Without any flash or pomp, Kingston's PCIe 5.0-ready Renegade G5 SSDs are now available for purchase, starting at $200. ComputerBase first reported on the listings.
The new flagship drive boasts read speeds of up to 14.8 GB/s, rivaling Samsung's fastest 9100 Pro offering, but edges it out in sequential writes. The SSD is officially listed on Kingston's website, along with a detailed datasheet, and you can snag one for yourself directly through their store or other resellers.
This year, the PCIe 5.0 arena has been crowded with new contenders all vying for the speed crown. High-end PCIe 5.0 SSDs were ruled by predominantly ruled by Phison's E26 controller, until Silicon Motion's SM2508 arrived last year to challenge its reign.
Kingston's latest Renegade G5 appears to be among the first few implementations of the Silicon Motion controller, and on-paper specifications are certainly promising. It is somewhat peculiar that Kingston opted for a low-key announcement of its flagship SSD, superseding the in-vogue KC3000 and Fury Renegade PCIe 4.0.
Kingston has equipped the Renegade G5 with TLC NAND flash, which we presume is based on Micron's 232-layer technology. It comes loaded with DRAM cache, but the exact capacity has not been specified.
The G5 can hit sequential read and write speeds of up to 14.8 GB/s and 14 GB/s, surpassing the best from Samsung and Crucial. However, in random write IOPS, the strength of Samsung's Presto controller is evident with the 9100 Pro achieving 2,600K IOPS, which is higher than the G5's 2,200K IOPS.
Name | Kingston Renegade G5 | Samsung 9100 Pro | Crucial T705 |
|---|---|---|---|
Flash Memory | TLC (Likely 232-Layer NAND flash from Micron) | 236-Layer Samsung TLC NAND | 232-Layer Micron TLC NAND |
Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
Controller | SM2508 | Samsung Proprietary (Presto) | Phison E26 |
DRAM | Yes | Yes | Yes |
TBW (for 4TB variant) | 4,000TB | 2,400TB | 2,400TB |
Sequential Reads | 14.8 GB/s | 14.8 GB/s | 14.5 GB/s |
Sequential Writes | 14.0 GB/s | 13.4 GB/s | 12.7 GB/s |
Random Reads | 2,200K | 2,200K | 1,550K |
Random Writes | 2,200K | 2,600K | 1,800K |
When it comes to TBW, which indicates the amount of data that's guaranteed to be written on a drive, the Renegade G5 stands out with a 4,000TB endurance rating (4TB variant), significantly higher than the 2,400TB offered by its competitors.
The maximum rated power consumption ranges from 6.6W (1TB) to 9.5W (4TB), slightly better than some implementations of the Phison E26. Either way, we'll have to double-check these numbers in independent testing.
The Renegade G5 is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities at $200, $329, and $629, respectively. Sadly, unlike the 9100 Pro, there isn't a fully decked-out 8TB variant available yet.
