Corsair Neutron NX500 NVMe SSD Review

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Conclusion

Pricing, which dictates market positioning, is important. We've seen several Phison E7 SSDs come to market over the last year and a half, but only a few have been successful against the industry giants like Samsung and Intel. The E7 is a very powerful four-core controller that wields eight channels to address an ample number of NAND die. Still, positioning is important. The MyDigitalSSD BPX is the most successful E7 we've tested, and its biggest draw is the good mixture of price and performance. We've yet to find another company use the same formula to replicate its success.

Instead, we've seen companies utilize the E7 controller to go the other direction with elaborate value-add components that increase cost. We've been handed one part after another with a price increase each step of the way. The E7 is an excellent entry-level and mainstream controller, but it has lagged the 960 series time and time again.

The NX500 400GB adds more bling and more curb appeal, but it carries a 50% price premium over the BPX 480GB. Worse, it has 80GB less usable capacity and a marginal performance increase during real-world workloads. The drive isn't a good value, and it's also not as fast as a Samsung 960 EVO, 950 Pro, or even an Intel SSD 750 400GB. The 512GB-class is highly contested, and there are several products that are as good or better than the NX500. The problem is many are also cheaper.

Moving up the capacity ranks amplifies the NX500's biggest weakness. In a world of 960GB, 1000GB, and 1024GB SSDs, you lose a lot of capacity moving down to 800GB. Compared to some models, like the full-capacity 960 Pro, you lose nearly the capacity of a 256GB SSD! The 960 Pro also retails for $579.99 -- that's $70 less than the NX500 800GB. It's not difficult to see where the NX500 comes up short.

We don't know about the pricing for the high-capacity model that will come to market in August. The Corsair NX500 1.6TB has only one competitor at the time of writing, but new 64-layer flash technology will change the 2TB SSD landscape entirely. We should start to see many of those products around the same time frame in August. The Samsung 960 Pro 2TB sells for $1,199 at B&H and $1,299 at Newegg. If Corsair doubles the price of the NX500 800GB, the 1.6TB model will have a tough time at $1,300.

The Neutron NX500 is a good SSD, and it has a place in the market. I just don't think the high price and extreme overprovisioning boosts performance in desktop applications enough to offset the lost capacity. The NX500 is over the top, but there is already a superior product that you can turn to if you decide to invest this much cash in an SSD. The better product simply costs less and delivers more.


MORE: Best SSDs


MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs


MORE: All Storage Content

Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
  • AgentLozen
    Do you suspect that the nx500 is a victim of the NAND shortage, or is it's problem a bunch of dumb marketing and engineering decisions?

    Performance wise, it wasn't AWFUL. It definitely has a pricing problem though.

    Good review.
    Reply
  • tom10167
    It's reassuring that you guys didn't give the conclusion "This is really good!" when it clearly isn't. Honest reporting.
    Reply
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    Chris, I also appreciate the honest conclusion. This drive is at least better than the Intel 600p; however, the pricing really makes it lose any appeal for me. I would definitely go with Samsung for the performance.
    Reply
  • coolbiker
    I wonder why they just didn't go with an m.2 option and then have an pci adapter. I'd almost expect most people wanting to buy this will have a board that will have at least one m.2 slot. I'm just not into using my express slots unless it need to be used.
    Reply
  • caustin582
    If you can't beat Samsung's performance and you're unwilling to beat their prices, why even bother?
    Reply
  • DotNetMaster777
    Good review !
    Reply
  • CRamseyer
    Thanks!
    Reply