end of the Raptor family, with the same optical hardware as the M60 and M65, but no metal on the bottom. It does feature a system to allow customization of weight and balance, and should sell for $60.

Finally, Corsair showed off some new memory. Its Vengeance Pro line-up fits between the Vengeance and Dominator Platinum families. This memory will be available with a 3200 MT/s C11 XMP profile, in multiple colors.

Quantenna

Next, we sat down with Sam Heidari, CEO of Quantenna. He told us about the semiconductor company's goal to drive Wi-Fi performance, range, and fidelity with a zero-packet error rate. Company reps showed some demos of its second-generation 802.11ac chipset, featuring 4x4 multi-user MIMO. Sam told us that he considers 4x4 MIMO to be the most important part of the ac standard, with signal processing that allows double the bandwidth when communicating with two receivers at the same time.

The first demo was actually a video that showed Quantenna's chipset delivering a high-def video stream without dropped frames or reduced quality more than 400 feet through multiple walls, and over 1500 feet outdoors.

Given limited space, the live demo wasn't as expansive. Instead, Quantenna pushed three high-def streams to three separate receivers in the same room from a single access point. The technology isn't available yet, but we look forward to putting the chipset through its paces when it shows up in a testable product.

Rosewill At Computex 2013

Rosewill had a ton of new products on display at this year's Computex. The company is working hard to transcend its Newegg house-brand roots. For starters, the Stealth chassis reps showed off to us is an attractive, tool-free design that prioritizes easy access with a hard drive dock up top (like the Blackhawk cases), 1/2" of cable management space in the back, and three 120 mm fans. It should be available toward the end of this year for $70.

The company's Throne chassis was announced at CES, though a new gunmetal color showed up at Computex. The black model with red LEDs should be available in July, a while version with blue LEDs is expected in a few months, and the gunmetal chassis will show up later this year. If you hadn't previously heard about this one, it's an EATX upgrade from Rosewill's Thor with an interchangeable hinge, four controllers able to handle four fans each, and one inch of cable management space in the back. Vents up top are adjustable for airflow and appearance. The case supports two 140 mm intake fans in front, two under those top vents, and one exhaust fan in the back. Rosewill says its Throne will sell for $180.

Rosewill had a custom-painted Throne on display called AirRunner. The side panels are adorned with gold leaf; it's no wonder the company didn't want anyone touching this exhibition piece.

Next, we were introduced to the Neutron, an enclosure designed to house a mini-ITX motherboard. It offers one externally-facing 5.25" bay for an optical drive and four 3.5" bays for hard drives. The motherboard tray is mounted horizontally and comes off with one screw. The side bezels (with USB ports and the power button) are interchangeable, facilitating some degree of customization. Rosewill bundles two 140 mm fans in front and one on the back. You can even use liquid cooling if you want.

The last case Rosewill's reps showed off for us was called the Rise. It's distinguished by a very short 17" front-to-back length, while still offering the height of a full tower. Its optical drive slots are mounted above the motherboard, while it puts the power supply underneath to facilitate that horizontal constriction. To demonstrate the way this looks in practice, three GeForce GTX Titan cards were installed in SLI, all fitting perfectly. Airflow through the case is facilitated by two 140 mm fans in front, one up top, and an exhaust fan in the back, though the demo system employed liquid cooling instead. Expect this one to be available later in 2013 for $160 or so.

Rosewill also introduced us to its Silent Night-series power supplies, which are fully modular and fanless. The 500 and 600 W models should show up in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

The Epoch is Rosewill's first digital power supply brand, including 850, 1000, and 1200 W models. They come with a mini-USB 2.4 GHz wireless dongle that transmits data to the PC. The software UI that corresponds to the power supply is attractive, allowing you to monitor fan speeds, efficiency, and voltages.

At the top of Rosewill's power supply hierarchy is the 80 PLUS Platinum-rated Tachyon family, available in 1000 and 1200 W models, and the 80 PLUS Gold-rated Capstone at 1000 and 1300 W.

Rosewill also introduced new mechanical keyboards at the show. The company claims its RK-9200 is the world's first dual-LED mechanical keyboard, with red and green backlit keys and four lighting modes. It comes with a braided, removable USB cable and is available with Cherry MX Blue, Brown, Red, or Black switches. It should be available soon for about $140.

The compact RK-9000 and RK-9100 are also coming in the latter half of this year. The -9000 has dedicated function keys, while the -9100 does not, instead offering backlit red LEDs. These keyboards are also bundled with a removable braided USB cable.

Of course, what are new keyboards without mice? The optical RM-9100 has three profiles, on-board memory, and four settings from 800 to 8200. Expect it to arrive in the second half of this year. The RM-9000 is programmable, has removable weights, adjustable colors, and a resolution range between 400 to 3200 DPI. Both mice should sell for around $40.

Rosewill also offers wireless routers. The T900N-X is a dual-band 802.11n model a few months out, though we already know it'll sell in the $90 range. The T1750AC-X is a 2x2 (450) and 3x3 (1300) 802.11ac router with two USB ports, coming in the second half of 2013.

Finally, we saw the upcoming Aiolos Plus cooler with four direct-contact heat pipes. Unfortunately, the company doesn't have an estimated price for it yet, but expects it to show up sometime in the second half of the year as well.

Lian-Li, Patriot, NZXT, And SanDisk At Computex 2013

Lian-Li

Lian-Li had some new enclosures in its booth at Computex this year. First, we saw the double-wide PC-D600, an EATX case with two 120 mm and three 140 mm fans, which the company hopes to make available by the end of this year.

The large EATX PC-V2130 includes two 120 mm fans in front, one in the rear, and four on the side of the enclosure.

The microATX PC-V358 folds open, and your motherboard mounts flat on the bottom. This case sports three 120 mm fans.

Lastly, we checked out the PC-Q30, a uniquely stylish mini-ITX enclosure that employs a single 140 mm fan for airflow. It's expected to arrive in the U.S. next month for $139.

Patriot

Patriot is in the process of shifting its focus to address an increasingly mobile-oriented market. Company reps started by showing off its Fuel+ external battery line-up. The small square-shaped 1500 mAh charger works exclusively with Apple devices sporting a Lightning connector. Thankfully for PC enthusiasts, the larger 2200 and 3000 mAh rectangular models feature a generic USB port. The largest 5200, 6000, 7800, and 9000 mAh versions offer 2.5 A output to charge devices faster. Patriot claims the mobile batteries retain 70% of their potential after 300 cycles (estimated to be two years of use), and members of the Fuel+ family will cost between $40 and $100.

Next, we were introduced to the Aero, a wireless mobile hard drive and Wi-Fi pass-through device available with 500 GB or 1 TB of capacity. Essentially an upgraded 320 with tweaked firmware, Patriot says the Aero might achieve a bit more wireless range. But the main feature is support for larger drives.

We also saw Patriot's new 64 GB s-mini and Tab USB 3.0 thumb drives.

Patriot wrapped up our booth tour by showing off its Supersonic Magnum USB drive, available with up to 256 GB of capacity for $299.

NZXT

NZXT was exhibiting a handful of fully-modular power supplies for value-oriented shoppers. Its Hale82 V2 is 80 PLUS Bronze-certified. The 550 W model sells for $80, while the 700 W version is $100. Both feature a 135 mm fan, which is quieter than the 120 mm coolers used previously due to fewer RPM.

The new H230 chassis was also on display. This is an entry-level enclosure, designed to be affordable, but also quiet with three 120 mm fans (one for exhaust in the back, and two for intake up front). It has a removable hard drive cage and uses the same sound dampening material as the H2 at a $70 price point.

Company reps also showed us its Phantom 530, a revamped version of the original Phantom at the same price point, with features like steel latches, fully modular hard drive cages, liquid cooling support, room for a 360 mm radiator up top, and a 240 mm radiator in the front. While the original Phantom had a 120 mm fan in back and 24 mm of cable management space, the Phantom 530 sports a 140 mm blower and and 35 mm of space behind the motherboard tray. Expect the new version to go on sale this month for $130.

Incidentally, a demo system based on the 530 was on display with three Kraken coolers; the original Phantom wasn't Kraken-compatible.

Speaking of liquid cooling, we spotted a prototype universal VGA bracket that's compatible with the Kraken X40 and just about any other Asetek-branded cooler. These were demonstrated on two GeForce GTX Titan cards, each using a Kraken X60. This bracket is expected to cost about $15 when it's launched.

SanDisk

SanDisk released the mainstream Ultra Plus in January, and now the company's higher-end Extreme II is available as well. You can purchase the 120 GB model for $130, the 240 GB version for $225, and the 480 GB flagship for $450 on Newegg. It's an exceptionally fast drive based on 19 nm flash memory. Read our review of this product here: SanDisk Extreme II SSD Review: Striking At The Heavy-Hitters.

ECS And Zotac At Computex 2013

ECS

ECS surprised us with the number of products it was showing off at Computex. To start, we caught our first glimpse of its new L337 Gaming sub-brand. As the name suggests, hardware in this family is aimed at enthusiasts. Two boards, the Gank Domination and Gank Machine, were both prominently on display, representing ECS' Z87 Express-based L337 platforms. We're told the word Aggro will accompany AMD-based boards in the same family.

The Gank boards we saw were feature-rich, sporting multi-GPU support, Sound Core3D audio chipsets, 802.11n Wi-Fi controllers, Bluetooth, and dual Killer Ethernet controllers.

The high-end Z87H3-AX Domination and Z87H3-AX Extreme are virtually identical except for a different color scheme. Both feature four PCI Express x16 slots, but don't incorporate a bridge chip to divide bandwidth up. Naturally, then, bandwidth is limited depending on the configuration you use.

The more mid-range Z87H3-A2X Domination and Z87H3-A2X Extreme enable three PCIe slots for graphics cards.

Next, we learned that ECS' product portfolio is being restructured into three categories: Pro (for use in the workstation space), Deluxe (light gaming and multimedia functionality), and Essentials (home desktop, theater, and general productivity). All three tiers employ the same orange and blue branding, which we find a little confusing, though the text and size of the orange band on the boxes varies. That aside, the result is much more cogent than the company's past efforts at segmentation. Many of the newly-named Pro, Deluxe, and Essentials boards are simply re-branded products, though it's easier to tell where they exist in ECS' line-up now.

One of the new boards we saw was the Kabini-based KBN-I Essentials. You can choose between an A6-5200 or E-2100 APU.

The Z87H3-A4 Deluxe and H87H3-TI (mini-ITX) are also fresh models in ECS' line-up.

Our eyes were drawn to a prototype H81 Express-based motherboard with an MXM slot for graphics. Expect it to arrive in the September time frame, accompanies by a Radeon-based module for use in all-in-one enclosures optimized for Intel's Thin Mini-ITX standard. The platform isn't branded; it's for use by system integrators.

Speaking of all-in-ones, ECS manufactures the G24 chassis with a 21.5" touchscreen. It sells on Tiger Direct for between $430 and $615, depending on whether you buy it with a motherboard. Most of these things are probably going to be purchased by integrators, though we've also shown enthusiasts how to put their own all-in-ones together in Take That, iMac?: Build Your Own All-In-One PC. 

The last thing we saw in ECS' booth was a mini-ITX ARM-based motherboard for Android-based platforms. We're intrigued to see the x86 and ARM overlap grow in the low-end PC market.

Zotac

We saw Zotac's GeForce GTX 770 AMP! at the show, already shipping and significantly overclocked with a 1150 MHz GPU and 7200 MT/s memory data rate. Zotac's dual silencer cooler finishes the package.

The Zbox ID90 is an impressive micro-sized computer containing a desktop-class Core i7-3770T processor with HD Graphics 4000, unlike most small PCs that leverage mobile components. It has two DDR3-1600 memory slots (supporting up to 16 GB), HDMI and DVI outputs, dual-gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. It comes two ways: barebones or Plus, the latter of which includes 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard disk. Expect to see it available in the near future.

SilverStone At Computex 2013

This year is SilverStone's tenth anniversary, and the company had a variety of new products to display at Computex. We'll start with the ARM22SC LCD monitor mounts, available for about $220 (Ed.: This actually just landed in our SoCal lab). The display arm allows for lots of vertical and horizontal movement, as well as 90 degrees of rotation for monitors up to 24" in size. It shouldn't be difficult to find just the right position for your desk. 

The next stop on our tour is good news for audio enthusiasts: SilverStone's EB01-E digital-to-analog converter and EB03 Amplifier. Both should be available within the next quarter around $200.

We also saw a prototype graphics card enclosure that relies on Thunderbolt connectivity. Equipped with a 450 W power supply, we'd say this product has potential given our experiences with external graphics solutions already.

SilverStone is updating its flexible SATA power bridge with the new CP06-E4 (sporting four connectors) and -E2 (a two-connector model). Like the previous version, it contains capacitors to stabilize power for hot-swapping, though this improved version is much more flexible and longer, putting less stress on the connectors. It should be available in July.

The NB04 is a one-piece notebook cooler with a large 160 mm fan under its vented surface. The solid aluminum structure accommodates up to 15" laptops.

The new Tundra-series liquid cooling system employs an all-metal waterblock with no screws on the nickel-plated copper base, which is soldered for better thermal performance. Even the mounting bracket is aluminum. SilverStone's radiator design is incredibly robust, and we found it impossible to bend the fins with our fingertips. In addition, the radiator is designed with pipes traversing the fins to increase surface contact area for more efficient heat transfer. The single-fan TD03 is $80, while the TD02 and its double-sized radiator is $110.

SilverStone's representative showed us a prototype liquid cooler than uses heat from the CPU to act as a pump. It employs a slim water block and liquid with a low evaporation point, requiring only that the radiator is mounted higher than the CPU. While this design removes the pump as a failure point, it does rely on relatively high temperatures to work, so the company is assessing its viability.

Starting with SilverStone's NUC-based enclosures, the PT14, PT15, PT16, and PT17 are pictured above. The first two are pretty standard, but the PT16 can pop up its top to accept an extra 2.5" drive for storage. The PT17 is an AMD-based design, built around the promise of a NUC-sized motherboard that Sapphire pledged to produce this year. We expect all of these cases to cost around $40 when they hit retail.

The DS380 is a mini-ITX case that's a little larger than most. It offers eight hot-swappable 2.5" drive bays with a SATA/SAS-compatible backplane, three 120 mm fans, and room for a full-sized graphics card. Company reps say this case will be available by August for about $150.

SilverStone's slim HTPC-oriented cases make an appearance in the shot above. On the left is its ML04, almost the same as the popular microATX ML03, but with different front panel. The ML05 are next, both essentially shrunken mini-ITX versions of the ML03 employing SFX power supplies. The ML05 has an acrylic panel, while the ML06 features aluminum up front.

Here's a prototype of SilverStone's Raven case, which is particularly exciting to us. Clearly designed as an alternative to game consoles and some of the boutique enclosures out there, it includes a riser card to support full-sized graphics cards. The name and design aren't final. However, we might see something that looks a lot like this by the end of 2013.

The last new case that SilverStone's team showed us was the MM01, code-named the mammoth. That nickname doesn't refer to the enclosure's formidable dimensions, but rather its ability to survive harsh conditions. We're told it's the only case able to cope with the restrictiveness of a HEPA filter, ensuring that dust stays out and air leaving the case is cleaner than the air coming in. It also sports angled vents to ensure that any spills flow away from the parts inside. Expect to see the MM01 in late 2013 selling for somewhere around $300.

We also looked at a number of power supplies, beginning with the SFX form factor. In addition to the company's ST45SF-G 450 W modular offering (boasting a 37 A +12 V rail), the new ST30SF 300 W with a 22 A rail features a silent mode where the fan disengages under less than 40% load, or less than 55 degress Celsius. Expect that one to show up in August for $50.

Next up was the 1200 W Zeus with digital controls. SilverStone's software lets you pick between one or multiple rails (similar to the unit we just previewed from Rosewill), alter voltages, and even adjust the fan curve. This fully modular unit should be available in the next quarter.

Finally, the Strider family is updated with modular 750, 850, and 1500 W flavors that include soft cables for easy installation, including the 24-pin ATX connector.

Antec And In Win At Computex 2013

Antec

Antec demoed its upcoming digital power supply control software called Grid. which lets you set a target voltage on each rail, define current limits, and customize fan speeds (notice a pattern here with the latest crop of PSUs?). The representative even made it a point that logs are not kept so that writes to an SSD are minimized.

The new software is married to Antec's High Current Pro Platinum (HCPP) Grid power supply family, available in 850, 1000, and 1300 W flavors. These PSUs feature 80 PLUS Platinum ratings, modular cabling, and a new feature called OC Link that allows two power supplies to work in tandem. They're expected to start selling before the end of the year.

In support of its OC Link technology, Antec introduced a Nineteen Hundred case with space for two power supplies. It's absolutely colossal, and will be available in a couple of months for around $300. This case and the OC Link infrastructure earned Tom's Hardware's Best Of Computex 2013 award for introducing heretofore unknown power scalability to the PC market.

Next, we were introduced to the LSK600, a mini-ITX option that should be available in the second half of this year. It accommodates graphics cards up to 11 inches long.

The NSK4100 is Antec's new budget-minded ATX offering, supporting liquid cooling and two fan mounts.

The P100 is a fresh addition to the company's performance line, an entry-level version of the P182 designed to minimize noise. This ATX case has a removable drive bay and should arrive in 2 or 3 months at a reasonable $70 price point.

And now for the company's Kuhler H20 family of liquid cooling systems. To avoid Asetek's patent, Antec moved the pump behind the fan shroud and deployed diffuser fan blades to move more air through the dead spot. Three new models include the 1250 (double-wide radiator and two fans), the 950 (double-height radiator with two fans), and the 650 (single radiator and one fan). These products are expected to land in July or August for $110, $100, and $70, respectively.

Finally, we were reintroduced to Antec's wireless Bluetooth speakers, first shown at CES. The SPZero weighs only 500 grams and can be daisy chained to an unlimited number of SPZeros, which is an interesting feature for parties. The SP1+ is a step up from the SPZero, with added NFC capability and eight hours of play time on a three-hour charge. The larger SP3 can't be daisy chained, but features two internal speakers with a 20 W output for $219. Expect them all to hit the market at the end of this year.

In Win

In Win is becoming known for manufacturing limited runs of spectacular, unique (and expensive) PC enclosures. The company didn't disappoint at Computex, showing off the KingSize case. Available for $1500 in August, it features aluminum construction and real glass panels.

Next up was the Tou, built with semi-transparent aluminum tempered glass. The buttons in front are pressure sensors on the glass panel. You might find the case available in Q4 for $800.

Lastly was In Win's upcoming Serenity power supply. This 900 W model should be available in August for $180.

Gelid, Netstor, Qnap, Synology, OCZ, And G.Skill At Computex 2013

Gelid

Gelid had an interesting idea on its hands: a dedicated router cooler. Expect to see this item toward the end of July for around $15.

The company was also showing off fans, braided cables, and its GC-Extreme thermal compound. Representatives were claiming that its thermal paste is ideal for LN2 overclocking because it doesn't conduct electricity, corrode, bleed, or cure. In fact, ASRock bundles it with its Z77 OC Formula motherboard.

Netstor

Netstor showed us the NA333TBS, an external enclosure that hosts up to 16 hard disks and three PCIe slots. This product uses a Thunderbolt cable for connectivity and includes an 80 PLUS Silver-rated power supply. Expect it to show up in a couple of months for about $2000.

Qnap

QNAP specializes in business-oriented NAS hardware, but also sells some more mainstream offerings. The new TurboNAS TS-470 Pro will be available soon, featuring a 3.3 GHz Intel Core i3-3220, 2 GB of RAM, and space for four hard disks with a maximum capacity of 16 TB. It comes with a built-in media center and is capable of encoding 4K video streams.

Synology

Synology presented its new USB Station 3, an enclosure that turns any external USB hard disk/flash drive/SDXC memory card into a compact and convenient NAS. Expect it to arrive around August.

Like all of Synology's NAS products, the USB Station 3 comes with the company's DiskStation Manager software. It features a clean interface with a lot of options, and works in Windows and OS X. A new version should launch in July, too.

The DS214 and DS214+ are higher up the company's product portfolio, each with two hard disk bays. Availability is expected in the third quarter of 2013. They both support hot-swap functionality and come armed with 1.6 GHz Atom processors. The DS214+ is additionally able to transcode 1080p video on the fly. It sports 1 GB of memory and has additional connectivity options like an SD card reader and extra eSATA ports.

OCZ

OCZ was showing off two new modular Fatal1ty power supplies: a 550 W model available on Newegg for $70 and a 750 W version still on the way.

The Vertex 450 is also pretty new. It employs 20 nm NAND, and is available in 128 and 256 GB capacities. If you want to know more, check out OCZ Vertex 450 256 GB SSD Review: Can We Call It Vector Jr.?

G.Skill

At the G.Skill booth, we saw the company's 3000 MT/s Trident X memory, available now in a 16 GB kit with a 32 GB option a few weeks out. Representatives claim it's the fastest memory validated by Intel.

We were then shown G.Skill's new entries into the audio market. The Ripjaws R71 headset features 10 drivers for surround sound, a noise-cancelling microphone, and a touch-control pod. Expect it at the end of 2013 or the beginning of next year.

The Ripjaws D71 is the company's low-end model, with two drivers and a simpler control pod.

Transcend is introducing a new lineup of SSDs, the SSD740 series. These SSDs are not so much intended to be used in the consumer market as they are in the industrial segment, particularly due to a number of interesting features.

The SSDs will feature a SATA3 interface, and in combination with the JMicron JMF667H controller, are able to pump out 530 and 470 MB/s read and write speeds, respectively. The drives also feature DDR3 DRAM cache. The drives are built on a 2.5" 7 mm form factor, and weigh only 52 grams each. They also feature an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of a staggering one million hours. The drives will also operate between temperatures ranging from -40℃ all the way up to 85℃. The drives will also work on older SATA or SATA2 interfaces.

The SSD740's most interesting feature, though, is the support for DevSleep mode. This means that the drive can completely shut itself off, as well as the SATA interface to conserve a lot more power than traditional slumber states. While active, the drives will use up to 2.86 W, and 0.43 W while idle (though not in DevSleep mode).

There was no word on when the drives would hit the market, nor information on pricing, though the drives will come in capacities ranging from 64 GB up to 256 GB.