Another day, another TeamGroup drive, right? Yet the G70 Pro surprises with some unusually good results, combining DRAM and newer flash into a powerful but affordable drive. We have some questions about the controller choice, but the drive as a whole is surprisingly good.

The devil, as they say, is in the details, as its performance quirks make it better for some use cases over others. It’s also not something you want to toss into your laptop – this is still a high-end drive with correspondingly high heat production – but could work in a pinch for pretty much anything else. In this market, it’s a welcome alternative.

TeamGroup G70 Pro Specifications

If you’re ever upset that a drive only comes in one or two capacities, then the TeamGroup G70 Pro might be for you. Not only does it come in both heatsinked and non-heatsinked versions, but it’s also available at 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and even 8TB. At the time of review, we could only find 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models available, with pricing pretty close between the two types – go for the heatsink, if you can. We’re giving the lower prices at $197.99, $326.99, and $505.99. If you’re shooting for DRAM, these prices aren’t too bad, but we’d lean towards the Seagate FireCuda 530R instead at 1TB. The G70 Pro is more competitive at 2TB and 4TB against comparable drives.

The drive is capable of reaching up to 7,400 / 6,600 MB/s for sequential reads. Random read and write IOPS are not given, but we know this controller and flash are rated for at least 700K and can reach 1,000K or more. This is comparable to other drives in this class. We wouldn’t recommend the drive at 512GB as it can’t reach peak performance. Ideally, you would go for 2TB or 4TB for the best results. The drive is backed by a five-year warranty that covers 740TB of written data per TB, which is above average but not exceptional.

TeamGroup G70 Pro Software and Accessories

TeamGroup’s primary download for the G70 Pro is its SSD S.M.A.R.T. Tool. This all-in-one SSD toolbox displays drive and system information and allows for performance testing. While you can sometimes catch drive errors early with SMART, it’s best not to rely on it. For drive and data backup we continue to recommend MultiDrive for Windows and Clonezilla or Rescuezilla for everything else.

TeamGroup G70 Pro: A Closer Look

The 2TB TeamGroup G70 Pro is a double-sided drive and, judging by the specifications, always double-sided. We don’t have smaller SKUs to verify that, and we recommend the larger SKUs as the better value anyway. However, we’ve heard of single-sided G70 Pros at 1TB in the wild, so your mileage may vary.

Our drive uses a graphene label – which is useful for spreading heat from the controller, in particular – but there is also a version with a heatsink. We would recommend going with a heatsink, if possible. The rear of the drive states a power rating of ~8.25W, which is within expectations. In our testing, we would expect it to pull less and, in fact, that is what our numbers show.

The drive is adorned with an SSD controller, two DRAM packages, and four NAND flash packages. The controller is the InnoGrit IG5236, an eight-channel controller with DRAM that competes directly with the Silicon Motion SM2264 and Phison E18. These are at the top of the PCIe 4.0 product stack. The DRAM in question is SK hynix H5AN8G6NDJR-VKC, which, as the 8G indicates, is in an 8Gb or 1GB configuration. Two packages mean 2GB, which gives the normal 1GB:1TB DRAM:NAND ratio for optimal performance. The flash packages are 512GB each of YMTC 232-Layer TLC (X3-9070) with four 1Tb dies each. With a total of sixteen dies, or two per channel, performance is good at this capacity.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: the IG5236 controller. This controller was one of our favorites when it first came out, as it competed with the E18 – the first true non-proprietary high-end PCIe 4.0 controller – at a lower price point. Eventually, it saw some flash it didn’t like from YMTC, which caused some serious issues. Over time and with more feedback, the controller eventually gained a more general reputation for unreliability. Reliability reports were often unpredictable, which didn’t help matters. While, as a result, we do prefer the E18, our review of this G70 Pro sample has given indications that TeamGroup took some efforts to improve reliability. We’ll point these out as we go forward.

The bigger issue for the drive is probably that TeamGroup will likely not have one specific set of hardware for this drive, which means that, while we think you’re probably okay with the mix we got, we can’t guarantee this is the NAND and SSD controller configuration that you’ll receive.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs

MORE: Best SSD for the Steam Deck

Comparison Products

If you’re looking at the G70 Pro, you’re probably also looking at TeamGroup’s A440 series – we have the A440 Pro for comparison – as well as the Inland Gaming Performance Plus or Performance Plus and the WD Black SN850X. These are all high-end Gen 4 drives with DRAM. If you’re willing to compromise on DRAM to save some money but still want high-end performance, there are some good options out there. These include the Addlink A93, the Acer Predator GM7, and the Biwin Black Opal NV7400. We’ve also thrown two newer drives into the mix, which are compelling: the Crucial P310, which uses QLC flash, and the WD Black SN7100, the power efficiency champion.

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 G70 Pro falls right in the middle of the pack, which is actually right where it should be. 43µs for latency in 3DMark is quite good, ensuring a good experience with fast game loading times. Any of these drives would be great for games – and probably overkill – but we look for 45µs or less for the best level of responsiveness. The G70 Pro hits this target.

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 G70 Pro does better in PCMark 10, coming in near the top with respectably high bandwidth and low latency. This is very good performance for applications, and the drive would be great as your primary drive even in a workstation. It makes use of the DRAM and eight flash channels to deliver relatively high performance, beating perennial favorites like the Black SN850X. This is likely due to the fact that it uses 232-Layer flash, which is newer than anything the slower drives have.

The Black SN7100 and P310 are DRAM-less with four channels, but they use newer flash of an equivalent generation with newer controllers than the G70 Pro. This goes to show that you don’t need a full-power controller to dominate here, but we caution that this does not reflect edge case performance with a fuller drive or in long-term use.

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.

The G70 Pro performs admirably in the PS5. Would we recommend it? Yes, but with caveats. It’s not a bad choice at 2TB and 4TB, but we would recommend getting the version with a heatsink, if possible. The drive might run toasty without it. We also think you can get DRAM-less drives that will perform nearly the same at a lower cost, that won’t need a heatsink, so factor that into any purchase decision.

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.

Taking a quick look at our DiskBench results, the G70 Pro exhibits no issues. Its copy performance is, in fact, quite good, coming close to the top. To be fair, some of the drives near it are DRAM-less, so they should be less expensive and more power-efficient in practice. That said, if you’re looking for the total package, then the G70 Pro will deliver. We would recommend checking our Write Saturation section to see how these drives measure up with longer transfers.

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.

Looking at ATTO first, we see a disappointing dip most prominently at 512KiB reads with the G70 Pro. The question is: controller or flash? Possibly a bit of both, as we’ve seen weak performance in ATTO on this controller before, but not all drives have had issues. If we’re comparing the XS70, which uses 512Gb dies with four-plane flash, to the G70 Pro, which has 1Gb dies using six planes, then we consider that the superpage size – this would be the size of all pages open across all dies/planes with at least one per flash channel – is quite different.

Parallelization is necessary to reach the best performance with larger files, and the G70 Pro’s flash crosses a threshold between 512KiB and 1MiB, which might explain this dip. In fact, the flash on the 2TB model would prefer I/O larger than 1MiB. The older XS70, as reviewed, would be happier with less. This is an inevitable trade-off as newer flash technology targets larger dies to reduce price and more planes for higher bandwidth to match new interface speeds.

This difference is reflected to some extent in CDM, where QD1 sequential read for the G70 Pro performance is pretty meh. Give it QD8, though, and it’s on top. Unfortunately, low QD is much more common, especially for large file transfers. Of course, you need another drive to match the speed anyway, and if you’re doing heavier workloads, you might actually push more than QD1 where this drive proves to be quite fast. The bottom line is that some of these drives with less-dense flash – like the Black SN850X – or fewer channels – that would be the P310, Black SN7100, A93, Black Opal NV7400, and GM7 – can do better with QD1 reads. On the other hand, the G70 Pro’s newer flash makes it more responsive with QD1 writes, although this is less impressive for everyday workloads.

The good news is that the 4KB latencies are good, and the 4KB random read latency at QD1 is exceptional. This is a ridiculously responsive drive. It’s a bit strange to have a drive that superficially should push bandwidth turn around and give such excellent latency. The discrepancy, given our above explanation about parallelization, is due in part to the fact that a single 4KB operation is only going to hit one die and plane of flash. This could work in the drive’s favor if you are taking advantage of the right workloads. For random reads, everyday workloads, including games and apps, will be very responsive. For larger transfers, push this drive harder if you’re reading from it to better take advantage of its strengths, or alternatively, use it for random writes as you could do with caching.

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.

The G70 Pro has a small cache, coming in around 50GB with a pSLC write speed of 6.7 GB/s that writes for about 7.5s effectively. We’ve seen caches of this size before, usually chosen to improve “quality of service,” which is a fancy way of saying the manufacturer wants to avoid a performance cliff. 50GB is still relatively large for caching random writes, and random writes are what you want to cache the most, and the absolute size will vary a lot less with drive fill, as it’s not taking up a lot of native flash. This means more consistent write performance. A drive might also use a small cache to hide weak flash – weak as in lower endurance – as the highest-endurance portion of the flash can be used for the cache, if you’re doing big writes like we are here, doing writes straight to the native flash can actually induce less wear in some cases. However, we think TeamGroup is just aiming for consistent performance, with the secondary effect being that they can swap flash if needed.

The drive then writes to native flash at almost 2.8 GB/s for 16 seconds. This flash can write faster than this and, given that the drive is 2TB, it could absolutely write in this state – or the pSLC state, for that matter – for a significantly longer time. The 4TB model should be as fast or faster. Still, this is pretty speedy and matches the consistent write experience we would anticipate from the small cache. On the other hand, it does make us wonder why TeamGroup is being so conservative with it. This controller has had some issues in the past, and this might be a way to mitigate those. If so, we’re on board, as this type of performance profile matches the drive’s overall trend quite well.

This is especially true with folding performance at over 1.35 GB/s – quite fast for that state – and given how small the cache is and how short the drive writes even in native mode, the real steady state is closer to our native flash speed at 2.75 GB/s. This is a very good result and supports our earlier assertion that this drive would be great for certain workloads like caching. TeamGroup likely knows this, and if the drive is more reliable for it, all the better. We think that’s worth knowing if you’re a buyer because the IG5236 controller does carry a somewhat negative reputation under normal circumstances.

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.

All this performance comes at a cost. The G70 Pro is not very efficient, although it’s better than the E18-based drive and comes awfully close to the Black SN850X. For a DRAM-equipped, eight-channel PCIe 4.0 drive, it does okay. If you are looking for a power-efficient drive, this isn’t it, although it could be worse.

The drive reports multiple temperatures, but the one we’re looking at is the highest. It hit a maximum of 71°C in our testing, which is surprisingly good, given that this controller starts to throttle at 90°C. That’s almost at our ideal 20°C of headroom. However, the drive is still putting out a lot of heat, and this is under good conditions with a graphene heatspreader. Running this drive naked in a laptop is inadvisable. We continue to recommend getting the G70 Pro with a heatsink or adding a heatsink to the graphene model – you can even put a heatsink over the graphene label, if necessary – to make for a cooler-running drive.

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.

TeamGroup G70 Pro Bottom Line

The TeamGroup G70 Pro promises a little bit of everything in a challenging SSD market. DRAM? Check. All the best drives have DRAM, or so people have been led to believe, and that simple inclusion puts the G70 Pro up a notch. Newer flash? Also, check for our sample, 232-Layer rather than 176-Layer, and TLC too. In practice, the difference is small, but if you can get newer flash, you should, and TLC is always preferable to QLC. Cooling? It comes with a graphene heatspreader by default, but has a heatsink SKU for those who want one less thing to worry about. With this combo, the drive delivers excellent random read latency, good potential throughput, and with a heatsink, it shouldn't overheat. Plus, it’s available in a wide range of capacities.

There are some caveats here, however. The drive is not power-efficient, so it is bound to run hot even if it doesn’t throttle. It has DRAM and newer flash, but the controller is the less desirable InnoGrit IG5236, one that’s known to be less reliable. The flash is also YMTC, which indicates to us that you might not always get the same hardware on this model. Performance is good, yes, but it’s not completely consistent across all of our tests. While we like that we can get this from 512GB to 8TB, in reality, you’re only going to find the middle SKUs. The drive is best at 2TB or 4TB, and its pricing at 1TB is average at best. We can live with this as 2TB and 4TB are good places to be, no matter what you use this drive for: primary for your operating system, secondary for games or storage, or in your PS5.

Speaking of what you use it for, the drive’s performance profile means it could make a good caching or NAS drive. We would definitely recommend a heatsink in that role. It’s not perfect for such a workload, but it’s probably going to be better than most of the DRAM-less options that are out there, and it should cost you less than the Black SN850X or 990 Pro. While reliability concerns linger with this controller, we feel like TeamGroup has optimized the firmware and pSLC cache towards a more consistent experience over hitting record numbers. This, in our mind, is a good thing and helps make this drive a potential diamond in the rough.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs

MORE: Best SSD for the Steam Deck

PC memory manufacturer Team Group has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit to the tune of $1.1 million over allegations it advertised deceptive speeds for its DDR3, DDR4, and DDR5 memory products purchased in the U.S. between May 3, 2020, and April 8, 2026. Similar to a recent case involving G.Skill, the lawsuit claims that consumers were led to believe that the advertised speeds on Team Group’s memory kits could be achieved out of the box without requiring BIOS tweaks or overclocking profiles.

It was alleged by the plaintiffs that the company marketed its RAM kits using rated speeds that could only be achieved after enabling XMP or EXPO memory profiles via the motherboard BIOS/UEFI menu. Team Group has denied all allegations of wrongdoing and says that its “products were appropriately labeled and performed as represented.”

An individual can claim as part of the settlement class if they purchased Team Group DDR3, DDR4, or DDR5 memory products while living in the United States between May 3, 2020, and April 8, 2026. The settlement only applies to individual consumers, while purchases made directly by a business, such as a company, LLC, corporation, or partnership, do not qualify for compensation. However, if you personally bought the memory as an individual consumer, you may still qualify even if you later used the product for work or business purposes.

As there is no fixed amount out of the total settlement fund of $1.1 million, the money will be divided among every individual who submits a valid claim. Payments will be made based on how many eligible Team Group DRAM products each person claims. The settlement also clarifies that one may claim compensation for up to five memory products per household without providing proof of purchase, while claims beyond that require supporting documentation.

Eligible customers can head to the Claim Hub website and follow the instructions carefully to file an official claim. You can also submit an objection or exclude oneself from the lawsuit completely. The deadline for the claim is currently set for July 7, 2026.

Earlier this year, G.Skill settled a similar $2.4 million lawsuit involving its DDR4 and DDR5 memory products. Plaintiffs argued that advertised speeds above JEDEC defaults required additional BIOS adjustments and overclocking settings that were not clearly disclosed on packaging or product pages. Most memory kits for modern PC platforms ship with conservative default speeds based on JEDEC standards, while higher advertised frequencies, such as DDR5-6000 or DDR5-7200, require users to manually enable XMP or EXPO profiles. The lawsuit argued that average consumers may not realize these additional steps are necessary to achieve the marketed performance levels.

G.Skill was also required to change its packaging and be clearer about overclocking and BIOS adjustments as part of its agreement. The Team Group settlement doesn't seem to include any such provisions and is rather purely offering a payout to affected buyers.

TeamGroup is known for its affordable SSDs, so its new MP44Q joins a solid roster of budget SSDs. This is great for builders and upgraders who are willing to trim their budget when it comes to storage. The popular entry-level MP44L and the “one step up” MP44 now have a companion that fits in right between: the MP44Q. TeamGroup has courteously added a “Q” to the end to indicate QLC flash, which is known to be slower than the MP44L’s and MP44’s TLC, with lower endurance as well. However, there’s more to the story here: The MP44Q has surprisingly good performance, and it’s an inexpensive option for its entire capacity range, which helps one overlook the QLC flash.

The MP44Q also surprises with its excellent power efficiency and the relatively high endurance that's covered by the warranty – this isn’t your father’s QLC flash. In everyday usage, you might not even notice this is a budget drive, unless you engage the nemesis for all QLC-based drives: sustained write workloads. This weakness makes the MP44Q more suitable for use as a secondary drive for games or general data storage or for your PS5, although if you're on a strict budget, it’s good enough for primary storage on any desktop or laptop. The name of the game is capacity, though, and given current prices, that means the MP44Q is best suited for 2TB, something to carefully consider when shopping for a drive.

TeamGroup MP44Q Specifications

The TeamGroup MP44Q is available in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, priced at $59.99, $108.99, and $219.99, respectively. The 1TB and 2TB prices are not bad when considering the competition, but the 4TB price should come down a bit. The 4TB Sandisk WD_Black SN7100 is only $10 more at the time of review and has 3-bit TLC flash instead of 4-bit QLC like the MP44Q. To be fair, the 4TB QLC-based WD Blue SN5000 is at the same price as the MP44Q and has lower performance numbers, so it’s more about the WD_Black SN7100 being priced well. Still, we’d like to see this at least $10 cheaper.

The MP44Q is specified to reach up to 7,000/5,900 MB/s for sequential reads and writes at all three capacities, with IOPS not listed. Given the hardware, we would expect maximum IOPS to be about 1,000K / 800K for random reads and writes. TeamGroup backs the drive with a 5-year warranty with up to 500TB of writes per TB capacity. This is very high for QLC flash, but not unreasonably so. YMTC QLC is capable of high endurance on the order of 50% more than past QLC. If you’re looking for this level of endurance with a capacious drive on a budget – QLC should be less expensive than TLC – then the MP44Q is worth a look.

TeamGroup MP44Q Software and Accessories

TeamGroup’s software support is barebones. Its site does have an SSD S.M.A.R.T. Tool for download – we would recommend CrystalDiskInfo instead – as well as an NVMe driver and firmware updates for specific drives. We suggest never using any NVMe driver except the default Microsoft Windows one, unless you are running specific Solidigm drives like the P41 Plus. For cloning, imaging, and backup we recommend either MultiDrive for Windows or Clonezilla for bootable.

TeamGroup MP44Q: A Closer Look

The TeamGroup MP44Q is a single-sided drive at all capacities, which is nice for systems where a double-sided drive might be problematic, like in most laptops. Single-sided drives can also be easier to cool with all the main components on an exposed side that can take a heatsink and/or thermal padding. The PCB is fairly standard with the “MAP1602” marking indicating it’s for drives using the Maxio MAP1602 SSD controller. This controller is a popular DRAM-less solution at the upper end of PCIe 4.0 speeds, making it a suitable fit for systems of all types.

This controller has been around for a while and is tried-and-true, being competitive with the alternatives from Phison and Silicon Motion. Usually, we have tested it with TLC flash, but it works well with QLC, too. Check our HP FX700 review for more information on the hardware. We’ve included that drive for comparison in this review, but our previous review has fuller technical details. To quickly sum up the YMTC QLC flash being used, it performs comparably to Micron’s QLC of this generation, a fact which can be investigated more directly by following the Crucial P310 in our comparisons below. We’ve also reviewed the P310 in the M.2 2280 form factor, but the performance specifications are identical.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs

MORE: Best SSD for the Steam Deck

Comparison Products

The TeamGroup MP44Q is a budget SSD that you’re going to be looking at for games and general storage. It’s not useful to compare this to high-end Gen 5 drives, and as such, we are targeting the most likely competitors in this price range.

For QLC-based drives, this would include the popular Crucial P3 Plus and the more recent value champion, the Crucial P310. The HP FX700 also has QLC flash and, in fact, has identical hardware to the MP44Q, but may be harder to find. Other budget favorites that use TLC flash include the WD Black SN770, the TeamGroup MP44, and the Kingston NV3. Be advised that the MP44 and NV3 have variable hardware, and the NV3 often has QLC flash. We’re also comparing the Klevv CRAS C925, a drive that should be in the budget range, and the Crucial T500. The T500 is alone in this list in having DRAM, but its four-channel controller makes it more suitable for laptops like the rest of the list, and it is therefore worthy of inclusion.

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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

QLC-based drives have their place, and that place tends to be for game and data storage. While games do rely upon read performance, and QLC flash is slower than TLC, game loading bottlenecks are usually not down to the SSD, at least not for any NVMe SSD. Responsiveness when updating games is potentially an issue, although most Internet connections aren’t sufficiently fast to rival even the slowest QLC writes. This is, in any case, irrelevant as the MP44Q actually puts up decent numbers in 3DMark, beating many TLC-based drives. It would be an excellent drive to use for games if you need 2TB of space and want to save a buck or two.

Trace Testing — PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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

PCMark 10 is more about application performance, but it tends to follow any trends found in 3DMark. Phison controllers tend to do well here, and that is the case with the Crucial P310 and T500. Those two drives are particularly interesting as the former is DRAM-less with QLC flash and the latter has DRAM and TLC flash, yet performance is relatively close between them. You will get better responsiveness out of the T500, though.

As for the MP44Q, it tops the rest of the drives, including some popular budget ones: the Kingston NV3, the TeamGroup MP44, and the WD Black SN770. Among these, the MP44, full speed with TLC flash, should be the closest, but we instead find the QLC drives on top. In part, this is due to read optimizations for QLC flash. There is more room for improvement with each new generation of flash, and some techniques might come to QLC first as it benefits more in relative terms, particularly as the move to higher capacities favors denser flash.

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.

DiskBench gives an idea of real-world performance with copying and transferring files. In most cases, the SLC cache on tested drives is large enough to fit the entire workload. For this reason, you have QLC-based drives like the MP44Q, HP FX700, and P310 doing quite well in this series of tests. If you are not planning to do very large transfers or on having very full drives, it’s clear that TLC flash doesn’t bring much to the table here, with the exception of the T500. That being said, the T500 has problems of its own with large writes, which diminishes its advantage – see our Write Saturation results below for more.

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 MP44Q has good read and write performance in ATTO. We see two dips, for 512KiB and 2MiB reads, which match what we found with the FX700. This is not unusual for this controller and this flash. Results that stand out in ATTO are rarely impactful in the real world, but can be useful in distinguishing performance patterns for drive hardware. In this case, we get the impression that Micron’s same generation of QLC flash – check the P310 lines – is more consistent, at least with a Phison controller. This can be useful information when picking between two drives at the same price point.

When transitioning to CDM for sequential performance, we observe that the YMTC QLC flash in the MP44Q outperforms the Micron QLC in the P310 at low queue depths. File transfers are often at QD1, so while the P310 might be more consistent according to ATTO, it is also potentially slower according to CDM. TLC flash of the same generation – see the T500 and MP44 – easily outperforms QLC at low queue depths and for writes. TLC is superior for regular file transfers, particularly large writes.

Random performance is a different story. Most often, it is wise to look at 4K QD1 random latencies to get a feel for drive responsiveness. Here we see good things from the MP44Q, as it hangs with the TLC-based competition. The P310 is better, which is not terribly surprising based on what we’ve seen from Micron’s flash. This generation of QLC flash – 232-Layer – favors Micron for latency as YMTC plays catch-up. However, YMTC’s wafer-on-wafer design is more power efficient, which could make the MP44Q more favorable for laptops. We’ll address that more in the power consumption and temperature section below.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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

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

You can only expect so much from QLC flash when it comes to write performance, especially when using a gigantic cache. QLC is 4-bit and any SLC cache mode is 1-bit, so a 2TB drive like this can have a cache around one-quarter its full capacity, or 500GB. This is roughly where the MP44Q falls after writing at 5.75 GB/s for 86 seconds. The maximum speed is slightly slower than what’s possible with the interface, but still fast enough.

After the cache is exhausted, the drive is forced to move data from SLC to QLC in the background, which further reduces QLC write speeds, even more so than if writing directly to QLC. The result is HDD-like sequential write speeds around 103 MB/s in this case, but your mileage may vary – the very similar FX700 gets 139 MB/s. Luckily, this isn’t a huge deal for games or data storage, but you should be aware of the drive’s limitations. It’s not uncommon to get a new drive, then immediately move over and install tons of games, and past a quarter of this drive’s capacity, you are going to see a serious slowdown. Giving the drive some idle time between transfers is strongly recommended.

Power Consumption and Temperature

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

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

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

The MP44Q has excellent power efficiency, making it a great pick for laptops, HTPCs, and the PlayStation 5. This is also true of the TLC-based MP44, which uses the same controller, but we found that controller – the MAP1602 – to be more of a hot spot in comparison to the comparable Phison E27T used on the P310. The good news is that, with QLC flash, the MP44Q only hit a maximum temperature of 56°C during our write test. With a rated first throttling point at 90°C, the drive should not have any issues in any system. The FX700, with its graphene heatspreader, ran cooler in its review, so in edge cases, the use of a heatspreader, thermal padding, or low-profile heatsink could get the MP44Q down a few degrees.

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.

TeamGroup MP44Q Bottom Line

Although we gave the HP FX700 three and a half stars, the MP44Q is going to have to settle for just three. The market has changed this year with the introduction of more budget drives like the Crucial P310, increasing the drive’s potential competition. We must remind the reader that three stars in our rating system isn’t bad and is, in fact, above average, and takes into account all SSDs on the market. This is a strong score for a QLC-based drive, and the MP44Q deserves it, as it consistently competes with TLC-based drives and offers a solid all-around experience.

The MP44Q is probably most impressive in its power efficiency, which also translates to lower heat production. This makes it a good drive in any system, including enclosures and in the PS5. It’s also not priced too high, although we think there are better options at 4TB. This is a good budget drive at 1TB and 2TB, with 2TB being the most common capacity for a drive of this type. If the drive has a weakness, it’s in its poor sustained performance. This is an almost inevitable downside of QLC flash, particularly since most manufacturers opt to use massive SLC caches on budget drives due to their target audience. A larger cache exacerbates the write performance issue and precludes this drive’s use for heavier workloads.

TeamGroup is a favorite brand of ours when it comes to SSDs, in particular budget SSDs. We’ve recommended the MP44 and MP44L for quite a while. TeamGroup has kept these drives with TLC flash, although controllers and specific flash have changed. The MP44Q falls in between these drives, offering higher peak performance than the MP44L while using QLC flash to separate it from the MP44. There are many, many competing SSDs in this price range, most of which use or can use QLC flash, so the MP44Q’s more or less guaranteed performance profile is a bonus. You don’t need more performance than this in most cases, and for those that worry about endurance, the 1PB of writes for the 2TB SKU is certainly plenty.

Basically, this means that the MP44Q is a safe bet if you’re already in the mindset to accept QLC flash and some of its downsides. For guaranteed TLC, you’ll have to pay more, and for certain use cases – games and general data storage – you probably won’t notice the difference. The MP44Q, as a result, is a good choice for a secondary drive or for your PS5 if you’re on a budget. It could also work as an upgrade for an old system or for a computer that needs more storage space, where performance is a secondary concern. It’s not the most exciting drive, but if we have to be honest, it’s also not trying to be. It slots in between the MP44L and MP44 perfectly to give you one more option in the quest for an inexpensive, no-frills SSD.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs

MORE: Best SSD for the Steam Deck

Taiwanese memory specialist Team Group has introduced a new M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD, designed for mission-critical environments. The P250Q-M80 SSD offers a headline-grabbing quick access feature that securely wipes all data stored or even physically destroys the flash NAND chips, at the touch of a button.

Many industrial storage device makers crow about the ruggedness and durability of their devices, and Team Group is no exception with the P250Q-M80. The device has many great durability stats that you might look for.

It boasts MIL-STD 810G vibration endurance, MIL-STD-202G shock resistance, storage integrity temperatures spanning -55°C (-67°F) to +95°C (203°F), an MTBF of over three million hours, a three-year warranty, S.M.A.R.T. health monitoring, and more. However, its party trick is the rapid destruction of its precious data, its so-called “Intelligent Dual-Mode Data Destruction.”

S/W Quick Erase: hold 5-10 seconds

This is the gentler option for users who may need to clear this SSD of its contents in a hurry. S/W Quick Erase is a software method that “erases all data while retaining device functionality.” Users can choose this option if they intend to reuse the drive at a later date. It is thus “ideal for repeated use,” according to Team Group.

S/W Quick Erase is invoked by pressing the big red button that comes with the P250Q-M80 for between five and 10 seconds. It can’t be stopped. Even if power is interrupted during the data wiping process, the drive will automatically resume clearing data the next time it gets power, says Team Group.

We aren’t sure of the wiping algorithm or tech, so we would assume there remains a chance of data recovery after this software-powered wipe, or partial wipe.

H/W Quick Erase: hold 10 seconds+

The H/W Quick Erase function "uses high-voltage breakdown technology to physically destroy NAND Flash, ensuring data is irrecoverable," asserts Team Group. This patented technique is also shown in the video, where we see plumes of smoke emanate from the drive after the function is started. So, there's a visual and olfactory sign that data has been destroyed, in case you aren’t certain that you have chosen to fry the 3D TLC NAND.

Begin hardware destruction simply by holding the big red button for 10 seconds when ‘secure deletion becomes mission-critical,’ advises memory products maker.

Team Group says the H/W Quick Erase has a “precise focus on Flash IC destruction.” Therefore, if you are a soldering whizz, you may be wondering if it is possible to re-use this drive by swapping the ICs. Team Group says the NAND used is paired with a specific control chip, so reusing or repairing a H/W Quick Erased device might be more effort than it is worth.

Understatement alert

If anything, we think that the term 'H/W Quick Erase' is a little understated for the physical frying of NAND that occurs here. If we hadn’t absorbed Team Group’s PR, product pages, and video, it would be quite natural to assume H/W Quick Erase is perhaps a hardware-accelerated erase function. Several computer utilities I have used offer S/W and H/W toggles in their UIs, and none physically destroy any hardware if the latter is selected.

A ‘warning light’ of sorts on the 2280 PCB appears to flash when you are holding the big red button down. If this flashed once per second, it would be a useful guide to whether you are opting to do a quick data erase or physically destroy your NAND. Hopefully, that detail is shared in the instruction booklet.

Text shared by Team Group alongside the video we embedded also mentions that data destruction can be triggered by a “physical or event-based trigger,” which indicates there can be other ways to wipe or destroy a P250Q-M80 than the big red button.

Other ‘normal’ specs

I'm always on the lookout for great PC component deals, hunting for bargains for my next builds, and helping others find good value-for-money discounts. I find RAM to be one of those essential components that, along with the power supply, aren't the most exciting members of the PC component family - no matter how extravagant the heat-spreader or addition of RGB - but you should always put a little effort into finding the best memory for a stable and speedy system.

You can find today's RAM deal at Newegg, where you can pick up 32GB of Team Group T-Create Expert memory for $81. Using code EPEP527 at the checkout, you can save $7 off the original $88 list price. The new norm for many people building a gaming system is to have a minimum of 32GB of RAM to cope with ever-expanding software requirements and multiple browsers/tabs open on multiple screens.

The specs on these Team Group T-Create Expert sticks are pretty good, with the fast DDR5 RAM coming in two sticks of 16GB each. They are DDR5 6000 (PC5 48000) and have a CAS latency of 30 with timings of 30-36-36-76 and a 1.35V voltage.

These sticks are fairly plain and subdued with a simple black/graphite-colored heat shroud and no RGB in sight, so if you're looking for more of a light show in your PC case to view through a glass side panel, you might want to look for something a little more flashy. But, if just performance and function are the priority, you should give this deal a good look and save yourself a few precious dollars.

Don't forget to look at our Newegg coupon codes for February 2025 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Newegg.

When I first saw Team Group's PD20 Mini External SSD at Computex earlier this year, I thought its metallic gray and ribbed black rubber look made it one of the more attractive external SSD designs. Now that I have it in hand, I still think it looks quite nice – however much that matters for a storage device that's likely to spend most of its time out of sight. Its top loop does mean you could clip it on your bag to show it off if you wanted to, but that just seems like a good way to eventually lose your precious files.

Because this is a 20Gbps drive, my performance expectations for the PD20 were high, and Team Group's drive is certainly capable of delivering speeds near the top end of that spec. But its performance in our testing was mixed overall, and the PD20 faces stiff competition from the many other 20Gbps drives on the market, some of which cost less and many of which perform better overall. That makes the PD20 a tough sell for a slot on our Best External SSDs list. But if your needs don't veer much toward professional storage tasks and you like the way this drive looks, it's worth considering – especially if you find it on sale.

Team Group PD20 Mini External SSD Specs

Design of the Team Group PD20 Mini External SSD

Personally, I think the Team Group PD20 is a pretty drive. But it doesn't feel as good or rugged as it looks. The gray metal-looking bits are actually plastic, and the shell flexes a bit when squeezed. The USB Type-C port on the bottom can be covered when not in use by a silicone flap that's a continuation of the ribbed black outer section, to help provide the rated IP54 dust and water resistance rating.

The plastic exterior makes for a fairly light drive, at 22 grams. But it's not as if metal-clad drives that weigh about twice as much (like Crucial's X10 Pro) actually feel heavy. Personally, I'd prefer the extra weight for the rigidity and premium feel that comes with a metal shell.

At 75 x 34 x 15.2mm (about 3 x 1.3 x .6 inches), the PD20 is a bit thicker than most modern external SSDs, but otherwise not noticeably larger than most competing drives. That said, its size and thickness make me wonder why Team Group felt compelled to put "Mini" in the drive's name. The only recent portable SSD that's appreciably bigger is, ironically, LaCie's Rugged Mini SSD, which is over 5 inches long and 3.5 inches wide.

There isn't much to say on the software and accessory front. The PD20 ships with a roughly 10-inch USB-C-to-USB-C cable, and the drive arrives formatted in exFAT with no software on the device.

Comparison Products

We've reviewed quite a few 20Gbps portable SSDs in recent months, as companies compete for higher numbers even though the USB 3.2 Gen2 2x2 port barely exists outside of enthusiast motherboards. But at $88 for the 1TB model and $147 for the 2TB model we tested, the PD20 lands in between the least-expensive 20Gbps drive we've tested, Adata's SD810 ($69 for 1TB, $129 for 2TB), and our favorite 20Gbps drive, Crucial's X10 Pro($112 for 1TB, $205 for 2TB). Team Group has also promised a 4TB model, but as of this writing it wasn't yet available for sale in the U.S.

Note that the Crucial drive has often been on sale for much less than its current price. It seems likely that the X10 Pro will drop in price during the upcoming shopping season, but that could be true of any of the drives we've tested below.

Trace Testing - PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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

Team Group's PD20 didn't stand out on this first test, especially for a 20Gbps SSD, landing ahead of Samsung's recent drives, but otherwise near the bottom of our tested competitors.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom 50GB dataset. We copy 4,617 files (images, videos, and software ISO files) to a folder on the test drive (write). Then, after leaving the system idle for five minutes, we run the same test in reverse, moving the test folder to a different location on our PCIe 4.0 testing drive.

The PD20 looked a lot better in this real-world file transfer trial. Its read speed of 1287MBps was enough to edge out Crucial's X10 Pro, and its write speed of 753MBps wasn't far behind the Crucial drive either. That said, Adata's cheaper SD810 did a little better on both fronts on this test.

Synthetic Testing CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark (CDM) is a free and easy-to-run storage benchmarking tool that SSD companies commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. It gives us insight into how each device handles different file sizes. We run this test at its default settings.

The Team Group drive finds itself at the top of our chart for synthetic sequential reads, and the write performance here was also quite good. This indicates the drive is likely fast for moderate-sized file transfers. But as we'll see shortly, it doesn't perform as well for professional (sustained) workloads or moving massive amounts of data at high speeds.

In small file performance, the PD20 again didn't impress, landing at the bottom for reads and in the lower middle for writes, compared to the competing drives we tested.

Sustained Write Performance

A drive's rated write specifications are only a piece of the performance picture. Most external SSDs (just like their internal counterparts) implement a write cache, or a fast area of flash, programmed to perform like faster SLC, that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds often suffer tremendously when the workload saturates the cache and slips into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated.

The Team Group PD20 proves on this test that it's not a good option for professional users. It's only able to write at its max speed (a bit under 1800MBps) for about 50 seconds before dropping to the low 700s until about the two-minute mark. Then it drops again, eventually alternating between 400 and a little over 200MBps.

The PD20 arguably performs better on this tough test than Adata's cheaper SD810, which falls off a performance cliff into the mid-200 range after about 75 seconds. But the Crucial X10 Pro proves its worth (and higher price) here, delivering write performance above 1700MBps for more than 11 minutes, then only dropping to around 1400MBps in this test.

Bottom Line

The Team Group PD20 Mini External SSD stands out from competing 20Gbps drives with its looks, though not much else. Its price isn't the cheapest among its 20Gbps peers, and its performance was mixed at best in our benchmarks. If you're after a value-oriented drive in this class, I'd suggest Adata's SD810. And if sustained write speed is key, Crucial's X10 Pro is a much faster drive, though you'll pay more for the ability to fill up your external storage quickly.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs

MORE: Best SSD for the Steam Deck

If your array of memory sticks needs cooling, Teamgroup has a solution: a T-Force Dark AirFlow D5 memory cooling fan with dual 40mm fans to provide cooling throughout the memory channels. This wild-looking cooler also allows users to adjust the fan angle as needed up to 180 degrees horizontally and 360 degrees vertically, allowing optimal airflow through the memory. 

This memory cooler will come in black and white color options, with no RGB — which should be better for those who use memory kits with it. The kit has a height of 94mm, which should be adequate for the tallest memory kits available on the market. 

The mounting system is interesting, as one of its legs is installed through the M.2 SSD's screw mount while the other is attached through the motherboard's adjacent mounting hole. Naturally, this will depend on the motherboard's layout, but it should work for most ATX and mATX form factors. Traditionally, such memory fans are clamped to the DIMM's locks — like the OCZ XTC memory cooler.  

Not a lot of information is available for the fans, except that the product number (CF4010U12D) is used in many graphics cards, and they're manufactured by a company called Dongguan Champion. (Also, this cooler does look like it's designed for a GPU.) The fans are likely powered via the four-pin fan headers — possibly with PWM controls. Teamgroup mentions in its info card that the fans have a maximum rotation speed of 7,000 RPM and a noise level rated at 32dB.

We're not too surprised to see memory coolers for the CAMM2 module, but MSI has a leg up with its liquid cooling option. Neither Teamgroup nor MSI showed the effectiveness of their respective RAM coolers at Computex, however — perhaps a missed opportunity to make a point about their usefulness. 

The need for a memory cooler varies by individual. For those who need one, this is an option, and it's not the first memory cooler we've seen recently, but it's more pragmatic than a liquid RAM cooler.

Team Group showcased many of its new memory and storage devices during Computex 2024. The company introduced two M.2 SSDs- the T-Force GE Pro Gen 5 and the T-Create I54 Ai Gen 5 M.2 PCIe SSDs. It also showcased the Dark AirFlow 05 SSD cooler and a few external SSDs made for specific devices. 

This new series of SSDs are aimed towards content creators such as photographers and videographers, but Team Group have also begun catering to AI content generation, as many others have. Team Group has released storage and memory specifically tailored towards the generative AI category, including its T-Create CAMM2 drive. 

T-Force GE Pro and T-Create I54 PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs

Team Group announced two new generation PCIe 5.0 SSDs. The first is the T-Force GE Pro aimed towards gamers and rated to have a sequential read and write speed of 14,000 and 11,800 MB/s respectively. This is advertised as an improvement over its T-Force GE drive which is advertised to have a sequential read of up to 14,000 MB/s. This drive was showcased during CES 2024 and revealed to be using the Innogrit IG5666 controller. Based on previous findings about this controller, it delivers higher performance than the Phison E26 controller.

Additionally, Team Group specifies that it bundles the GE Pro with the T-Force Dark 5 SSD cooler for those who need better SSD cooling in their desktops. By default, it has a graphene layer for heat dissipation, hopefully adequate for builds with restricted space for a tall SSD heatsink.

The other SSD is called the T-Create I54 Ai Gen 5 M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSD- and as the name suggests, it is marketed towards AI content creation. It justifies this claim by claiming it provides lower latency than its previous generation PCIe 4.0 SSDs in access time, SLC caching, power efficiency, TBW rating up to 2,400 TB, and storage variants available up to 4TB. Team Group only advertises its sequential read speed which is up to 14,000 MB/s. Additionally, Team Group says it features 'AI thermal regulation' where it claims to adjust performance based on internal temperature to avoid overheating. It would be interesting to see if it uses AI for thermal regulation as it suggests or if the drive does provide real-world benefits in AI content creation. We'll find out when we get one in for review.

Team Group's upcoming range of SSD Coolers 

Team Group introduced a plethora of PCIe SSD coolers for desktop systems. Among its range, those that stand out are the T-Force Dark AirFlow 04, 05 and 06 SSD cooler. The latter of which uses a vapour chamber block made from pure copper with aluminium heatsinks, two copper heat pipes (one for the AirFlow 04), and a PWM fan for heat dissipation.
We reviewed Team Group's first M.2 SSD cooler, a cooler which was powerful enough to cool a low-end CPU.

The AirFlow 06 has dual fans blowing from its side and it has magnets on top, giving the ability to stack coolers should they be required. But one can't be certain if such a mounting method would help with cooling. 

Team Group's WaterFlow 01 was also spotted at Computex 2024. The WaterFlow 01 uses a blower-style fan, with a micromotor for its closed-loop cooling system. Team Group isn't the first to have a discrete liquid cooler for SSDs, as MSI also showcased a prototype during CES 2024. One couldn't help but wonder if the appearance of such liquid coolers implies that newer PCIe 5.0 controllers will be anything but cool? 

Near future and beyond Portable SSDs

Team Group made portable SSDs for a myriad of devices but the function of its T-Create P34F stands out as it uses Apple's 'Find My' app, in case you happen to misplace these Bluetooth Tag enabled portable drives. There's also a P35 USB 3.2 Gen 2 aimed to provide hardware encryption with this portable SSD via its SSD Security toolbox. 

Team Group displayed its first USB4 Type-C drive called the T-Force M400 which comes in 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB variants, with read/ write speeds up to 3,700 MB/s and 3,400 MB/s respectively. 

With a versatile range of storage and memory products, Team Group appears to be proactively pushing itself in current and upcoming standards. While it does seem bold, one is curious to know about its performance throughput, given that it emphasized some of its T-Create products for AI content creation. 

TeamGroup has introduced its T-Create Expert AI series LPDDR5X CAMM2 memory modules (as well as many other new memory and storage products) ahead of Computex 2024. 

The headlining new RAM modules come in LPDDR5X-7200 and LPDDR5X-6400 speeds, with CL28/CL24 latencies, in 32GB/64GB capacities. The company stresses the benefits of its fast new memory modules in generative AI applications, as they are tailored for high-speed computing. 

With its Computex launch, TeamGroup becomes just the third memory maker to market CAMM2 memory modules, and like Crucial (which is owned by Micron), it is banking on consumers lapping up high-speed memory to speed AI processing. The company emphasized the importance of delivering an optimal experience in the space-saving CAMM2 form factor. 

TeamGroup is using its own LPDDR5X IC classification and verification process and will provide LPDDR5X-7500 and LPDDR5X-6400 modules delivering 60 GB/s and 51.2 GB/s bandwidth, with CL28 and CL24 latency speeds, respectively. Additionally, it uses ultra-thin graphene heatsinks to help with heat dissipation.

Unfortunately, TeamGroup did not reveal pricing for its CAMM2 modules. But early adoption with such technology always comes at a premium, such is the case with the Crucial-made 32GB and 64GB modules priced at $179.99 and $329.99, respectively. Like any newly released memory module, they should reduce in price eventually, while introducing higher memory capacities and speeds with lowered latencies.

CAMM2 memory modules are primarily made to replace the SO-DIMM form factor for notebooks, though we can't rule out them being adopted by other PC form factors. Lenovo is the first notebook maker ready for CAMM2 modules with its ThinkPad P1 Gen 7. With Computex 2024 just days away, we should see a plethora of upcoming notebooks using this standard. 

Adoption on other computing form factors

Apart from its size advantage, its ability to provide 1.3x more bandwidth compared to standard DDR5 modules at JEDEC speeds, and lowered power consumption, could make CAMM2 an excellent addition to desktops, mini PCs, and maybe handheld devices. This is the case with MSI and Kingston, who showed off Fury Impact DDR5 CAMM2 modules on the MSI Z790 Project Zero Plus motherboard - a BTF board that hides its connectors and certain components on the reverse side of the PCB. There will likely be many other memory makers showing CAMM2 modules, possibly also from Crucial who is the first to introduce DDR5-based CAMM2 memory in the market, followed by Samsung Electronics whose executive vice president of memory product planning said this form factor is set to gain wide adoption in PCs, laptops and data centers.

CAMM2 modules are likely to be adopted quicker than previous new memory form factors, as these are more compact while providing higher bandwidth - yet retain the ability to be user-fitted for repairs and upgrades.

TeamGroup announced its all-new T-Force GE Pro PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD, which uses the new Innogrit 12nm multicore and energy-efficient IG5666 controller, will debut at CES 2024 in cooperation with Asus. This is one of the few PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs that have arrived without the Phison E26 controller that has largely dominated the PCIe 5.0 landscape. The T-Force GE Pro PCIe 5.0 SSD will be ready for pre-order on February 9 via Amazon and Newegg in the US.

The SSD is designed for gamers and enthusiasts who want extreme transfer speeds. The SSD hits read speeds up to 14,000 MB/s, but finer-grained specs aren't available. We do know the GE Pro PCIe 5.0 uses 2,400 MT/s NAND flash and DRAM and SLC caching tech.

The T-Force Pro GE uses what appears to be a pre-applied graphene sticker/heatsink on this SSD, apparently building upon the company's use of the material — Team Group bundled a Graphene heatspreader with earlier drives like the Cardea A440. 

The company didn't disclose storage capacities or what type of NAND it uses with the drive, and there isn't a lot of information about the Innogrit IG5666 controller listed on its website, much as we saw with the T-Force Z52A SSD. We do know the GE Pro will use a 2280 form factor, ideal for primary drives for desktop PCs and notebooks, but we'll have to track down more of the finer-grained details at CES.

Team Group is known to have RAM and SSD line-ups, but it also made a couple of SSD coolers for PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives, like the T-Force Siren GD120S AIO cooler exclusively cooling an NVMe drive and the Siren DUO AIO 360 cooler for CPU and NVMe cooling.

The arrival of the Innogrit controller will provide some competition for Phison, which currently dominates the third-party SSD controller ecosystem. We've yet to see newer PCIe 5.0 SSDs using the Silicon Motion SM2508 and SM2504XT controllers that were expected to launch during Q4 2024. The SM2508 controller is expected to power some of the best SSDs this year and will use four Cortex R8 cores and one Cortex M0 core. 

The Pro GE is advertised to automatically adjust performance to avoid overheating by using its integrated thermal regulation system, which uses temperature sensors for monitoring purposes. That's pretty standard tech for any SSDs. Details are light for now, but we'll track down the details at CES. 

To provide high-performing and optimal cooling for the latest SSDs, TeamGroup has launched an all-in-one closed-loop liquid cooler for 2280 form factor PCIe 5 NVMe drives. The T-Force Siren GD120S AIO Cooler is made for PCIe 5 SSDs, as current-gen options tend to run hot, hindering performance.  Like liquid cooling options for CPU and graphics cards, similar options for M.2 SSDs should provide cooler operation and address performance throttling.

The GD120S uses a dedicated aluminum alloy double tube water block, double-layered thermal pads, and a copper plate paired with a 120 mm radiator using 13 high-density aluminum fins. The backplate secures the other other side of the PCB, which is then firmly securely on the waterblock via screws. Firm contact on both ends should enable the liquid cooler to dissipate heat effectively. It is bundled with a 120mm 4-pin ARGB fan. The complete specs are as follows:

The cooler comes bundled with an ARGB splitter and is backed with a three-year warranty. At the time of writing, the GD120S is only available as an all-black liquid cooler.

Do We Even Need This?

While this cooler may seem amusing as M.2 is meant to be low-profile, high-performing storage, the current-gen PCIe 5.0 controller's heat generation and performance throttling are nagging issues. 

We've tested the TeamGroup T-Force Siren Duo 360 AIO cooler, which covers both the CPU and an SSD. We tested with the Teamgroup Z540 PCIe 5 SSD, which uses the Phison E26 controller that many other PCIe 5.0 SSD makers use. According to our review, it yields 30% better cooling performance than a basic NVMe heatspreader while providing the highest measured IOPs during the torture test. 

There are plenty of less-exotic options to cool your SSD, though. There are passive air heat spreaders of different sizes; some even use heatpipes and a fan or two. These should be suitable for the overwhelming majority of use cases, and most users with an AIO for SSD cooling do so merely for the aesthetics.  

This may be seen as a solution for those with existing cooling setups or those who want a separate liquid cooling unit for the M.2 SSD. It also addresses the issue with the Duo 360's clearance, which largely depends on the motherboard layout. It does so by having the pipes routed through the top of the waterblock rather than from its side. Of course, we'll only know about its performance when we test it. Not surprisingly, it doesn't have RGB on the top of the water block, something that those who don't like RGB in everything would appreciate, as the fans can be swapped for a non-RGB version. 

TeamGroup says the cooler will be available on Amazon in North America at the end of December, but it hasn't revealed the MSRP at the time of writing. 

As DDR5 RAM continues rolling out alongside modern platforms, TeamGroup has launched a line of Eco-friendly DDR5 RAM with the goal of reducing the carbon footprint compared to traditional RAM manufacturing. 

According to TeamGroup's press release, every 10 thousand recycled aluminum heatsinks made equates to a 73% reduction in carbon emissions. They're also using Forest Stewardship Council-certified packaging, which should mean the packaging is more sustainably-sourced than it would be otherwise.

Performance-wise, the T-Force Vulcan Eco DDR5 RAM is slated to provide throughput at up to 6,000 MT/s with support for both AMD EXPO and Intel XMP 3.0 memory overclocking profiles. It even features on-die Error Checking Code (ECC), which should further improve reliability and stability for use in professional environments.

The CAS Latency on offer will vary depending on whether you get a DDR5-6000 kit or a DDR5-5600 kit. The latter kit has the highest latency at a rating of CL40, while there are two DDR5-6000 kits at CL38 and CL30 (but with the DDR-6000 CL30 kit having the highest voltage). All T-Force Vulcan Eco kits start at 32 GB with two 16 GB modules for Dual-Channel operation, as well.

On paper, these numbers should put the T-Force Vulcan Eco DDR5 kits on par with other high-end DDR5 RAM kits on offer, though of course we'll have to wait and see some benchmarks before we can confirm that this RAM lives up to expectations. That said, TeamGroup RAM is originally sourced from Micron (like Crucial RAM is), and they've maintained a generally-positive reception over the years.

Even if the Vulcan Eco series lives up to expectations, though, one shouldn't expect it to compete with the most extreme DDR5 offerings on the market, like Corsair's DDR5-8000 RAM. Realistically, though, I think this Vulcan Eco offering has its place in the market— particularly for those who want to reduce their environmental impact, even in small ways.

If there’s one thing that can be guaranteed, it’s that Teamgroup will put out a drive to fit any niche, and the MP44S is no exception. It comes as no surprise that Teamgroup wanted to jump on the M.2 2230 bandwagon, given the growing popularity of the Steam Deck and ROG Ally. The portable gaming PC revolution has begun in earnest, and Teamgroup has been eager to put out an SSD to help that along, one that could fulfill even the desire for up to 2TB of tiny - but fast - internal storage. The MP44S may not be the first to market, and it is just one of many. Still, it’s another fair alternative that assists in bringing down prices for this increasingly desirable form factor, especially at the most-popular 1TB capacity point.

It’s an opportunity because the hardware on many of these drives is no different than what’s on popular M.2 2280 drives. Of course, these 2230 drives usually have to be single-sided to fit nicely in portable systems, which adds physical limitations to the drive’s design. You typically won’t find DRAM on an M.2 2230 SSD, except in the rare case that the components are embedded and the drive will be limited to a single NAND package. This puts some constraints on drive capacity, but QLC makes even 2TB a reasonable option, and honestly, the performance for the Steam Deck is pretty good, even with a QLC SSD. This makes drives like the MP44S a pretty solid upgrade, especially if you saved some money going with a 64GB base Steam Deck.

Teamgroup doesn’t compromise the MP44S's controller, using the fast Phison E21T. This controller has been at the heart of many of the best budget PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market. The Steam Deck is restricted to the PCIe 3.0 interface, but the ROG Ally and other devices can use the additional bandwidth gifted by the 4.0 interface.

Future DRAM-less drives, including those with TLC, might pull ahead of a drive like the MP44S, but it’s a sensible option for now. SD cards are fine and dandy, but this hardware is of a higher class — something to keep in mind as the ROG Ally has had SD card issues. Portable storage also works, but you don’t always want to drag that around with you. So grab an installation guide, take your time, and enjoy a real SSD like the MP44S.

Specifications

The Teamgroup MP44S is available at 1TB and 2TB, currently for $94.99 and $199.99, respectively. This is slightly more expensive than some direct competitors like the Addlink S91. QLC isn’t quite as compelling at 1TB, but it can be workable if it undercuts the TLC alternatives by enough.

The MP44S can hit up to 5,000 / 3,500 MB/s for sequential reads and writes and up to 480K / 500K IOPS for random reads and writes. There’s a five-year warranty with 250TB and 450TB of writes for the two capacities offered. Teamgroup was unable to give us specific performance information for the 1TB, but given what we see with similar drives, it should be close to the 2TB.

Software and Accessories

Teamgroup has its own SSD SMART monitoring software, or SSD SMART Tool, available for download on its website. It comes with a manual that indicates the software can be used to grab basic drive information, such as the SMART readings, and the application also includes a built-in CrystalDiskMark-like benchmark.

A Closer Look

There’s not too much to the MP44S. It’s a single-sided SSD in the M.2 2230 form factor, short and slender enough to fit into the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, and other portable systems. Teamgroup uses a graphene label to cover the controller and a single NAND package for heat dissipation.

This standard layout is also used on the Sabrent Rocket Q4 2230 and Addlink S91. To reach 2TB, the MP44S has to use Micron’s 176-Layer QLC (N48R), but it’s also used at 1TB. It is technically possible to use TLC flash and achieve 2TB — WD’s SN740 manages the trick — but it’s probably easier and more cost-effective to use QLC. Intel’s QLC is only found in M.2 2230 with the 1TB P41 Plus OEM drive and is, therefore, harder to compare. QLC is more of a compromise at 1TB as there’s not as much interleaving with the dies, but for this level of drive with the E21T, it’s sufficient and is mostly an option to save a few bucks over TLC.

Micron’s flash is also more efficient than WD’s BiCS5 TLC from our testing, and the 2TB SN740 — which can be gauged to some degree by looking at our SN770 review — loses some performance over its 1TB counterpart. Still, the 2TB SN740 is probably the fastest drive at 2TB, but we think that, at least for the Deck, QLC is a perfectly good compromise there. This does open the door to the 2TB OEM Crucial 2400, although that uses the SMI SM2269XT controller instead of the MP44S’s Phison E21T. In our testing of these controllers, the latter performs as well or better with better power efficiency. The competition at 1TB is much stiffer for QLC.

It’s worth looking into what performance compromises are made with QLC at 1TB. The MP44S and S91 offer this option, and the Rocket Q4 2230 may eventually do so, but there are many TLC alternatives that no longer carry a high price premium. On the other hand, requiring only eight dies of QLC for 1TB is more convenient, and if these drives end up being less expensive, they are probably still fast enough to be a worthwhile alternative.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Comparison Products

The Teamgroup MP44S goes up against other M.2 2230 SSDs that we have tested, including the Rocket 2230, the Corsair MP600 Mini, the older Inland TN436, the newer Inland TN446, and the similar Sabrent Rocket Q4 2230 and Addlink S91. The WD SN740, not shown, is a shorter OEM version of the WD Black SN770. The Micron 2400, also not shown, is similar to the Crucial P3 Plus but with an SMI controller — it should be somewhat less efficient. These two drives may be referenced where applicable but are not explicitly reviewed.

Steam Deck - General

To gauge general Steam Deck performance, we engage in a variety of typical storage situations with active time measurement. These activities include dealing with the default SteamOS through initial setup, re-imaging, initial booting, and booting in general. For game testing, we see how long it takes to install and boot the popular title Hollow Knight. For a full explanation of our testing procedure, see our Steam Deck storage testing article.

No anomalies were spotted with the MP44S in general Deck testing. You will get good performance from this drive when engaging in basic operations, and it works perfectly well with the Deck. This helps confirm that QLC, even at 1TB, is perfectly capable, although the drives must be less expensive. QLC still has its weaknesses, and keeping more space free to mitigate these means adjusting capacity per dollar must be made when picking a drive.

Steam Deck - KDiskMark and Temperature

One of the most popular, if not the most popular, storage benchmarks is CrysalDiskMark (CDM), which we use in our own Windows-based SSD testing suite. This benchmark relies on Microsoft’s DiskSpd with templated test settings. CDM lets you quickly see how a drive performs against its idealized, rated specifications and the benchmark can also hint at a more “real world” feel with low queue depth I/O testing.

The Linux flavor of this benchmark, which is easy to install on the Steam Deck, is KDiskMark. The “K” refers to the KDE desktop environment used on the Deck. KDiskMark relies on the Flexible I/O tester, or FIO, instead of DiskSpd. For the temperature portion we use data from the SMART sensors on the drive which can be directly polled and from which the maximum temperature can be extracted.

The MP44S is on the level with the other QLC drives, like the Rocket Q4 2230 and S91, which keeps it from being as fast as the newer TLC ones in the all-important low queue depth random 4KB read metric. It is faster than the older TN436 and the Deck’s 64GB stock drive, though.

Other disparities will differ when the drives are utilized in a PCIe 4.0 device like the ROG Ally. This is not hugely relevant for real-world performance and feel, but there is a difference, and certain edge cases — like sustained writes with a fuller drive — will favor the TLC options. The MP44S doesn’t appear fazed, with only 1TB compared to the 2TB QLC drives.

The MP44S does not run particularly hot or cold. Teamgroup does market the graphene label for its cooling properties, which may be of small benefit, but also may require EMI shield adjustment in the Deck.

PC Trace Testing - 3DMark Gaming 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.

3DMark performance is fair, but the QLC-based solutions like the MP44S are slightly slower. 

PC Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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

PCMark 10 is a surprise with the QLC drives — the MP44S, the Rocket Q4 2230, and the S91 — coming out on top. This is true regardless of interface speed or capacity. One place Micron’s QLC shines is with low queue depth 4KB writes, as demonstrated by our CrystalDiskMark results below.

PC Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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

FIle copy performance is good for a PCIe 3.0 interface, as would be the case on the Steam Deck. When the drives are opened up to the PCIe 4.0 interface, the TLC-based solutions like the Rocket 2230, the MP600 Mini, and the TN446 pull ahead.

PC Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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

The ATTO results are good both for PCIe 3.0 and 4.0. Write throughput drops a bit with larger block sizes for the latter due to the limitations of QLC flash at the rated bus speed. Likewise, sequential performance in CDM is good at PCIe 3.0 speeds, with a significant gap for sequential writes with PCIe 4.0. Random write latency is good with this flash, but the arguably more important random read latency is worse with QLC.

PC Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

It’s hard to be satisfied by the slow, steady state write performance of the QLC-based drives, which includes the MP44S. They ultimately write at only about 100 MB/s in the QLC folding mode. This is due to the large cache and the flash’s low raw writing speed. Normally, this performance drop is not noticed as the drives will stay in pSLC mode. However, prolonged writing and/or a very full drive can make this condition arise more readily. The good news is that this QLC is fast enough to saturate with just eight dies for 1TB of capacity, although the cache is correspondingly smaller in absolute terms.

This is certainly one reason to look for a TLC drive, but even that is no guarantee of consistent performance, as demonstrated by the TN436. It’s a good idea to get more capacity than you need and try to leave some space free on the drive, especially with QLC. That means that going with, say, a 512GB TLC Rocket 2230 might be an attractive alternative to 1TB of QLC, but pricing is such that the best capacity per dollar is currently fixed at 1TB.

Power Consumption

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

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

For temperature recording we currently poll the drive’s primary composite sensor during testing with a 24C ambient.

Power efficiency is pretty stellar, although not quite as good as the best TLC drives. All of these drives are more efficient when run at PCIe 3.0 than 4.0, albeit not by a huge amount. They all also easily surpass the older TN436.

The 1TB MP44S has fewer dies than the 2TB S91 and Rocket Q4 2230 but has similar performance, which means it is more efficient  — almost on par with the TLC drives. This indicates that any decision between QLC and TLC at 1TB will not have power efficiency as a significant factor.

The MP44S also ran cooler than our 2TB QLC drives, exhibiting no throttling. Efficiency often correlates with temperature, all else being equal. We wouldn’t put too much faith into the graphene label being able to make a meaningful difference in cooling, but it’s there.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

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

Conclusion

There’s not too much to differentiate the MP44S from the Addlink S91 and Sabrent Rocket Q4 2230. It does have a graphene label with similar aspirations as the copper-infused one utilized by Sabrent, although there’s a real limit to how much this will help in a confined space. It also has an SSD toolbox, but that’s pretty standard for the industry, and even if it wasn’t available, there are excellent freeware solutions for most features. Teamgroup’s reputation is not the worst, so it may be a better solution than some shady generic brands, but your decision still comes down to price at the end of the day.

We have nothing bad to say about the MP44S, and it doesn’t have the inconsistencies we saw with the S91. The S91 has a 512GB TLC option, but if we’re talking about high capacity, the Q4 2230 is also a real competitor. Other 2TB options are available on the wider market, including the WD Black SN740 and Crucial 2400, but these were designed for OEM uses. Money can be saved by going to sites like AliExpress to find those types of drives, but there may be more risk involved. The MP44S is, therefore, a relatively safe option if you’re willing to potentially pay more. It’s not half bad at 1TB, but it has to undercut the TLC alternatives to be worthwhile.

The real question is, is it worth going with QLC flash if you're looking for 1TB of storage? Given current pricing, it really seems best to use QLC for 2TB if you want capacity and, if you want maximum performance on a budget, stick with TLC at 512GB with a drive like the TN446. If you have your heart set on 1TB, then the price difference between QLC and TLC is narrow enough to lean in TLC’s favor if performance and full-drive consistency are factors for you.

Still, the 1TB MP44S performed well enough at PCIe 3.0 and in the Steam Deck to suggest you can get by with QLC flash without any large performance gap. It’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to spend or save.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

TeamGroup has launched new Elite and Elite Plus DDR5 memory kits to rival the best RAM. According to the product page, the DDR5-6400 memory kits are seemingly drop-in compatible with the upcoming "Intel Z790 Refresh" platform for 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh processors.

Existing 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors support DDR5-5600 or DDR4-3200 memory out of the gate. The specifications on the product page hint that Raptor Lake Refresh will seemingly support DDR5-6400 natively. Suddenly, the rumors of Raptor Lake Refresh reportedly having a better-integrated memory controller (IMC) seem a little more credible.

TeamGroup's latest DDR5-6400 memory kits conform to JEDEC specifications, meaning you don't need to overclock them to hit DDR5-6400. As a result, they don't come with Intel XMP 3.0 or AMD EXPO profiles. They are plug-and-play on compatible platforms like the Intel Z790 Refresh platform mentioned on TeamGroup's website. As far as AMD goes, Zen 4 only has native DDR5-5200 support. The latest AGESA microcode has enabled some Zen 4 processors to hit DDR5-6400 and allowed some golden samples to go up to DDR5-8000. That's the reason why Zen 4 isn't on the compatibility list.

Being JEDEC-compliant has its concessions. Although the memory kits only require a DRAM voltage of 1.1V, the memory timings are terrible. TeamGroup has configured the timings to 52-52-52-103, which is the middle bin. The bottom and top bins are set to 56-56-56 and 46-46-46, respectively. The sloppy timings will negatively impact the memory's performance. For comparison, entry-level DDR5-6400 memory kits have their timings set at 40-40-40-84. But then again, these are overclocked memory modules, pulling 1.35V instead of TeamGroup's JEDEC-specced 1.1V. The lower operating voltage implicates reduced power consumption, but it's typically not a huge deal on desktop platforms unless you aim to build a very energy-efficient system.

TeamGroup will offer the DDR5-6400 memory under the run-of-the-mill Elite series and the slightly better-looking Elite Plus series that comes with a low-profile aluminum black or silver heat spreader. Either way, the memory will be available as single DIMMs (16GB or 32GB) or dual-channel kits (2x16GB or 2x32GB). The timings and DRAM voltage remain the same regardless of the capacity or presentation.

TeamGroup announced that the Elite and Elite Plus DDR5-6400 memory kits will launch in August 2023 in North America and Taiwan. The company didn't reveal the pricing, though. It would seem that the memory kits will arrive before Raptor Lake Refresh, rumored to hit the market in October.

Today at Newegg, users can find the Team Group T-Force Cardea 1TB SSD at Newegg for its best price to date. This was already a reasonably priced SSD going for around $49 but this discount takes the price down to $34. It might not be the fastest SSD on the market but for users looking to upgrade their storage on a budget, it’s still fairly notable performance-wise.

As of writing, the drive has been placed on backorder but you can still order it for the discounted rate. We’re not sure when the restock will take place but at this price, it should be well worth the wait.

This discount applies to the 1TB model but there are other capacities available in this line, as well, including 500GB, 2TB and 4TB. All of the drives in this line have an M.2 2280 form factor but the 1TB can reach read/write speeds as high as 3500/3000 Mbps.

The Team Group T-Force Cardea 1TB SSD uses 3D NAND TLC memory and connects using a PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface. It’s supported by a limited 5-year manufacturer’s warranty from Team Group as well as Newwegg’s 30-day return policy.

Visit the Team Group T-Force Cardea 1TB SSD product page at Newegg for more details and purchase options.

Today we’ve got an awesome deal to share from Newegg on the Team Group MP33 1TB SSD. It’s usually priced around $69, but today it’s dropped to a new all-time low price of $36. This might not be the fastest SSD on the market, but it is currently one of the most cost-effective options with reliable performance.

We reviewed the Team Group MP33 last year and overall regarded it as a noteworthy contender in the market for SSDs in its class. It’s efficient with a strong warranty to back it up. Our biggest gripe was its tendency to have slow native write performance. With today’s discount in mind, it’s easily worth a close look for anyone looking for more storage on a budget.

All drives in the Team Group MP33 line use PCIe 3.0 x4 interfaces to connect. A Silicon Motion SM2263XT controller drives it and uses Micron 96L TLC memory. This discount is for the 1TB module, which has maximum read/write speeds of 1800 / 1500 MBps.

The Team Group MP33 1TB SSD is supported by Newegg’s 30-day return policy and a limited 5-year manufacturer’s warranty from Team Group that voids should the drive reach 600 TBW.

Visit the Team Group MP33 1TB SSD product page at Newegg for purchase options and more information. As of writing, it’s unclear how long the discount will be available.

Teamgroup advertised a new PS5 M.2 heatsink at the Computex that can seriously improve thermals for the Best SSDs for PlayStation 5. Teamgroup says its TForce AL1 heatsink replaces the rear shroud on the PS5's M.2 expansion slot, thus improving SSD thermals by up to 25C.

The heatsink is made of aluminum and coated in a matte black finish that closely aligns with the matte black paneling behind the PS5's white cover. The heatsink takes advantage of the PS5 expansion slot's active cooling — provided by the main CPU/SoC fan, and soaks up more air because the heatsink itself replaces the SSD cover on the PS5, so it is on the outside of the PS5 enclosure. Thus, the extra width and depth of the heatsink provide a big advantage over standard M.2 coolers.

Teamgroup advertises a 12 to 25C drop in thermals with its AL1 heatsink, which is a substantial boost in thermal headroom for any SSD. This should provide any ill-performing SSDs with more than enough headroom to hit peak performance in the PlayStation 5 for long periods. The up to 25C drop will also mitigate any hot air being exhausted from the PS5's CPU/SoC since the M.2 expansion slot is by the same fan.

The AL1 heatsink measures 127 x 65.5 x 13.5mm and weighs 78 grams. Obviously, you don't have to check these measurements if you want to drop this heatsink onto a PlayStation 5. The PS5 supports 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, and 22110.

Pricing and availability are unknown, but we suspect the AL1 will be competitive with other PS5 M.2 coolers on the market.

TeamGroup has revealed many exciting products at this year's Computex event. However, the T-Force Siren GD120S may be one of the most overkill M.2 SSD coolers we’ve seen, and we’ve seen a lot of beefy coolers since PCIe 5.0 SSDs have started to  arrive on the retail market. When you thought SSD coolers couldn't get any crazier, TeamGroup comes out with an 120mm AIO liquid cooler designed for cooling the PCIe 5.0 drives, which are habitually among the best SSDs.

The T-Force Siren GD120S, which comes in a pure white color, is a good-looking AIO liquid cooler for M.2 2280 drives. The cooler features a copper base plate that transfers the heat from the SSD via two tubes toward the aluminum radiator, which measures 266 x 215 x 136mm. The pump is pretty good, with rated speeds of up to 4,000 RPM, give or take, delivering a flow performance of up to 850 ml/min. Therefore, it should be able to move a decent amount of heat at a respectable rate.

The cooler consumes up to 4W; according to TeamGroup, the pump's noise level is around 22 dBA. There are louder components inside your case. Meanwhile, a single 120mm ARGB cooling fan is responsible for dissipating the heat from the radiator. The cooling fan spins between 600 and 2,200 RPM with a maximum noise level of 39.5 dBA, just a bit louder than a whisper.

TeamGroup hasn’t decided on the pricing for the T-Force Siren GD120S yet. However, the company is aiming for a third quarter launch. It’s not like there are tons of M.2 AIO liquid coolers on the market so we can’t even guess the pricing for the T-Force Siren GD120S.

TeamGroup also lifted the curtain for the brand's T-Force AirFlow series of PCIe 5.0 coolers that feature a more conventional style of air cooling. The company split the coolers into three models: T-Force AirFlow I, T-Force AirFlow II, and T-Force AirFlow III. The designs differ slightly, so consumers must decide which works best per their system configuration and clearance space. Graphics cards aren’t getting any smaller so it’s a challenge to fit aftermarket M.2 SSD coolers in a build.

The T-Force AirFlow series feature thick heat pipes, aluminum heatsinks with optimized fin stacks, and in some cases, a small cooling fan, similar to Phison's reference PCIe 5.0 cooler. TeamGroup claims that the T-Force AirFlow series can lower SSD temperatures by up to 30%.

TeamGroup also displayed the brand's Cardea Z5 series of SSDs at its booth. However, these aren't the same drives as the Cardea Z54A the brand had previously teased. Strangely, the brand didn't take the opportunity to reveal more information about the faster drive since the company was making a big deal about the SSD days before Computex 2023.

The Cardea Z5, which comes in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, is a couple of notches below the Z54A. The drives max out with sequential read and write speeds up to 12 GB/s and 11 GB/s, respectively. In comparison, the Cardea Z54A breaks the 14 GB/s and 11 GB/s barriers regarding sequential read and write performance. The manufacturer rates the Cardea Z5 with endurance levels up to 1,400 TBW. The PCIe 5.0 SSDs come with a standard five-year warranty.

TeamGroup's other displayed products include the latest T-Force XTREEM gaming and overclocking memory, which will arrive on the market in traditional and ARGB flavors. In addition, consumers can choose from different speeds up to 8,266 MT/s.

The T-Force Siren GA360 AIO liquid cooler also made an appearance. The cooler rocks a seventh-generation Asetek V2 pump and leverages AI for operation. Some of the smaller products include two USB 3.2 thumb drives. The C321 is Gen 2 with read and write speed peaking at 1 GB/s and capacities up to 2TB. Meanwhile, the C175 is a Gen 1 drive manufactured from 75% post-consumer recycled plastic.

In TeamGroup's Computex press release we find a plethora of PC components, from elegant and extreme DDR5 RAM with "auroras" all the way to the humble USB 3.2 Gen 1 flash drives. All of these components fall under TeamGroup's marketing slogan of 'Dazzle Chill Integrate'.

T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR5

Equipped with dual light pipes, black translucent acrylic and a 'multi-optical design' to produce an aurora of soft flowing light, the T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR5 is available in frequencies between 7,000 and 8,266 MHz and is specially designed for gamers and extreme enthusiasts who want a little soft RGB lighting in their rigs.
Keeping things cool via a black 2mm anodized aluminum heat spreader, the RAM has a matte finish which provides a softness, complemented by the aurora effect.

T-Force Xtreem DDR5

If you need the ultimate overclock and advanced cooling, then TeamGroup hopes the T-force Xtreem is what you are looking for. This time there is no soft aurora RGB, instead we get the same 7,000 to 8,266 MHz frequency range, 2mm of high-quality aluminum alloy heat spreader and a thermally conductive silicone gel to efficiently draw the  heat away from the chips.
The matte heat spreader design is low-key, for those that want performance without the attention of RGB. That said, the large T-Force logo adds a little 'panache' to what could be just any piece of silicon.

T-Force Siren GA360 ARGB CPU All-In-One Liquid Cooler

Developed in collaboration between T-Force and Asetek Designworks, the T-Force Siren GA360 AIO features a seventh generation Asetek v2 pup and efficient motors with PWM control. The AIO liquid cooler allows for precise real-time adjustments to the water block motor and fan speeds according to your CPU temperature and it 'Supports Al-Controlled PWM to Direct Balancing of Operational Temperature' The Siren GA360 is compatible with Intel and AMD CPUs.

Just like the T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR5, this cooler has an 'aurora' effect via an ARGB water block and fan, supporting many different RGB lighting protocols.

TeamGroup states that the GA360's "entire manufacturing process is RoHS-compliant, and its packaging is made of recyclable materials, allowing the Siren GA360 to deliver incredible gaming prowess while supporting a greener environment." 

T-Force Siren DP360 All-In-One ARGB CPU Liquid Cooler

Spotted on the show floor by our roving reporters, the Siren DP360 features a copper water block plate, and a pump fan speed of 2800 RPM. Compatible with LGA1700/115X and AMD AM4 and AM5 CPUs and with a 394 x 120 x 27 mm radiator, the AIO also features a circular LCD display.

T-Force Dark AirFlow Cooler Series for Gen5 M.2 PCIe SSD

With an expected maximum sequential read and write speed of over 12,000MB/s and 11,000MB/s, respectively. The T-Force Dark Airflow Cooler series are a trio of cools, each with multiple layers of aluminum fin heatsinks and heat pipes to increase the thermally conductive area. Active cooling, via a fan and a 'multi-faceted cooling design' helps keep your PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD cool, even under stress. 

TeamGroup C231 and C175USB3.2 Flash Drives

The final products announced from TeamGroup are two USB 3 flash drives. The C231 features a USB3.2 Gen 2 interface, with maximum read and write speeds of up to 1000MB/s and a capacities up to 2TB. The push-slide mechanism hides the USB C connector, keeping it out of the way in your pocket and protected from sharp objects.

The C175 Eco USB 3.2 Gen 1 flash drive is made from 75% post-consumer recycled plastic. There are no performance specs so one must assume that it does not match the performance of the C231.

PC memory and storage specialist TeamForce is hoping to stoke up excitement for the wares it will debut at Computex 2023. In a press release, the firm promised it would be showcasing a range of six new products to integrate with your PC. Unsurprisingly, the company has lined up various new DDR5, AiO cooling and USB flash products, but what has caught our eye is the trio of new M.2 SSD coolers.

The transition to M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen5 storage is making more powerful thermal solutions a necessity. To swerve the specter of performance destroying thermal throttling, most PC users equipping these super fast SSDs will need at least a hefty heatsink, and some kind of active cooling may be preferable.

TeamGroup is stepping up to meet this latent demand, and has lined up three M.2 SSD coolers dubbed the T-Force Dark AirFlow Cooler Series. These are designed to pair up with the fastest flagship PCIe Gen5 SSD from T-Force, which may be a reference to the 14.3 GB/s T-Force Z54A SSD. However, we don't see why they couldn't be used in tandem other SSD brands' M.2 2280 sticks.

TeamGroup described the bunch as airflow coolers "equipped with an exclusively-designed aluminum fin heatsink with multiple layers and heat pipes passing through." Moreover, they are all said to feature an active cooling fan. In one of the cooler pictures no fan is actually visible, so we are assuming it is embedded in the fins on the far side of the cooling tower, out of view.

It is good to see a well-known vendor offering this trio of SSD cooling options, but taken individually, they aren't anything special. For example, we have seen a multitude of tower-like SSD cooler designs with fans, as well as one that is cylindrical, launched in the last few months.

TeamGroup has yet to divulge any information about bundling these new SSD coolers, or whether they will be sold separately. We also look forward to pricing and availability information from Computex next week.

Elsewhere in TeamForce's Computex press release, it mentions its T-Force Xtreem DDR5 Overclocking Memory, which will be made available in frequencies starting from 7,000MHz~8,266MHz. There will be an aRGB edition of this Xtreem DDR5 OC memory series. There's also the new T-Force Siren GA360 ARGB CPU All-In-One Liquid Cooler, developed in collaboration with Asetek, and using the latter party's seventh gen pump. This Siren AiO cooler is designed so that it can chill both your CPU and an M.2 SSD.

TeamGroup has revealed the T-Force Z54A PCIe 5.0 SSD, which will undoubtedly shame even the best SSDs. With its sequential read and write speeds of up to 14.2 GB/s and 11.5 GB/s, respectively, the T-Force Z54A is set to become the fastest consumer PCIe 5.0 SSD once it hits the retail market.

Unlike other PCIe 5.0 drives that employ the Phison PS5026-E26 controller, the T-Force Z54A leverages a competing solution: the IG5666 controller from InnoGrit. Adata's Project Nighthawk and Project Blackbird SSDs utilize the same controller, but TeamGroup is the first vendor to announce a finished product. There's also a third player out there — Silicon Motion has the SM2508 and SM2504XT controllers that will power upcoming PCIe 5.0 SSDs. However, those will come in late, as they're slated for a fourth-quarter release.

Judging by TeamGroup's provided performance numbers, the Innogrit IG5666 controller delivers higher performance than the Phison PS5026-E26 controller. The screenshot shows the T-Force Z54A hitting sequential read speeds of up to 14,365 MB/s and write speeds of up to 11,547 MB/s. It outperforms the Crucial T700, which is the fastest E26-powered drive with 12.4 GB/s of sequential writes and 11.8 GB/s of sequential reads.

The E26 controller can hit speeds of up to 14 GB/s when paired with NAND, which runs at 2,400 MT/s. Unfortunately, thus far, no consumer PCIe 5.0 SSD has been shown to possess that bin. Even Crucial, a subsidiary of Micron, has only been able to deck the T700 with 2,200 MT/s NAND, restricting the SSD from hitting the maximum potential of the E26 controller. Our sources have told us that the IG5666 controller beats the E26 controller even if the latter is attached to 2,400 MT/s NAND.

There is virtually no public information on the Innogrit IG5666 controller. However, TeamGroup's press release confirms that the IG5666 controller is a product of the 12nm process node and supports 2,400 MT/s NAND, just like the rivaling E26 controller. In addition, the controller seemingly has a unique code-correction technique to extend the longevity of the NAND and a decoder for a low-power mode. TeamGroup didn't specify whether the T-Force Z54A has 2,400 MT/s NAND.

The product render for the T-Force Z54A shows a bare drive without any bulky heatsinks or cooler. But like any other PCIe 5.0 SSD, the drive will likely thermally throttle if you run it without a heatsink, though you may get away with it under standard usage. Still, more intensive workloads will likely impact the drive's performance, so consumers should use the motherboard's integrated M.2 heatsink or an aftermarket cooler with bare drive PCIe 5.0 SSDs. There's a reason why TeamGroup showed off an upcoming 360mm AIO liquid cooler with an M.2 module to liquid cool the T-Force Z54A.

TeamGroup didn't reveal the pricing or availability for the T-Force Z54A, but we'll likely learn more about the IG5666-powered PCIe 5.0 SSD at Computex 2023. Today's press release was probably just a tiny teaser to excite consumers for the upcoming show.

Colorful this week introduced its new CVN Icicle DDR5-6600 32 GB memory kit aimed at enthusiasts and featuring a unique cooling system. Apparently, these DRAM sticks are said to feature impressive overclocking potential as they have almost achieved the world's overclocking record for DDR5 memory with their impressive DDR5-10708 CL56 data transfer rate. Interestingly, the modules are not too expensive.

Colorful's CVN Icicle DDR5-6600 CL34 16GB modules (set to be available in dual-channel 32 GB kits) come with a rather unimpressive data transfer rate of 6600 MT/s at a rather overwhelming 1.4V, which implies great overclocking potential without further voltage increase. To prove this point, Colorful says that its iGame Lab overclockers have pushed a CVN Icicle DDR5 to 10,708 MT/s, which is very close to the world's record of 11,130 MT/s and is well above the second-best record of 10,594 MT/s.

To achieve spectacular overclocking results, Colorful's CVN Icicle DDR5 memory modules rely on a 10-layer print circuit board (PCB) and use A-die DDR5 ICs from SK Hynix. To cool down memory chips, power management IC (PMIC), and onboard power circuitry, CVN Icicle DIMMs use rather tall heat spreaders with multiple fins to maximize their dissipating surface and, therefore, performance. In addition, to simplify using the modules in DDR5-6600 mode, they come with Intel's XMP 3.0 profiles. Meanwhile, the modules are also equipped with an RGB bar that can be managed using software from Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI.

While it is likely that many of Colorful's CVN Icicle DDR5-6600 32GB kits will offer impressive overclocking potential, overclocking is always a lottery, and not everyone wins. That said, the best thing about the dual-channel DDR5-6600 kit is that its MSRP is only $105, below prices of similar products at Amazon. This combination of out-of-box speed and price may easily make this 32GB kit some of the best memory kits available today.

Without any doubt, DDR5-10708 CL56 is an extremely impressive overclocking result. But some points need to be made about setting this record.

First up, CVN Icicle DDR5-6600 modules currently come in 16GB capacities, and it is easier to overclock low-capacity memory sticks. Secondly, only one module was used, so it was easier for the memory controller to operate at increased speeds. Thirdly, the Core i7-13700K 'Raptor Lake' processor only had three cores activated and was downclocked to 764.84 MHz to ensure that the memory controller got all the power it needs and to reduce the overall power consumption of the processor to ensure cleaner power and signaling. Fourthly, the CPU was presumably cooled using liquid nitrogen, or at least a high-performance liquid cooling system.

TeamGroup has launched new 48GB and 96GB memory kits to compete with the best RAM on the market. In addition, the vendor pushed the speed limits for the former and latter offerings to DDR5-8000 and DDR5-6800, respectively.

The brand's new memory kits, which feature non-binary DIMMs, cater specifically to Intel's 700- and 600-series platforms. The memory kits are designed for 12th Generation Alder Lake and 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors, two of the best CPU portfolios that have hit the retail market. The memory kits arrive with the latest XMP 3.0 standard. They should work fine with AMD's latest Ryzen 7000 processors and the corresponding AM5 platform. However, if you're looking for the best compatibility, you should probably wait for the AMD EXPO-certified versions. The AMD equivalents shouldn't take long to hit the market since the chipmaker is already working on adding support for non-binary DIMMs to the AMD motherboards.

TeamGroup has pushed the enthusiast Delta RGB DDR5 lineup with capacities up to 48GB (2x24GB). However, the memory kits are only available in a dual-channel configuration. The available data rates span from DDR5-6000 up to DDR5-8000. The vendor hasn't updated the product's website at the time of writing. According to the press release, the DDR5-7200 memory kit has 34-42-42-84 timings, while the DDR5-8000 variant has 38-48-48-84 timings.

TeamGroup's bleeding-edge DDR5-8000 48GB memory kit is just a tad below G.Skill's recently announced DDR5-8200 48GB memory kit. However, G.Skill's Trident Z5 memory does have more sloppy timings (40-52-52) when compared to the Delta RGB.

TeamGroup 48GB, 96GB DDR5 Memory Kits

The T-Create Expert DDR5 lineup, on the other hand, does offer consumers the 96GB capacity alternative. The memory kits target content creators and professional users, after all. Moreover, the 96GB memory kits are available in dual-channel (2x48GB) and quad-channel (4x24GB) flavors. The latter would be good options for owners of Intel's latest Sapphire Rapids Xeon chips or AMD's looming Ryzen Threadripper 7000 army.

The 2x48GB memory kit arrives with DDR5-6000, DDR5-6400, and DDR5-6800 options. The T-Create Expert DDR5-6800 96GB memory kit sports 36-46-46-96 timings. On the contrary, the four-DIMM 96GB models only come in DDR5-6000 and DDR5-6400 options. Unfortunately, TeamGroup didn't demo the memory kit in the press release, so the specifications are unknown. Although non-binary DIMMs have been out for some time, Corsair is currently the only brand to sell 192GB (4x48GB) memory kits, starting with an eye-watery $724.99 price tag.

TeamGroup didn't share the pricing for the new 48GB and 96GB memory kits. However, the vendor set a launch date for May 2023, so it probably hasn't established the MSRP for the memory kits yet.

Delta's new RGB DDR5-7200 comes with the types of advances we expect from what is quickly becoming a mature technology. It takes time for new technologies to catch on. Intel was one step ahead of its rival AMD when it adopted DDR5 memory early on a mainstream platform. Intel had already embraced DDR5 since Alder Lake; therefore, Raptor Lake was the chipmaker's second generation of consumer chips to check in with DDR5 support. AMD, on the other hand, made the transition recently with its Zen 4 processors. With one generation under Intel's belt, it's comprehensible why Raptor Lake processors have a higher headroom for supporting ultra-fast DDR5 memory kits.

Memory vendors had made significant progress with DDR5. Thanks to Intel's Raptor Lake products, manufacturers could push the DDR5 speed limit. As a result, nowadays, memory kits that span between DDR5-7000 and DDR5-8000 have arrived on the retail market. The Delta RGB DDR5 memory portfolio from TeamGroup offers varying data rates, but this review will evaluate the company's Delta RGB DDR5-7200 C34 memory kit and see whether it's for you.

The memory modules have an aluminum heat spreader that rocks a sharp design and dynamic RGB lighting. TeamGroup offers the Delta RGB DDR5 memory in white and black colors. Unlike the Delta RGB DDR5-6000 C40 we previously reviewed, the memory modules from this memory kit lack the matte finish, making the heat spreader more reflective to light. Other than this small detail, everything else looks the same.

There's no cause for concern about memory compatibility with CPU air coolers. The Delta RGB DDR5 has a height of 46.1mm (1.81 inches), and we don't expect it to get in the way of modern CPU coolers. Unfortunately, TeamGroup doesn't ship any software with the memory kit, so you'll have to find refuge in your motherboard's software. The vast compatibility list includes Asus Aura Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0, MSI Mystic Light Sync, ASRock Polychrome Sync, and Biostar Advanced Vivid LED DJ.

TeamGroup only sells its DDR5-6800 and above memory kits in the 32GB (2x16GB) flavor, which is the predominant capacity for DDR5. Given the density, each memory module uses the conventional single-rank design. Like its rivals, the high-speed memory kit sports SK hynix's latest H5CG48AGBDX018 (A-die) integrated circuits (ICs). The power management IC (PMIC) has 0D=9C B4F model name printed on it, so it's from Richtek.

Unlike other DDR5 memory kits that default to DDR5-4800, the Delta RGB DDR5-7200 C34 runs at DDR5-5600 right out of the box. At DDR5-5600, the memory operates with 46-46-46-90 timings. Activating the XMP 3.0 profile will force it to hit DDR5-7200 at 1.4V with timings designed to run at 34-42-42-84. See our PC Memory 101 feature and How to Shop for RAM story for more timings and frequency considerations.

Comparison Hardware

Our Intel test system revolves around Intel's Core i9-13900K processor and MSI's MEG Z690 Unify-X motherboard, running the 7D28vA8 firmware. In contrast, the AMD testbed leverages the Ryzen 7 7700X and ASRock X670E Taichi currently on the 1.11.AS06 firmware.

Corsair's CUE H100i Elite LCD liquid cooler keeps the Raptor Lake and Zen 4 processor temperatures in line. In addition, the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio tackles our gaming RAM benchmarks.

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

Intel Performance

As expected, TeamGroup's memory kit didn't have any trouble outperforming the Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6600 C32, the fastest DDR5 memory kit we had previously tested. The Delta RGB DDR5 exhibited the lowest memory latency (73ns) of the lot. In addition, it showed its best in the 7-Zip compression benchmark, outpacing the slowest performer by a 4.2% margin.

AMD Performance

The current state of the AGESA code and silicon limitations put AMD's Ryzen 7000 processors at a disadvantage regarding memory support. However, the good samples with a powerful IMC (integrated memory controller) typically support DDR5-6400 to DDR5-6600 memory.

For our particular Ryzen 7 7700X, DDR5-6400 is the ceiling, so DDR5-7200 is beyond the bounds of possibility.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

SK hynix's previous M-die ICs were the best overclockers, and the trend continues with the new A-die chips. We raised the DRAM voltage from 1.4V to 1.45V to overclock TeamGroup's memory to DDR5-7600. We had to relax the memory timings from 34-42-42-84 to 36-46-46-86, the typical configuration for a DDR5-7600 memory kit.

Lowest Stable Timings

One of the strengths of A-die ICs is that they can scale high with a bit of voltage. On the downside, they dislike tight timings, unlike Samsung B-die. So despite our efforts and the extra 0.05V in DRAM voltage, the end result was 34-41-41-81.

Bottom Line

TeamGroup tailored the Delta RGB DDR5-7200 C34 towards Intel's 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors and 700-series platform, so that's the best match for this memory kit. AMD's Zen 4 offerings are out of the question if you want to extract the top speeds, but you could get away with an Alder Lake chip if your IMC is good. If the Delta RGB DDR5-7200 C34 isn't fast enough for you, rest assured that the SK hynix A-die ICs, which the memory kit utilizes, offer ample headroom for overclocking.

The official MSRP for the Delta RGB DDR5-7200 C34 is $274.99; however, you can generally find it with a reduced price tag. For example, Newegg sells the black and white variants for $236.99, and sometimes you can bring the price lower through promos. It's definitely not cheap, but high performance never is, especially since DDR5 is still pretty much premium hardware.

Sabrent's Rocket 2230 is a tiny but capable PCIe 4.0 SSD designed to fit in special devices as an internal storage upgrade or replacement. These devices include Valve’s Steam Deck, Microsoft’s Surface series of products, some ultrabooks, NUCs, HTPCs, and more. This drive exhibits good all-around and sustained performance, and our testing showsit's also quite efficient. There are multiple capacities offered, but it’s a shame that a 2TB model doesn’t exist yet. This M.2 2230 drive will cost you significantly more than its longer 2280 cousins, but the promise of a retail product with a name behind it is probably worth the premium.

The Inland TN436 was the first retail PCIe 4.0 M.2 2230 NVMe SSD that we reviewed, and it’s good to see another option. The Rocket 2230 is faster, more efficient, and also has 256GB and 512GB SKUs. The latter are useful for those on tight budgets who want to upgrade a 64GB eMMC Steam Deck or other storage-limited device. If you just want to toss a terabyte into your Steam Deck, though, either drive will do just fine. The Deck is not particularly demanding, although other devices might be able to make better use of the Rocket 2230’s power. We are more interested in seeing additional competition in this space to lower prices, and we'd also like to see a 2TB option.

Most alternatives are OEM drives, which are often second-hand with weaker warranties. Our TN436 review lacked M.2 2230 drives for comparison and that is one reason why.  For this review, we only have the Rocket 2230 and the Inland drive as direct 2230 comparisons. However, we have addressed the most popular OEM options in various ways throughout the review. A quick example would be the WD Black SN770 being a substitute for the OEM SN740, since they are effectively the same drive aside from length. Being shorter can make cooling more difficult, but the performance characteristics are the same. We also have the Team Group MP44L to show that against the Rocket 2230.

We can recommend the Rocket 2230 within its class of drives, as it takes proven hardware and simply puts it into a shorter form factor. Our only caveat is price which, to be fair, is still generally competitive. Although this is a PCIe 4.0 drive, it will work perfectly well in 3.0 and even 2.0 systems. However, the newer hardware should make for a more efficient package, so the 4.0 interface is just a bonus in those cases.

Specifications

The Sabrent Rocket 2230 is a PCIe 4.0 SSD available in the M.2 2230 form factor in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. 2TB is possible in this form factor, but is more difficult to achieve with a single-sided drive, as many devices require. It can reach up to 5,000/4,300MBps for sequential read and write and up to 450K/545K random read and write IOPS. The former is plenty to saturate devices that are limited to PCIe 3.0 x4, but these devices can still benefit from other performance and efficiency improvements.

The Rocket 2230 comes with a 5-year warranty when registered (disappointingly, it's just two years if you don't register) with 200TB, 300TB, and 600TB of TBW, depending on capacity. This is an ample amount and is close to the standard. At the time of review, pricing was $49.99, $89.99, and $159.99 for each of the three launch capacities. There has been some initial fluctuation in the 1TB price, perhaps due to the popularity of that specific capacity, but it currently sits somewhere in-between the Micro Center and Amazon prices for the 1TB TN436. This is higher than similar 1TB M.2 2280 drives, but is competitive with second-hand 2230 OEM alternatives.

Software and Accessories

Sabrent sells this drive as being compatible with its OEM version of Acronis True Image. This software makes it easy to clone, image, and backup data, but is limited in functionality. We would recommend something with sector-by-sector copy, such as Macrium Reflect Free if trying to clone something like a Steam Deck SteamOS installation.

Sabrent also offers its own SSD toolbox with the Sabrent Rocket Control Panel, which should support this drive in the future, if and when any firmware updates become available. This software can also monitor drive health and other data, but it is possible to download and use the free CrystalDiskInfo application to get this information, as well.

A Closer Look

The Sabrent Rocket 2230 is a diminutive, single-sided SSD in the M.2 2230 form factor. The top side of the drive sports a DRAM-less controller and a single NAND package. This is nice because double-sided drives can cause issues in some devices, like Valve’s Steam Deck, and the same is true of M.2 2242 drives. It’s possible to modify a device to fit such drives but that is not recommended.

There is not really room for DRAM on a drive like this unless it is as part of a single ball grid array (BGA) package. Although there are such drives, like Samsung’s PM971, more commonly these are DRAM-less designs like SK hynix’s BC711 or Kioxia’s BG4. These drives often but do not always support host memory buffer (HMB) functionality.

Although a single-package BGA SSD is convenient to mount for the M.2 2230 form factor, the technology has limitations. Such SSDs can be more expensive to manufacture and support, plus managing thermals can be more difficult. Managing heat dissipation essentially results in strict performance caps. On the flip side, such drives do tend to be quite efficient, which can be useful in space-limited devices. We have not tested the BC711 or BG4 but as BGA drives they may be a bit more snug than a stock drive in the Deck’s EMI sleeve.

The Rocket 2230 is using Phison’s E21T controller, which has proven to be quite excellent. We have tested the Silicon Power UD90, Team Group MP44L, and the Corsair MP600 GS, all using the same controller and getting good marks. This is a four-channel DRAM-less design with HMB support and a fast enough bus to hit 5GBps or more on a PCIe 4.0 system, which we'll soon see in testing. As demonstrated with the QLC-based Crucial P3 Plus and Crucial P3 comparison, the Rocket 2230 should actually be a bit more efficient when limited to 3.0.

The 1TB Rocket 2230 is utilizing Micron’s 176-Layer TLC (B47R), in this case with sixteen 512Gb/64GB dies in a single package (16DP). This flash has good performance and efficiency in our testing so is a good match for the intended application - a storage upgrade for battery-dependent devices. However, it would also be a good choice for some HTPC motherboards and NUCs, some of which have shorter M.2 slots, often on the rear of the motherboard, which can prove challenging for thermal management. It is also possible to extend this drive to M.2 2242 with an appropriate adapter, as it has advantages over the older, double-sided Rocket 2242.

Generally, sixteen dies is the maximum for a single package, so offering a 2TB model of a single-sided drive would require 1Tb/128GB dies. This is possible with SK hynix’s TLC, typically 128-Layer, and with Kioxia’s 112-Layer BiCS5 TLC. The latter is present on the SN740, essentially an OEM WD Black SN770, which is available in 2TB and 2230. If Sabrent is to bring out a 2TB SKU down the road, there is also the possibility of using Micron’s 232-Layer TLC (B58R), first demonstrated in our Phison E26 Preview. Hopefully the popularity of such drives will encourage that eventuality.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Comparison Products

The 1TB Sabrent Rocket 2230 is up against some of the most popular mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market, including the WD Black SN770, the Team Group MP44L, the HP FX900 and the Solidigm P41 Plus. The last of these is QLC-based and is comparable to the OEM Micron 2400. The MP44L has the same makeup as the Rocket 2230, and the SN770 is a good stand-in for the OEM SN740. The Rocket 2230 is tested at 4.0 to demonstrate its full potential, but would have abbreviated sequential performance if run at 3.0.

Also tested is the PCIe 3.0 Samsung 980, as the Rocket 2230 may make its way into a 3.0 device. The 980 has some similarities to the BGA Samsung PM991a but, as mentioned above when discussing BGA SSD options, the latter would be slower in every way. The SN530 is a popular M.2 2230 OEM drive and is represented by the similar WD Blue SN570, which was a replacement for the retail WD Blue SN550 with a faster bus and BiCS5 flash. 

Lastly, we are comparing the Inland TN436, the other retail 2230 NVMe SSD currently on the market, which has the same makeup as the OEM Kioxia BG5. The OEM Micron 2450 has the same controller - the Phison E19T - as these two, but instead pairs it with 176-Layer TLC. This would be objectively inferior to the Rocket 2230’s E21T, as the E19T has a slower bus and is less powerful and efficient due to the process node difference.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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

The Rocket 2230 is average to above average in 3DMark, only falling significantly behind the Black SN770. It’s very close to the MP44L, which of course has the same basic hardware. Games should load fast with any of these drives but the Rocket 2230 may be a bit quicker than typical stock drives.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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

The Rocket 2230 is average among the tested drives in PCMark 10, but is clearly faster than the Blue SN570 and TN436. It’s a match for the FX900, which as a budget drive offers more than enough for everyday desktop use. The SN770 is the clear winner here.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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

The Rocket 2230 impresses with its write speed, but falls behind the Black SN770 in overall copy transfer rate. It’s on par with the MP44L with this result, as expected. This is plenty fast, and the drive is able to take advantage of the PCIe 4.0 interface. Reads are typically more common than writes and there, the Rocket 2230 is within reach of the best.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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

Phison controllers tend to do well with sequential reads in ATTO, and that is the case here. The Rocket 2230 has an excellent read curve and also holds up with sequential writes, minus the anomaly at 64KB. Sequential performance in CrystalDiskMark is good to great, getting close to the fastest drives everywhere except with QD1 sequential read. Results would be lower on a PCIe 3.0 host, but still better than the lower-scoring competitors.

Random performance is also above average to great, particularly with queue depth. While not realistics workloads, high queue depth 4KB tests do demonstrate that the E21T is a powerful controller. With a queue depth of 1 the Rocket 2230 falls behind the FX900 and SN770, although only by a very small amount with writes. This drive will be responsive and, when compared to the TN436, we can see that a new controller with newer flash can offer significant benefits.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The 1TB Rocket 2230 writes in pSLC mode at 4.83GBps for more than 15 seconds, for a cache of 75GB. This is approximately the same size cache that the 1TB MP44L and 1TB UD90 carry. The cache is dynamic, so will shrink as the drive is filled, but is still ample enough in size to handle bursts of random writes. Recovery, as on the other two listed drives, is relatively slow, but this drive should have sufficient idle time in most use cases. Not moving data immediately has benefits, such as reduced wear and the ability to pull reads from pSLC.

The smallish cache is not a huge hindrance, in part because the TLC performance is quite good, especially for an M.2 2230 drive. The Rocket 2230 writes at 1.79GBps in this mode and can do so for a long period of time. Folding is a rather slow 277MBps, albeit still faster than the TN436 is when it is outside of pSLC, which does enable the drive to eventually recover back to TLC mode. It doesn’t quite write as much as the MP44L over time, due to a longer folding stage, but it beats the TN436 by a considerable amount.

Write performance is not something super relevant for a device like the Steam Deck, but this drive demonstrates consistent performance past pSLC, which indicates it should handle edge cases better, such as with a fuller drive. Since this drive will be a popular choice to expand storage, this is a definite positive. This is also one area where the TN436 is incredibly weak. Use of the Rocket 2230 for other things, such as write caching, is also possible, but the shorter physical length would make it more difficult to keep cool.

Power Consumption and Temperature

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

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

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states, via a sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

The Rocket 2230 is exceptionally efficient, beating even the MP44L and coming very close to the FX900. The TN436 and PCIe 3.0 drives are left behind. This drive would be a little bit more efficient if limited to 3.0 in this test.

Idle power consumption is higher, but this is with the best power management features disabled, reflecting desktop rather than mobile device use. Most NVMe drives will idle with very little power usage in a laptop or other battery-dependent device, so load power consumption is technically more relevant. However, most of the time the storage will be in lower power states, such that the impact on battery life is minimal.

We measured the idle temperature at 49C and the load temperature at up to 82C. The latter is the throttling temperature, which was reached after about 400GB of writes. That is not a realistic workload but does indicate the drive would need additional cooling for specific applications. These temperatures are close to what we got with the TN436, although performance remained higher on the Rocket 2230 at maximum temperature.

The temperatures are a bit higher when compared to M.2 2280 drives with the same hardware - the MP44L and UD90 - which is a limitation due to the components being closer together t to fit into the M.2 2230 form factor. This should not be an issue in mobile devices where you will not be pushing massive workloads, and this hardware is efficient enough to match or likely beat any stock storage or OEM options. For heavier use - such as caching in a NUC - we would strongly recommend a DIY heatsink.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

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

Conclusion

The Sabrent Rocket 2230 takes everything that’s great about the company's PCIe 4.0 hardware and packs it into a shorter form factor. Performance remains good, efficiency is better if anything, and it’s sold in a retail package with software and warranty support. It’s not the first on the market - the Inland TN436 holds that accolade - but it offers a higher level of performance without any compromises. OEM drives are largely fast enough and can be found for around the same price, at least in some regions, but carry some risk. For regions with expensive OEM options and no Micro Center, the Rocket 2230 may be especially attractive.

There’s arguments to be made for scoring this drive a notch lower than the Team Group MP44L and Silicon Power UD90, like we did with the Corsair MP600 GS for being late to the party at a higher cost. However, we believe that this drive’s unique form factor more than makes up for those shortcomings. We were also hard on the TN436 for its cost, but for 1TB in M.2 2230 it’s not that unusual. What sets the Rocket 2230 apart from that drive is its excellent performance and high power efficiency. If you’re going to upgrade your internal storage it’s worth investing in the newest hardware when you do it.

The Rocket 2230 and TN436 do still cost more than larger M.2 2280 alternatives, despite having the same respective hardware as their peers. This means a premium is paid to, at least in part, help manufacturers deal with the inevitable RMAs. Hopefully more competition in the future will bring prices down. The Rocket 2230 has more capacity options than the TN43,6 but we would like to see a 2TB SKU in the future. OEM options exist, but the WD SN740 is essentially the only one with TLC at this time. We would recommend that drive if you need 2TB in 2230, although it is ever so slightly thicker with that capacity.

Then again, many of the destination devices can take external storage through USB or microSD. Performance is not an issue for game loading, but is useful for the operating system and applications. Internal storage also has the benefit of using quality flash, which can last a lot longer. 1TB can also go a long way, especially for 64GB native Steam Decks. As such, we think the Rocket 2230 is a sign of good things to come for the Steam Deck 2 and beyond. 

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Get ready for your shiny new DDR5 memory kit to feel slow and out of date. Memory and storage mainstay TeamGroup claims to have found a way to kick DDR5 signal speed and reliability up to new levels with the help of a new component from Renesas Electronics.

According to TeamGroup, it has incorporated a client clock driver, or CKD, into upcoming DDR5 kits that will "strengthen, buffer, and steadily output high-frequency signals from the CPU to memory kits," which the company says will lead to both higher and more reliable frequencies. Renesas says this is the first clock driver to be used in consumer DIMMs. Perhaps before long, we'll see one of these CKD kits on our Best RAM for Gaming page.

Technical details of the CKD, as well as when we might see kits equipped with the tech, are extremely slim at the moment. But according to TeamGroup's press release (and the image released with it), it seems that we'll see CKD-equipped kits arrive first as JEDEC-standard DDR5-6400 options, with faster options to come later this year. The company writes that it hopes that the addition of the client clock driver will help TeamGroup achieve "frequencies in OC memory to 9,000MHz or higher, to deliver ultra-fast gaming experiences for gamers, and reliable, high-performance information processing solutions for creators."

Obviously don't expect these ground-breaking memory kits to arrive anywhere near the realm of general affordability. The fastest 32GB DDR5-7800 options that seem to be readily available now are selling for around $400, and it seems unlikely that adding a new piece of hardware is going to lower the price of high-end kits. 

More and faster top-end options may, though, help push the price of mainstream DDR5 options down while lifting speeds up. That would be good for both general consumers looking to move to the latest memory standard – and AMD specifically. Because while Intel's 13th Gen CPUs support both the older (and still by far cheaper) DDR4, AMD has gone all-in on DDR5 with Ryzen 7000. Along with the higher price of its motherboards, the cost of DDR5 has made AMD's latest platform tough to argue for if you care much at all about getting the most performance for your money. Achieving speeds above and beyond what's available via DDR4 would also of course make more people inclined to make the switch to DDR5.

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

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

Specifications

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

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

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

Software and Accessories

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

A Closer Look

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

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

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

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

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

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Comparison Products

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

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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

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

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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

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

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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

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

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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

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

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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

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

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

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

Power Consumption and Temperature

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

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

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

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

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

Test Bench and Testing Notes

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: Best External SSDs and Hard Drives

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

With Intel rolling out its flagship 13th Gen Core Raptor Lake processors today, memory makers are eager to get their fastest most premium DDR5 kits into the headlines. The likes of Corsair, G.Skill, and Team Group have already started boasting about kits with speeds up to DDR5-7800.

Below are summaries of the new memory kits each firm has prepared to try and tempt Raptor Lake early adopters, presented in alphabetical order. A summary table featuring the newly announced DDR5 modules / kits is provided near the bottom of this article.

Corsair

Corsair today announced “a range of new high-frequency DDR5 kits specifically designed for Intel’s new Z790 motherboards.” Those jumping on the 13th Gen Intel platform have a trio of new 32GB (2x 16GB) Dominator Platinum RGB memory kits to choose from.

There are 32GB kits with headline speeds of DDR5-7000, DDR5-7200, and, for the first time from Corsair, DDR5-7600 to choose from. If you are a fan of Corsair memory but not inclined to splash out on the top-end Dominator Platinum RGB memory kits, the PC components maker says it will be introducing the same speed choices in its Vengeance DDR5 and Vengeance RGB DDR5 "later in 2022."

Corsair also took the opportunity to boast about its PSUs and AIO coolers, and their suitability for pairing with the new Raptor Lake chips.

G.Skill

G.Skill provided details of three kits; its speediest offering of a DDR5-7800 at CL38 32GB (2x 16GB) kit, a ready-to-overclock DDR5-7600 at CL36 32GB (2x 16GB) kit, and a high-capacity DDR5-7400 64GB (2x32GB) memory kit.

In addition to the Trident Z5 family memory kits outlined above, the performance PC components specialist revealed that it is working on "a blistering, ultra-fast DDR5-8000 [CL38] 2x16GB memory kit" that is a work in progress, for the time being.

TeamGroup

TeamGroup was excited to tell us about its T-Force Delta RGB DDR5-7600 memory kits created for, and validated on, Intel 13th-Gen Raptor Lake and Z790 motherboards. Like the other kits, these offerings are easy to get installed and operating at their full potential thanks to Intel XMP 3.0 OC configuration in BIOS.

TeamGroup’s validation screenshots show that the above kit is 32GB (2x 16GB) in capacity with CL36 latency.

Today’s DDR5 memory kits announcement highlights

The vendors didn’t mention any specific prices, but instead ask for those interested to check with retailers. DDR5 isn’t cheap, but is becoming more accessibly priced, though premium modules with the fastest speeds demand a premium.

Team Group has launched a new AiO cooler which extends to chill not just your CPU but also your SSD. The descriptively named T-Force Siren DUO360 aRGB CPU and SSD AiO Liquid Cooler features a number of other key attractions — including compatibility with the latest CPUs / sockets like Intel LGA 1700 and AMD AM5, as well as claims that it can reduce your PCIe Gen 5.0 SSD temperatures by >50%.

Available in a frosty-looking white finish, the T-Force Siren DUO 360 aRGB CPU and SSD AiO cooler has a 360mm radiator and triple 120mm fans — about as powerful as is available for mainstream consumers today. With compatibility guaranteed for upcoming Intel 13th Gen Core ‘Raptor Lake’ CPUs, and the new AMD Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ CPUs, it could be a good match for a higher end processor kicking out considerable heat under stress.

Another ‘hot’ component destined to be popular in the new / next-gen systems are M.2 SSDs that connect via a PCIe Gen 5.0 interface. These are attractive thanks to their potentially superb transfer speeds, but they can get hot under sustained loads — which raises the issue of thermal throttling. Many modern motherboards come with heatsinks for M.2 SSDs now, but enthusiast-grade PCIe 5.0 drives will likely require active cooling to ensure consistent performance. Thus, having an SSD cooling plate integrated with your AiO is a pretty attractive idea.

Team Group has done some of its own testing to measure the benefits of the SSD cooling provided by the T-Force Siren DUO360 aRGB CPU and SSD AiO Liquid Cooler using a bare T-Force Cardea SSD PCIe Gen4 x4 and a bare unnamed PCIe Gen5 SSD. The cooler seems to do a pretty good job of reducing both SSDs' temperatures while idle and while under full load.

The design appears competent overall, and the official specs show that appropriate components and materials have been used for this kind of device. Fan specs, speeds, and noise characteristics are all acceptable, and the cooling blocks are made of aluminum and both feature a copper contact plate. Team Group backs its product with a two-year warranty. 

The cooler has also been designed with some visual flair. In addition to the striking white livery, there are addressable RGB zones a-plenty. Each of the three hydraulic bearing fans has its own set of aRGB LEDs; there's also a circular dual mirror aRGB water block mounted to the CPU; as well as a detachable magnetic aRGB modules that can fit on the SSD water block (or anywhere else you like).

The lighting effects delivered by this T-Force AiO cooler can be controlled and synced with all the usual mainstream systems: Asus Aura Sync, ASRock-Polychrome Sync, Biostar Advanced Vivid LED DJ, Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0, MSI Mystic Light Sync, and so on. Some of Team Group’s official product photos show the 360mm AiO in an attractive, mostly-white build.

The T-Force Siren DUO360 aRGB CPU and SSD AiO Liquid Cooler will be available starting in November, and will cost $399.

Gigabyte has published a list of unannounced DDR5 memory modules boasting extremely high data transfer rates, including 7000 MT/s, 7200 MT/s, and 7400 MT/s. The modules should be available from various brands, including Gigabyte's own Aorus division, Adata, and Kingston. Unfortunately, the memory sticks will require high voltages and slip into systems powered by high-end motherboards.

As it turns out, Gigabyte's top-of-the-range Z790 Aorus Master platform supports (as noticed by @momomo_us) DDR5-6800 CL34, DDR5-7000 CL32, DDR5-7200 CL34, and DDR5-7400 CL34 modules from Adata, Corsair, Gigabyte Aorus, and Kingston. These 16GB modules are based on SK hynix A and SK Hynix M memory devices and require 1.4V, 1.45V, or 1.5V voltages. In addition, these modules feature XMP 3.0 profiles for one-click overclocking and are designed to work in pairs, so Gigabyte does not guarantee that four of such modules will work flawlessly.

Intel's 13th Generation Core 'Raptor Lake' processors seem to have higher overclocking potential in general and memory overclocking potential in particular than their predecessors, which is why it looks like DDR5-7000+ memory modules will be available from numerous manufacturers.

So far, only TeamGroup has formally introduced its 32GB DDR5-7200 CL34 dual-channel kits. In contrast, other suppliers of high-speed memory modules are testing their products with all Intel Z790-based motherboards that will become available shortly. Meanwhile, Gigabyte has tested its flagship motherboard with several manufacturers' high-end modules.

Speaking of high-end memory module suppliers, they should probably be eager to release their highest-performing memory sticks as soon as possible to offset lost revenue and profits caused by softening demand for PCs among consumers.

While all of the high-performance DRAM sticks tested by Gigabyte with its Z790 Aorus Master mainboard will likely be among the best RAM, there is one crucial thing to note about them. 1.4V – 1.5V voltages for DDR5 memory modules represent a 27% – 36% overvoltage compared to the JEDEC standard, which is a significant increase and will inevitably affect memory ICs and Intel's memory controller. We do not know the longevity of these memory modules and Intel's Raptor Lake CPUs, but significant overclocking usually also means a tradeoff between performance and longevity.

Unfortunately, it is unclear when Adata, Corsair, Gigabyte Aorus, G.Skill, and Kingston will release their DDR5-6800 CL34, DDR5-7000 CL32, DDR5-7200 CL34, and DDR5-7400 CL34 modules and how much will they cost.

TeamGroup has introduced the industry's first DDR5 memory modules boasting a data transfer rate of 7200 MT/s. T-Force Delta RGB modules are among best memory modules, and the new DDR5-7200 memory modules are designed primarily for Intel's 13th Generation Core 'Raptor Lake' processors and are currently the fastest memory sticks in the world.

TeamGroup's new T-Force Delta RGB family adds three speed bins: DDR5-6800, DDR5-7000, and DDR5-7200 CL34 at 1.4 Volts. Like other modules aimed at high-end Intel-based systems, the new T-Force Delta RGB memory sticks feature XMP 3.0 profiles for one-click settings adjustments — no mention is made of EXPO support for the new AMD Ryzen 7950X, unfortunately. Also, the modules come equipped with aluminum heat spreaders as well as addressable RGB lighting.

The DDR5-7200 modules use cherry-picked (binned) memory chips that can work at high frequencies. Unfortunately, it looks like there are not so many DDR5 ICs that can enable DDR5-7200 modules, which is why TeamGroup only offers 32GB dual-channel memory kits with 6800 MT/s, 7000 MT/s, and 7200 MT/s speed bins.

These kits are designed specifically for Intel's 13th Gen Core 'Raptor Lake' processors and Intel Z790-based motherboards, so there's no guarantee that they'll work at their designed speeds with 12th Gen Core 'Alder Lake' CPUs or AMD Zen 4 CPUs. TeamGroup also recommends using high-end motherboards that can deliver very clean power to the memory modules to ensure that they work flawlessly.

Speaking of flawless operation at high speeds, it should be noted that ever since Intel launched its Alder Lake CPUs last year, overclockers and suppliers of high-speed memory modules have demonstrated how well these products can work at higher data transfer rates. TeamGroup is the only company to hit the DDR5-7200 milestone with production memory modules... for now.

While we do expect other leading suppliers — such as G.Skill and GeIL — to catch up with TeamGroup shortly, at present they top at DDR5-6800 CL34 at 1.4V and DDR5-6600 at 1.35V, respectively. 

TeamGroup has not announced the exact availability timeframe or recommended prices for its DDR5-6800, DDR5-7000, and DDR5-7200 memory modules, but we expect them to arrive this fall. Prices will almost certainly be higher than existing slower clocked kits.

As VideoCardz spotted recently, TeamGroup is readying a new high-end DDR5 memory kit to compete with the best RAM on the market. The company's T-Force Delta RGB gaming memory has hit a whopping DDR5-7200 with reasonably tight timings.

Many vendors already offer DDR5-6600 memory kits, but none have broken the DDR5-7000 mark. Therefore, the T-Force Delta RGB DDR5-7200 is the fastest retail memory kit for now. Newegg has listed the memory kit for $349.99, but it's not available for purchase yet. However, it isn't a bad price since some brands charge up to the same amount for their DDR5-6600 memory kits.

The T-Force Delta RGB DDR5-7200 (FF3D532G7200HC34ADC01) is a dual-channel memory kit with 32GB of total capacity, composed of two DDR5 16GB memory modules. TeamGroup has binned the memory kit to run at DDR5-7200 (PC5-57600). Unfortunately, Newegg didn't list the complete timings for the memory kit. We only know that it has a set CAS Latency (CL) of 34. If we had to guess, the tRCD and tRP are likely around the 40s range.

Newegg didn't provide hints about the memory kit's required DRAM voltage to hit DDR5-7200. We suspect it requires at least 1.4V to hit that data rate. TeamGroup previously used SK hynix's M-die integrated circuits (ICs) for its other T-Force Delta RGB offerings. However, the South Korean chipmaker's second-generation A-die ICs are already on the market. Early reviews showed promising overclocking prowess, with A-die surpassing the DDR5-7000 barrier easily. So it's plausible that the T-Force Delta RGB DDR5-7200 leverages the new A-die ICs; however, we won't know for sure until we get the memory kit in our labs.

AMD's Zen 4 processors and Intel's 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors will utilize DDR5 memory. AMD has confirmed that DDR5-6000 is the sweet spot for Zen 4, while the jury is still out on Raptor Lake. Nonetheless, the T-Force Delta RGB DDR5-7200 will genuinely appeal to enthusiasts who are after the ultimate performance, and at $349.99, it doesn't force you to throw your house out of the window.

TeamGroup has introduced its first memory modules specifically designed for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7000-series 'Raphael' processors. The company's Vulcanα DDR5 memory lineup not only features a DDR5-6000 speed bin — which AMD claims to be the sweet spot for the Raphael CPUs — but also comes with Extended Profiles for Overclocking (EXPO) settings to simplify high-speed memory modules setup. 

TeamGroup's Vulcanα (Vulcan Alpha) family of memory modules includes three dual-channel kits: 16GB DDR5-5200 CL38 at 1.25V, 32GB DDR5-5600 CL40 at 1.20V, and 'sweet spot' 32GB DDR5-6000 CL38 at 1.25V. The modules are equipped with serial presence detect chips containing AMD-specific EXPO profiles that enable optimized high-performance settings and JEDEC standard profiles for compatibility.

All of TeamGroup's Vulcanα DDR5 memory modules — which might end up in our best memory modules list — are based on DRAM chips that are capable of working at high data transfer rates and come equipped with aluminum heat spreaders that are meant to cool down the memory devices, power management IC (PMIC), and voltage regulating module. 

AMD's Ryzen CPU architectures have specific requirements for optimal memory performance when overclocked. For years, it was almost vital to maintain a 1:1:1 ratio with the Infinity Fabric Clock (FCLK), unified memory controller clock (UCLK), and memory clock (MEMCLK). With the Ryzen 7000-series, it is essential to maintain a 1:1 ratio for UCLK and MEMCLK, whereas FCLK may be set to Auto. Avid PC enthusiasts know that DDR5 memory has to work at high data transfer rates to show tangible performance improvement over DDR4. However, making a memory controller run at extreme speeds may be tricky.  

AMD believes that DDR5-6000 mode may be the sweet spot for its Ryzen 7000-based platforms as it provides high performance and does not stress the memory controller too hard. However, remember that this is still overclocking, and its results are never guaranteed. Yet, with AMD's EXPO profiles, setting up DDR5-6000 modules with the correct timings and voltages should be easy. 

TeamGroup did not reveal when it plans to start sales of its Vulcanα dual-channel DDR5 memory kits. Still, something tells us that the company is motivated to release these parts sooner rather than later as enthusiasts will be eager to buy modules with AMD's EXPO profiles for their shiny new AM5 platforms running Ryzen 7000-series processors. 

As for pricing, it will depend on exact market conditions (read supply-demand balance and competitors' prices). However, expect Vulcanα offerings to belong to the premium segment of TeamGroup's product lineup.

Modern SSDs use very sophisticated controllers that generate a lot of heat and therefore require advanced cooling so they don't damage the 3D NAND memory chips with precious data. TeamGroup is certainly among the SSD makers that aren't afraid of experimenting with cooling systems for its SSDs, which is why it was among the first to ship an M.2 drive with a factory-built liquid cooler. Now, the company is the first to offer a vapor chamber-based cooler for M.2 SSDs. 

Vapor chamber cooling systems rely on the phase transition principle and work the same way as heat pipes. Like heat pipes, vapor chambers are filled with a volatile liquid that boils and turns into vapor very quickly and thus transfers the heat to a colder location, where it rapidly condenses and returns to a hot spot to become vapor again. Vapor chambers are particularly good for cooling down very hot chips that nowadays can have a temperature of 100°C or higher.

In most cases, mainstream SSDs don't get that hot under typical loads, but if you want to ensure the best possible performance and not use exotic methods like liquid cooling, vapor chambers, and heat pipes are the way to go. Meanwhile, vapor chambers are more compact than liquid cooling systems or heat pipes. 

TeamGroup's first SSDs to adopt vapor chamber-based cooling belong to its N74V-M80 family aimed at industrial-grade applications that must survive extreme temperatures between -40°C (-40°F) and 85°C (185°F). The drives are based on 3D TLC NAND and an undisclosed controller compliant with the NVMe 1.3 specification and a PCIe 3.0 x4 host interface. As for performance, Team Group rates its N74V-M80 for up to 3,400 MB/s sequential read speed and up to 2,500 MB/s sequential write speed. The drives will be available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities. 

Using a vapor chamber-based cooling system for its industrial-grade M.2 SSDs enabled TeamGroup to make those coolers very compact yet very efficient, according to the company. Better cooling guarantees predictable performance under high loads, which results in high performance for the actual devices that use those drives. 

For now, TeamGroup is only using vapor chamber coolers for its industrial-grade drives, but we would expect the company to eventually use similar cooling systems for enthusiast-grade SSDs. In the end, drives with a PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 6.0 interface as well as next-generation 3D QLC NAND promise to generate even more heat than today's best SSDs with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface.

Memory specialist Team Group has announced that it has prepared the first industrial DDR5-5600 memory modules. In its blurb, the firm claims that the new memory modules are a good match for next-gen platforms like "Intel Raptor Lake and AMD Raphael-X." What makes this particularly interesting is that AMD hasn't formally announced Raphael-X processors - which are expected to be Zen 4 architecture CPUs (Ryzen 7000 family) with 3D V-Cache technology applied.

Raphael-X Recap

The latest rumors suggest that AMD is gearing up to release its first Zen 4 architecture Ryzen 7000 'Raphael' desktop processors on September 15. In addition, at least some of the supporting AM5-based motherboards will also logically become available simultaneously. We are less sure about 'Raphael-X' chips, but some say that Raphael-X is already in mass production. Moreover, it's expected that these 3D V-Cache enhanced CPUs will be released without much of a delay (compared to the core of the family) this generation. In other words, we could expect Raphael-X before New Year – but please add salt to such rumors.

What is "Industrial Smart Alert" DDR5?

Team Group's new DDR5 memory modules will be made available in U-DIMM, SO-DIMM, ECC-DIMM, and R-DIMM form factors. Oddly for 'Industrial' components, they will come with RGB lighting and built-in audio. However, this isn't mere frivolity; the multi-color lights and sounds will be used for operational status, alerts, and other helpful feedback.

Three RGB lighting modes are available with these memory modules; Alert, Notification, and Reminder. In the image directly above, you can see that a DIMM operating normally will show all green lights. However, if something triggers the smart detection system, the bi-color flashing RGB LEDs fire up. Just in case the modules are out of sight, you might also appreciate that these modules can produce audible alerts. The surface-mounted speaker looks like a piezo buzzer, which should be OK for emitting beeps and bleeps.

Team Group has yet to publish any product pages for its Industrial Smart Alert DDR5 memory modules at the time of writing.

Team Group has announced the launch of some updated RAM Modules in its Elite range, bringing DDR5 speeds to its range of DIMMs for desktop and laptop use. There's both SO-DIMMs and U-DIMMs available, for desktop and laptop use.

Running at a respectable 5600 MHz (we have yet to discover what their CL timings will be, though the lack of ostentatious heat spreaders suggests it will be quite ordinary) and with an operating voltage of 1.1V (again, not unusual) the modules could, Team Group claims, ‘[extend] the life of computers it is installed on’. DDR5 features such as same-bank refresh and optimized circuit structure are supported, and Team Group thinks they’ll be excellent for multitasking.

Team Group already has one set of DIMMs - DDR4 in this case - in our big list of the best RAM for 2022, and the 5600MHz speed of this DDR5 puts it ahead of the Samsung DDR5-4800 currently sitting in second place. It can’t outstrip the G.Skill Trident DDR5 that’s holding down the first place spot, however, as this hits the DDR5-6000 spec. 

Those CL timings will be crucial for getting a good place on the list, as the G.Skill is extremely tight at CL36, while the Samsung languishes at a relatively sedate CL40 yet has excellent overclocking potential. The lack of obvious heat spreaders on Team Group’s new modules, again, makes us wonder about its overclocking abilities, though it’s possible the company has simply chosen to supply images of its naked chips, and the retail units will be replete with all sorts of aluminum fins and other passive cooling devices. The Samsung chips are, likewise, thrust rudely from the circuit boards’ surface with nothing to adorn them, so there's always hope.

First seeing release as 16GB modules, we expect to see a wider range of capacities from at least 8GB to 32GB once the range has established itself, and hopefully up to the DDR5 maximum of 128GB on a single stick. 

Retail pricing also joins the list of things we don’t know about these RAM modules, though they should be available on Amazon (no other retailers are mentioned) near the end of this month.

The TeamGroup T-Force Xtreem ARGB White DDR4-4000 memory kit comes to market at a time when Intel's latest 12th Generation Alder Lake processors have prompted a shift to DDR5 memory. However, TeamGroup, like other manufacturers, continues to push the performance limits for DDR4. So even though the company is certainly no stranger to our list of best RAM, it didn't bring us speeding-fast data rates, like DDR4-5000 or anything, this time. Instead, TeamGroup offers an optimized memory kit in the DDR4-4000 category with very attractive memory timings.

The new memory kit belongs to the Xtreem ARGB lineup; it retains the same aesthetics as the vanilla Xtreem ARGB memory modules. However, as the model name denotes, the Xtreem ARGB White features a white aluminum alloy heat spreader instead of the typical dark blue and purple theme from the standard Xtreem ARGB memory modules.

The Xtreem ARGB White measures 49mm (1.92 inches) tall. The memory module's translucent body allows the interior addressable RGB LEDs to shine. There are two ways to control the lighting — you can opt for TeamGroup's T-Force Blitz software or your motherboard's software. You won't have to worry about compatibility issues since the Xtreem ARGB White supports Asus Aura Sync, Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0, MSI Mystic Light Sync, ASRock Polychrome Sync, and Biostar Vivi LED DJ.

The T-Force Xtreem ARGB White DDR4-4000 C15 memory kit consists of two 16GB memory modules with a dual-rank design. TeamGroup produced them on a 10-layer, black PCB with Samsung K4A8G085WB-BCPB (B-die) integrated circuits (ICs).

The memory modules will operate at DDR4-2400 with 16-16-16-39 timings out of the box. Once you enable XMP or set them up manually, they will hit DDR4-4000 with 15-15-15-35 timings. The required voltage for the configuration, as mentioned earlier, is 1.5V. See our PC Memory 101 feature and our How to Shop for RAM story for more on timings and frequency considerations.

Comparison Hardware

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

Intel Performance

Overall, TeamGroup's memory kit was the fastest in our application tests. In gaming, it was marginally slower than the G.Skill Trident Z Royal DDR4-4000 C17. However, the Xtreem ARGB White performed exceptionally well in Microsoft Office workloads, where it was over 10% faster than the slowest memory kit. It also had strong outings in the compression and decompression benchmarks, beating the single-rank memory kits.

AMD Performance

The Xtreem ARGB White dropped to the second position in the cumulative application chart on our AMD platform. However, there wasn't a huge difference between it and the G.Skill memory kit. The memory kit was very impressive in the y-cruncher test, where it finished the benchmark over 20% faster than the slowest memory kit.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

To run at its XMP settings, the Xtreem ARGB White already pulls 1.5V, so there wasn't a lot of headroom for overclocking without pushing over 1.6V. We opted for a more moderate 1.55V DRAM voltage to hit DDR4-4133 and only had to slightly relax the tRCD, tRP, and tRAS timings.

Lowest Stable Timings

TeamGroup optimized the memory for 15-15-15-35 at 1.5V. Increasing the DRAM voltage to 1.55V didn't produce any favorable results. We suspect that it would take 1.6V+ to get the memory timings further.

Bottom Line

You get a pretty good idea of the type of performance you can expect by only looking at a memory kit's data rate and timings. We knew the Xtreem ARGB White DDR4-4000 C15 would be one of the fastest memory kits right out the gate, and it fulfilled our expectations. But, of course, this caliber of performance doesn't come cheap, so it may not be an enticing product for average users.

As you would expect, the Xtreem ARGB White DDR4-4000 C15 is a highly-binned memory kit. So it doesn't surprise us that it carries a premium price tag. Unfortunately, the memory kit isn't currently in stock, but you can find it for $335 at TeamGroup's Amazon store when it debuts. It's the kind of purchase that requires extra contemplation, but if it's high-speed performance you're after, the Xtreem ARGB White DDR4-4000 C15 is one of the better alternatives.

The A440 Pro and A440 Pro Special Series SSDs offer up to 7.4 Gbps of bandwidth with a peak of 1 million IOPS over the PCIe 4.0 interface, and the five-year warranty even supports up to 3 petabytes of write data for the 4TB model. Team Group clearly intends these to be premium drives, with the 2TB named the "A440 Pro" while the 4TB model is branded as the " A440 Pro Special Series" drive.

Team Group likes to put out a wide range of models, which can be a bit overwhelming and confusing for the average consumer. This is at least partially done by design because the hardware often changes in this industry; it seems like almost every day there’s a controller or flash swap on some drive or another. A common complaint is that a drive might be reviewed and, sometime later, be modified in such a way that performance has been diminished. We’ve certainly seen this with ADATA’s SX8200 Pro, for example. Having a blanket of different models also ensures your products will fill every niche or, at least, end up on everyone’s comparison list.

Team positions the A440 Pro Special Series specifically for the Playstation 5 (PS5), and at 4TB, it provides plenty of capacity for a plethora of games to be installed. In addition, the graphene heatspreader was designed with only 3.7mm of height, well below the PS5’s 8mm requirement, so it can fit into pretty much any machine. The material is also flexible with high conductivity to ensure a good balance between compatibility and cooling. This makes it ideal for tight environments, especially with the PS5, which should not have heavy enough write workloads to push the thermal envelope.

This separates it from the original A440 Pro which, while sharing the same hardware as the A440 Pro Special Series in retail, relies on a more traditional and much larger heatsink. This aluminum heatsink has a design that all but ensures the drive will never throttle during heavy read and write operations. Typically, thermal throttling is not an issue for E18 drives in well-ventilated environments, and often the worst environments are space-restricted. However, those who run their systems hotter or want a more conspicuous design can go with the heatsinked A440 Pro. During the writing of this review Team also released a version of the A440 Pro with a graphene heatspreader, blurring the lines between models; we reiterate our complaint that Team has too many SKUs.

Regardless, Team has become a major contender in this space in recent years. Their RGB SATA drives are popular, and the Vulcan SATA drives are too, for that matter. However, there's no denying that a slew of M.2 NVMe drives have come out of Team using a wide range of hardware: Phison and SMI controllers, DRAM and DRAM-less options, TLC and QLC, using anywhere from 64- to 176-layered flash. Oh, and of course, their high-endurance “Chia” T-Create Expert. This is not new for a third-party SSD manufacturer, and they also often label their own flash on some models, just like ADATA and Kingston. This means that a consumer looking for a drive is bound to come across a Team Group SSD as an option.

Specifications

The A440 Pro series of drives are rated for sequential speeds of up to 7.4/7.0 GBps read/write, down to 7.2/6.0 GBps respectively for the 1TB SKUs due to less interleaving, but they peak at 1 million read and write IOPS for all capacities. These capacities range from 1TB-3TB, with current pricing between $0.17 and $0.22 per gigabyte.

This is premium pricing, and the 4TB Special Series model is particularly expensive compared to the 1TB and 2TB options, although the 4TB price is a bit lower at the time of writing than it has been recently. 

The five-year warranty supports 700 TB of data-writes-per-TB for the 1 and 2TB models and 3PBW for the 4TB model.

Software and Accessories

The A440 Pro, which we're testing at 2TB, comes with a double-sided aluminum heatsink that includes an appropriate thermal pad. Good contact with a thermal pad can help lower temperatures significantly because if the heatsink has enough surface area, the thermal bottleneck tends to be at the interface (assuming a sufficiently-cooled environment).

The A440 Pro Special Series, which we are testing at 4TB, instead comes with a graphene heat spreader, which is bound to be less effective but also less intimidating in physical size.

A Closer Look

The A440 Pro and A440 Pro Special Series come in the common M.2 2280 form factor, double-sided at the tested capacities. The A440 Pro’s heatsink is likely more than what is necessary, while the more subdued heat spreader on the A440 Pro Special Series is minimalistic in design. Both drives contain back labels that offer more information about the specific drive. Beneath the cooling and labels, we see that both drives utilize Phison’s E18 controller and have two DRAM modules with eight NAND packages, half of each respectively on either side.

Phison’s E18 controller remains one of the best PCIe 4.0 options available and is used in a slew of drives. To reach these higher capacities, the drives have eight 256GB and 512GB NAND packages for the 2TB and 4TB models, respectively. It’s possible to get by with fewer packages, whether by stacking more dies in a package or using denser flash, but most PCs have no trouble handling double-sided drives these days.

The drives have two DRAM packages from Hynix, labeled H5AN8G6CJRVKC, which are 1GB of DDR4 a piece. DRAM overclockers will recognize the CJR as C-die, but keep in mind that DRAM usage on an SSD tends to be more about low latency and power consumption rather than raw bandwidth.

Both drives use Micron’s newer 176-layer TLC which is often coupled with Phison’s E18 on high-end SSDs. There are plenty of dies for interleaving at these capacities. Worth noting here is that the original 2TB A440 Pro we received for testing actually had what is termed as 'media-grade' flash, which is sufficient for mainstream SSDs but can have slight performance ramifications. Our second sample had a higher quality flash, but we used our test results from the 2TB SSD with lower-binned flash for this review. Our 4TB model, also part of this review, shipped with higher-end flash. 

Flash tends to be graded, or binned, based on effective yields and the amount of valid blocks. NAND manufacturers will use different grades of flash for different applications - for example, we’ve seen Micron’s top-tier FortisMax flash on Team’s T-Create Expert Chia drive that touts the utmost in endurance and performance in brutal write-heavy workloads. Lower-grade (media grade, in Micron parlance) flash can also find its way into your more garden-variety SSDs, but they can deliver enough endurance to meet the warrantied specs by using strong LDPC ECC and other wear mitigation techniques.

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Comparison Products

We tested the 2TB Team A440 Pro against other E18 drives with 176-layer flash, including the Kingston KC3000, Seagate’s FireCuda 530, and the Corsair MP600 Pro XT, as well as other top PCIe 4.0 contenders. These include the WD Black SN850, Samsung’s 980 Pro, and Crucial’s P5 Plus, as well as the original A440 model, all at 2TB. 

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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

The 2TB A440 Pro is in the middle of the pack here, albeit notably faster than its 96-layer sibling. However, its numbers are up to 10% lower than comparable drives from other manufacturers.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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

The 2TB A440 Pro is trending towards the bottom of the list here, only beating out the older A440. It is 10% or more behind the KC3000, FireCuda 530, and MP600 XT Pro.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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

Differences are less pronounced here as we’re dealing essentially with sequential performance on a file read/copy. It is nevertheless instructive as many users may buy a PCIe 4.0 drive simply for burst performance.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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

The 2TB A440 Pro matches other E18-based drives in ATTO, generally out-performing competing PCIe 4.0 controllers. However, we do see it lag behind other E18 drives with 176-layer flash in some CrystalDiskMark results.

Specifically, we’re seeing a hit on some read metrics, which is not surprising given that this drive uses the lower-tier flash. The A440 Pro is still quite fast, just not up to the level we expect from the typical controller and flash pairing.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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

The 2TB A440 Pro writes at a maximum speed of around 6.9 GBps for a bit over 30 seconds, offering a considerably-sized SLC cache but far less than the full-drive SLC caching we see on the WD Black SN850 and Kingston KC3000. It’s closer in size to the Crucial P5 Plus and Samsung 980 PRO. This dynamic cache will shrink as the drive is filled, but the overall cache capacity should be sufficient for general usage.

After the SLC cache is exhausted, we see a direct-to-TLC mode that’s actually quite fast, although it does not reach what the flash is capable of - we see that instead with the Seagate FireCuda 530 and Corsair MP600 Pro XT. It is nevertheless quite fast, demonstrating a different design than we see on Kingston’s KC3000, with a faster post-SLC response. The drive still inevitably hit a slower folding state, but this would require quite a bit of sustained writing.

We get good results from this intermediate scheme but perhaps not as high as we could, potentially as a secondary effect of the flash quality. Writing more slowly can improve endurance indirectly, but keeping in mind that the TLC programming sequence involves verifying the data between steps, the error rate will increase when writing in a native mode beyond what we see in single-bit SLC mode. Additionally, flash can be run at a lower I/O speed or MT/s to reduce the error rate, indirectly impacting latency. When looking at the 4TB A440 Pro Special Series sustained write results, it's worth keeping this in mind. However, keep in mind that the error correction mechanisms still ensure that the data is stored correctly — it can just have an impact on performance

Cache recovery after idling was not significant; in general, TLC-like speeds continued even after idle time. 

Power Consumption and Temperature

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

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

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

When looking at power consumption and efficiency, the 2TB A440 Pro is again in the middle of the pack. However, efficiency is lower than what is seen with other E18 drives using 176-layer TLC flash, which could indicate more controller overhead.

SSD controllers are application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) with multiple functional blocks, for example having an error-correcting code (ECC) module. Older controllers relied on hard BCH decoding which is, in effect, more efficient and less space-consuming on the die than what is required for LDPC decoding, whether hard or soft. LDPC is more effective, though, which enables the mitigation of more errors. Lower-quality flash may be more dependent on ECC to achieve the same levels of performance and endurance in some cases.

The A440 Pro’s heatsink was more than adequate in our testing, and we saw no significant throttling. In fact, maximum temperatures were well below throttling, hitting the mid-50s Celsius at worst. Typical drives are designed to throttle above 70C or so as per composite sensor, although significant throttling is usually not seen until above 80C.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

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

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

4TB A440 Pro Special Series

Rating: ★★★★ ½ (Editor's Choice) 

Verdict: The 4TB A440 Pro Special Series did not disappoint - this is a premium drive that is particularly good at 4TB.

FOR

+ High overall performance, and as expected
+ 4TB pricing for a drive of this quality is competitive
+ Conservative SLC caching design has faster, more consistent overall performance
+ Runs sufficiently cool and is efficient

AGAINST

- None

Comparison Products

We compared the 4TB Team A440 Pro Special Series to 4TB drives like the Seagate FireCuda 530, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, and WD’s Red SN700, the first two being drives hosting comparable hardware. We’re also testing against popular 2TB PCIe 4.0 drives like the WD Black SN850, Crucial’s P5 Plus, the Samsung 980 Pro, and lastly another E18-based 176-layer entry with the Kingston KC3000.

This field of drives lets us see if the A440 Pro Special Series stands out from a crowd of its peers, keeping in mind that its current price point for the 4TB capacity is quite competitive in the PCIe 4.0 SSD market.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

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

The results of our 3DMark tests are as expected for this drive, notably without any anomalies like we saw with the 2TB A440 Pro. The 4TB A440 Pro Special Series performs in line with the other E18-based drives that use Micron’s 176-layer TLC flash. 

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

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

The drive also matches expectations in PCMark 10, although results are a bit lower than with the direct competition in the 2TB Kingston KC3000. One reason is that there is a peak performance capacity for drives dependent on the controller and flash used. While with past generations, 2TB was not always as fast as 1TB in all benchmarks, we’re slowly moving towards 2TB being the peak sweet spot.

Interleaving tends to be best at around four dies per channel, which with the eight-channel Phison E18 and 64GB dies would be at 2TB. Previous generations of TLC flash were 32GB per die, often with 64GB options that were slower in some metrics, but Micron’s 176-layer B47R flash is natively 64GB. Of course, Micron’s 96-layer B27A and B27B - the latter especially popular with early E18 drives - were 64GB per die, although their lineage was found in the 64-layer, 64GB B17A which was effectively two 32GB B16A dies put together.

The ability to scale flash is one benefit of new, higher-layer generations, although this also means that lower-capacity drives are reliant on multi-planar interleaving as there will be fewer overall dies; these parallelization types are not precisely equal. These technical details are not super relevant to the general user but are worth considering when looking at edge capacities.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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

Performance is as expected here. Note that the recently-reviewed 4TB WD Red SN700 falls behind since it’s a PCIe 3.0 drive, but also that it costs about half as much for that capacity. NAS NVMe caching drives are often used in pairs, and that cost starts to add up.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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

The 4TB A440 Pro Special Series is on top in ATTO, particularly with larger block sizes, as we see with other E18-controlled drives. In CrystalDiskMark, however, we see a return to normalcy from the 2TB A440 Pro, demonstrating the difference in performance created by different types of flash. This again is predominantly with small random reads. Note that we still see a decline in places but these match those of the 4TB FireCuda 530, for the reasons mentioned above. Solid results here, especially with the all-important 4KB QD1 random read metrics.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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

We see fairly excellent results for sustained writes with the 4TB A440 Pro Special Series. The cache is about twice the size of the 2TB A440 and we predictably hit a high direct-to-TLC performance zone once the SLC caches runs out. However, the peak performance of that zone is closer to what we saw in 2TB E18 previews, showing the limits of Micron’s 176-layer flash with full interleaving.

Although the precise die speeds of B47R are not publicly documented, latency and throughput are likely similar to 176-layer TLC efforts from Micron’s competitors, which would put it in the 40-42 MBps per plane range. Micron’s architecture is closest to what we see with Samsung’s 8th-Generation V-NAND which was shown off at this year’s ISSCC. In any case, the advantages of fast native flash are illustrated in these charts, hitting beyond PCIe 3.0 limits - a level of write throughput that would have required 2-bit MLC in the past.

The drive still hits a third, slower state, but even this is quite fast by recent standards. It’s worth noting here that while SLC performance is important for writes, native flash performance is useful for reads - your stored data will be in native mode - and also gives a better indicator of steady state response. Ultimately you are limited by the native flash so having B47R over, say, B27B, can be significant when looking at edge cases and performance pitfalls. That’s not to talk about other characteristics like efficiency.

In any case, sustained write performance is often a requested test for SSDs, coming along with the dismissal of any drives that lack DRAM. Newer DRAM-less NVMe drives have proven to buck this trend. Likewise, you may never really see the post-SLC experience. However, this is at least partially due to faster flash, which can be revealed with this type of testing and further, when buying a premium drive you want to be sure you’re getting what you ordered. Comparing the results here to the media grade 2TB A440 Pro helps illustrate this point, but also seeing similar hardware with different caching schemes gives a better picture of the overall design.

Recovery matched what we saw with the 2TB A440 Pro, although again the smaller cache design ensures a certain level of relatively high TLC performance.

Power Consumption and Temperature

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

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

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

Efficiency at 4TB is not going to be as high as with 2TB with these drives, as we see from the 4TB Rocket 4 Plus and the 4TB FireCuda 530 in comparison to the 2TB KC3000. Being able to finish the job quicker thanks to the PCIe 4.0 interface can actually improve efficiency, too. The 4TB A440 Pro Special Series ran noticeably hotter than the 2TB A440 Pro, as anticipated earlier by comparing their native cooling solutions. This drive ran upwards of 20C higher and flirted with a throttling floor but on the whole did not have many issues, which is not surprising given our earlier FURY Renenage review results.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

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

Conclusion

We didn't talk much about the non-E18 competitors in the WD Black SN850, the Samsung 980 PRO, and the Crucial P5 Plus. One reason is that we’ve fully compared these products in the past to E18 drives with both 96- and 176-layer flash, not to mention at multiple typical capacities. Here we’re looking at something different with a 4TB model. As for those competing drives, we’ve already shown that optimization can vary — for example in our recent FURY Renegade review.

The A440 Pro and A440 Pro Special Series are not bad drives. They’re in fact quite fast and the 4TB option is a nice one to have. The cache design is more conservative which in many ways provides a more consistent experience across wide drive usage.

Pricing is competitive at 4TB, but it’s worth noting that SSD drives, including and especially with PCIe 4.0 options, have come down a lot in price recently, particularly at the 1TB and 2TB capacity points. The A440 Pro in particular ran very cool, also, which might make it a good choice for some people. Although we’re not fans of Team’s SKU spam, we do like these drives.
 

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

TeamGroup has announced one of the industry's first SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 connection that is designed for client PCs. To maximize its compatibility with various systems, the T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen5 drive comes with two heat spreaders that users can install themselves: an aluminum heatsink for desktop PCs as well as a graphene heatsink for laptops and small form-factor desktops. 

TeamGroup says that its T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen5 SSD is rated for maximum sequential read speeds of over 13,000 MB/s and write speeds exceeding 12,000 MB/s (performance levels that will probably make it one of the best SSDs when it hits the market later this year). Being aimed at premium PCs running AMD's next-generation AM5 CPUs or Intel's Alder Lake or Raptor Lake processors, the new drives will be available in capacities of up to 4TB.  

TeamGroup didn't disclose which controller it uses for its PCIe 5.0 SSD but says it's NVMe 2.0 compliant. Meanwhile, the image of the drive features a small and square controller without a built-in aluminum heat spreader, which implies a chip made using a fairly advanced process technology that doesn't generate much heat. However, the image might be for illustrative purposes only. 

Perhaps, the most disappointing thing about TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea PCIe Gen5 SSD is that it won't be available until sometime in the third quarter (July – September), so enthusiasts building Alder Lake-based systems today will not be able to take advantage of this drive in the near term.

TeamGroup has announced a new DDR5 T-Force branded memory kit that will be made in collaboration with Asus, called the T-Force Delta TUF Gaming Alliance RGB DDR5 Gaming Memory. According to TeamGroup, this will be a 32GB dual-channel kit with a maximum memory frequency of 6000MHz.

The aesthetics of this kit are very reminiscent of TeamGroup's other Delta-branded DDR4 and DDR5 kits, with sharp triangle-like shapes everywhere and an angled RGB bar at the top. The only differences with this new kit are its orange accents and a "TUF Gaming Alliance" badge at the bottom right of the memory stick. The RGB lighting effects are controllable from Asus's own Aura RGB software.

Besides looks, this new kit also has some added usefulness that sets it apart from other TeamGroup DDR5 modules. The company promises full support with future DDR5 motherboards as samples have already been sent to Asus for testing purposes. This means we can expect future 600 series chipset motherboards and future AMD motherboards from Asus to automatically support this DDR5 memory kit right out of the box -- also known as QVL support. 

Pricing and availability have not been mentioned by either company, but with how expensive and rare DDR5 is, now don't get your hopes up about buying one of these kits very soon. We suspect that wider availability of this kit (and DDR5 in general for that matter) will happen sometime in early 2022.

This won't be the last product collaboration between Asus and TeamGroup. TeamGroup has also announced that a future co-branded T-Force Cardea TUF Gaming Alliance Z440 PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD is also on its way, and to expect more products from the two companies in the future.

TeamGroup today announced a pair of new PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD solutions under its "Industrial" branding. The new M.2 2280 SSDs (N75A-M80 and N75G-M80) are marketed as having industrial-grade resilience and patented cooling technologies for performance and reliability in 24-hour, high-workload environments. 

TeamGroup only announced three available capacities for the Industrial N75A-M80 and N75G-M80 SSDs: 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB. Based on 3D TLC NAND, the SSDs feature a DRAM cache, although TeamGroup doesn't quantify it in their marketing materials. Both the reduced capacity and PCIe 3.0 interface are responsible for this card's sequential 3,500 MBps read and 2,100 MBps write speeds, but remember that these are built for performant reliability. These speeds are nothing to scoff at, even if they aren't best available in our Best SSDs of 2021 picks. 

Cooling systems between both SSDs differ in their capabilities. The N75A-M80 carries a tall aluminum fin heatsink, while the N75G-M80 is fitted with a graphene copper foil heatsink that's one 1 mm high. TeamGroup says these patented cooling systems are proven to reduce operating temperatures and improve reliability in the harshest operating conditions. The company claims a 23.8% temperature reduction in the N75A (the one with the tall aluminum fin) and an 8.3% temperature reduction for the N75G (graphene copper foil).

The Industrial's reliability is asserted by multiple MIL-Spec certifications. Both SSDs are rated for up to 50G / 11ms shock resistance (compliant with MIL-STD-202G Test condition A) when operational, and for up to 1,500G / 0.5ms (compliant with MIL-STD-883K Test condition B) while non-operational. Vibration certifications are also present: operational capability is maintained up to 7.69 Grms, 20~2,000 Hz / random (compliant with MIL-STD-810G General); while non-operational, the Industrial SSDs can sustain vibrations of up to 4.02 Grms, 15 ~ 2,000 Hz / sine (compliant with MIL-STD-810G General).

Operating temperatures for both Industrial SSDs can range from -40 degrees Celsius up to 65 degrees celsius with no loss in operational capability. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) is set at 3 million hours + (around 342 years, give or take). Operational energy consumption is quoted at 4.27 W Max and 0.82 W Min for the 512 GB version.

Considering how TeamGroup expects their Industrial SSDs to be mainly picked up by industries such as automotive systems, aerospace equipment, military, and AI machines, support for AES256 bit encryption / TCG Opal 2.0 is also included, paired with error correction algorithms. Interestingly, TeamGroup is only offering a 3-year limited warranty with its Industrial SSDs. No word on pricing was available at time of writing.

Last week Gigabyte published a list of DDR5-7000 memory modules supported by its Z690 Aorus Tachyon motherboard, and this week G.Skill confirmed that it had managed to push its Trident Z5 DIMMs to 7000 MT/s without usage of liquid nitrogen or other extreme cooling methods. Apparently, there are DDR5-7000 modules incoming from multiple vendors, but to hit such speeds requires rather high voltage.

Gigabyte's list includes 16GB DDR5 memory modules from Adata, Gigabyte's Aorus, and TeamGroup that can work at a 7000 MT/s data transfer rate with CL40 40-40-80 latency settings at 1.5 Volts.

All these modules are based on chips from Samsung, but so far none of the companies have formally announced them, so we can only assume that they are set to be available at a later date. G.Skill managed to run a pair of its 16GB Trident Z5 modules at 7000 MT/s with CL40 40-40-76 timings and pass the Memtest stability test, though the company did not disclose the voltage setting of the modules. 

Regular DDR5 runs at 1.1V, while overclocked modules typically use up to 1.25V. Running 1.5V represents a whopping 36% overvoltage compared to the JEDEC standard. That's a pretty sizeable jump in voltage, just for the final 500 MT/s. It's difficult to say how such a high voltage affects longevity of DRAM ICs, not to mention Intel's DDR5 memory controller, but a 36% overvoltage is not something consumer-grade hardware will likely handle for prolonged periods of time.

Still, enthusiasts like to push hardware to its limits and companies are willing to help them. In fact, now that memory modules have their own voltage regulating module and power management IC, makers of DIMMs can at least ensure that they use premium components and deliver quality power to the DRAM.

One of the things that suppliers of premium memory modules never stop is their race for highest possible data transfer rates. Even when companies cannot offer certain speed bins here and now, they can still pre-announce them or issue a teaser to demonstrate that they are working on such DIMMs. DDR5 offers makers of enthusiast-grade DIMMs even higher levels of performance potential, but the technology is so new that the manufacturers are still learning. For now, they're being cautious about offering extreme speeds while they gain more experience with the new memory ICs and controllers and figure out how they behave in overclocked mode for prolonged periods.

In the meantime, DDR5-7000 represents too sweet a number to miss, which is why at least four companies are working on such modules. We'll likely see far higher speeds from DDR5 in the coming years. How much higher, though? GDDR5 speeds topped out at around 9 GT/s with the GTX 1060, and while the underlying technology may be different, it wouldn't be too surprising to see desktop memory hit that speed in the coming years.

In a further expansion to its portfolio, TeamGroup today introduced its T-Force Vulcan DDR5 memory kits. The kits are available in single or dual-channel configurations, with maximum frequencies ascending to 5,200 MHz and maximum capacities of 64 GB (2x 32 GB) and the lowest memory density per stick standing at 16 GB. There is a choice of two heat spreader colors, volcanic red or black, with a black PCB in both options.

TeamGroup chose to use a non-RGB design, inspired by the company's own aluminum-based heatsinks. TeamGroup already has prospective buyers covered with RGB options in the DDR5 memory field, however; the company has recently introduced their T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 memory, which slots in higher in TeamGroup's product stack - and offers faster, 5,600 MHz speeds.

The heat spreaders, which bring an aesthetic flourish while helping in heat dissipation, feature a unibody design for higher resistance and more predictable and even heat dispersion paths. TeamGroup says the grooves and inlines were created via a "sophisticated stamping process". It'll be interesting to see how these kits fare in terms of thermals: remember that DDR5 brings changes to memory IC design, with power regulation circuitry now being a part of the DRAM PCB itself.

Interestingly, in its announcement TeamGroup made no remarks regarding warranty of the T-Force Vulcan DDR5 kits. The company has been providing lifetime warranties in some of its DDR4 products. The lack of announcement is likely due to the still nascent DDR5 implementation, and the absence of adequate information regarding DDR5 IC quality; while the company makes no mention of warranty for the T-Force Vulcan kits being announced today, the company reduced warranty of its T-Force Delta DDR5. As TeamGroup put it, warranty "was initially set to be three years, but will be adjusted based on the improvement of raw materials or technology." 

TeamGroup has introduced its new family of SSDs that are equipped with a dedicated all-in-one liquid cooling system (LCS). The T-Force Cardea Liquid II drives will be aimed at hardcore enthusiasts who demand maximum performance and an extreme, but fancy, addition to their rigs.

The T-Force Cardea Liquid II is in development, so TeamGroup hasn't shared any specifications or performance stats just yet. But it is evident from TeamGroup's images that we are dealing with a standard M.2 2280 SSD, presumably with a PCIe x4 interface. Assuming that we are dealing with a PCIe 4.0 x4 bus, performance of this SSD will likely top at 7,400 MB/s, so the key advantage brought by the sophisticated cooling system will be sustained performance over prolonged periods, which not all M.2 drives can offer.

A dedicated liquid cooling system is meant to maximize cooling efficiency and ensure that the drive operates without throttling even under prolonged high loads. Such workloads are pretty rare on desktops, but since there are professionals who run workstation applications on their desktops at home, they could certainly take advantage of advanced cooling for their SSDs. 

While a closed-loop LCS may seem like an overkill for a modern consumer-grade PCIe Gen 4 SSD (even the best and the fastest SSD), it may actually be useful for next-generation PCIe Gen 5 drives, as those SSD controllers can dissipate about 9W, so expect SSDs to be even hotter than that.

Meanwhile, SSDs that are designed for persistently high performance also need to provide decent endurance and in many cases, this is something that modern consumer-grade drives rarely offer these days.  

But the massive dedicated liquid cooling system for an M.2 SSD may not be ideal for all systems. Many motherboards place M.2 slots near PCIe x16 slots for graphics cards that have rather massive cooling systems. Of course, LCS enthusiasts who would use a liquid-cooled SSD almost certainly use liquid cooling for graphics cards, but there are boards with hybrid cooling systems that feature dual-slot radiators which prevent installation of massive coolers on SSDs. 

In any cases, TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea Liquid II drives are still in development, so it remains to be seen how the final drives will look and perform. 

TeamGroup has introduced its new family of SSDs that wed a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface with low pricing. In addition, the T-Force Cardea Z44L lineup is equipped with a thin graphene heat spreader so that it can fit both into desktops and laptops. Still, while it uses the latest interface for SSDs, its performance is actually lower than what we've come to expect from modern SSDs.

TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea Z44L drives will be available in 500GB and 1TB configurations and will come in an M.2-2280 form factor. The 1TB version is rated for up to 3,500 MBps of sequential read speed and up to 3,000 MBps of sequential write speed. It can also deliver up to 263,000 random read IOPS as well as up to 282,000 random write IOPS. The 500GB SKU is slower than its more capacious brother and offers up to 3,300/2,400 MB/s sequential read/write speeds. 

TeamGroup traditionally does not disclose the type of components it uses in its drives. That is so the company can be more flexible with its choice in the future if the bill-of-materials (BOM) gets too high, meaning it's natural to expect the components could vary over time. The company only says that the T-Force Cardea Z44L uses an NVMe 1.4-compatible controller with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface to the host and 3D TLC NAND memory. 

TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea Z44L is slower than most SSDs featuring a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface that we've encountered. Perhaps, to cut down BOM, the company either uses outdated and slow 3D TLC flash (which is too slow to saturate a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface fully), or it equips the drives with only a few high-capacity latest-gen 3D TLC NAND devices (and there are not enough of them to take advantage of the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface).

Yet, there is a bright side to this: The T-Force Cardea Z44L is faster than most PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs, so it could shine in previous-gen systems. Furthermore, the Cardea Z44L's performance is more than enough for average users with typical light workloads. So, while the T-Force Cardea Z44L is not the fastest drive around, it may still end up among the best budget SSDs. 

TeamGroup rates its T-Force Cardea Z44L 500GB model for up to 200 terabytes written (TBW), meaning you can write up to 200TB of data to the drive before voiding the warranty, whereas the 1TB SKU is rated for up to 400TBW over a five-year warranty period. This translates to 0.2 drive writes per day (DWPD), which means 100GB per day for the 500GB model. Of course, an average user without write-intensive workloads will hardly ever record 100GB of data on a 500GB drive per day, but those who create content or mine Chia would prefer something more durable. 

Being a family of inexpensive SSDs, TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea Z44L lineup only includes two models: the 500GB version is priced at $74.99, and the 1TB SKU costs $169.99. Both drives will hit the market in late September. 

Now that the majority of memory module houses have formally announced their upcoming DDR5 modules featuring blazingly high data transfer rates, the battle for the most stylish DDR5 unbuffered DIMMs begins. TeamGroup has introduced its T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 that are anything but shy as they not only have addressable RGB LEDs, but also rather extravagant heat spreaders. 

TeamGroup's T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 line-up includes 16GB and 32GB modules with data transfer rates between 4800 MT/s and 5600 MTs as well as featuring next-generation XMP 3.0 SPD profiles to make setting their speeds easier. Like other DDR5 modules, T-Force Delta RGB memory sticks come equipped with their own voltage regulating circuitry and power management IC (PMIC), but the manufacturer currently does not disclose voltages supported by the UDIMMs. 

In addition to performance, the design of TeamGroup's T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 is another selling point of the product. The modules come equipped with black or white heat spreaders featuring 'stealth-fighter-inspired design' with RGB LEDs (or rather a twisted RGB tube?) on top. TeamGroup says that it had supplied its T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 samples to all leading makers (Asus, ASRock, Biostar, Gigabyte, MSI) of motherboards to ensure that their RGB-controlling software works with these DRAM sticks. 

Another thing to note about TeamGroup's T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 modules is their warranty. The manufacturer says that warranty period of its new DDR5 memory sticks "was initially set to be three years, but will be adjusted based on the improvement of raw materials or technology." Nowadays many high-end memory modules, including TeamGroup's own DDR4-5333 DIMMs, come with a lifetime warranty (and have been doing so for about two decades now). It is unclear why the manufacturer decided to abandon this practice with DDR5, but we asked our contact at TeamGroup for a comment.  

TeamGroup will start selling its T-Force Delta RGB DDR5 memory sticks, which will likely join our ranks of best memory modules, in Q4 2021, when Intel's Alder Lake CPUs and motherboards that support the new memory are available. 

After Sony enabled the SSD upgrade in the PlayStation 5, it was a matter of time before makers of actual drives announced SSDs optimized for the console. This week TeamGroup Japan unveiled its T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series SSDs that are tailored specifically for PS5. In fact, these drives are the highest-performing SSDs that TeamGroup has introduced so far. 

TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series SSDs are set to be available in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB configurations to meet gamer requirements. As for performance, the new drives are rated for up to 7400 MB/s sequential read speed as well as an up to 7000 MB/s sequential write speed, reports Hermitage Akihabara. To put the numbers into context: TeamGroup's flagship T-Force Cardea A440 SSDs for PCs are specced for up to 7000/6900 MB/s read/write speeds and are among the fastest M.2 drives available today. 

TeamGroup's SSDs for Sony's PlayStation 5 feature a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, come in an M.2-2280 form-factor, and are equipped with a thin graphene heat spreader to ensure proper heat dissipation even when PS5's SSD bay is closed. Some evaluations posted at Reddit indicate that drives with large heat spreaders work better when the bay remains open, which is logical as air coolers need air to work. To that end, it is not surprising that the SSD maker decided to use a thin graphene heat spreader on its product for PS5. It will be interesting to find out how this drive will perform with a covered and with an uncovered bay.

TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series SSDs 

It is pretty evident that TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series SSDs are essentially versions of the company's flagship T-Force Cardea A440 family that feature very high capacities, are equipped with a firmware optimized for bursty performance to maximize game load times and processes like saving (which are a relatively short procedures) and a graphene heat spreader to improve cooling performance when the bay is closed. Unlike PCs and workstations, game consoles do not need high sustained read/write performance, so maximizing performance in burst mode makes a lot of sense, at least until PS5 games get to large that they will increase load times. 

TeamGroup's T-Force Cardea A440 Pro Special Series SSDs will be available in October. The drives will be covered with a five-year warranty and will be rated for 0.2 ~ 0.4 drive writes per day (DWPD), which is in line with what the company offers for its SSDs aimed at high-end client PCs these days.

TeamGroup has introduced its new lineup of inexpensive SSDs featuring a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and designed for users who need up to 8TB of capacity and can cope with average performance. The company's MP34Q drives use 3D QLC flash and can be used to replace HDDs of modest capacity. The drives start at $300. 

TeamGroup's MP34Q is aimed at applications that need a 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB NAND flash storage, but which will be good with an up to 3400MB/s sequential read speed and an up to 3000MB/s sequential write speed (with SLC caching). In addition, to ensure decent performance, the drives support DRAM caching. 

High-capacity SSDs for client PCs are usually made for rather specific target audiences: creators and workstation users. Since these audiences tend to have certain requirements for performance and endurance, these drives usually use expensive 3D NAND memory and controllers. Stepping back to QLC enables more capacity, though, but it comes in exchange for endurance. Unfortunately, that means the MP34Q won't be suitable for write-intensive applications, like Chia Coin mining.

Target applications not only include thin laptops that physically cannot house a high-capacity HDD but also machines that use multiple M.2 SSDs, like a high-performance M.2-2280 drive for an OS and applications as well as an M.2-2280 high-capacity drive for mass storage. 

Since the MP34Q is based on 3D QLC NAND memory (and an unknown controller that supports DRAM caching), it can't really boast a truly high endurance rating. The 2TB drive is rated for up to 450 terabytes to be written (TBW) over a five-year period, whereas the 8TB model is spec'd for up to 1,800 TBW over five years.

In both cases, we are talking about 0.12 drive writes per day (DWPD), which is significantly below the DWPD ratings of higher-end client SSDs. In the case of an 8TB drive, 0.12 DWPD means nearly a terabyte, which may be enough for client workloads but may not be exactly suitable for those who need to deal with huge amounts of data.

The MP34Q SSDs are not exactly fast or durable, but they are cheap. The 2TB model carries an MSRP of $300, the 4TB SKU is priced at $700, whereas an 8TB version is set to cost $1,300. All SSDs will hit the market in mid-August.

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

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

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

Specifications

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

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

A Closer Look

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

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

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

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

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Comparison Products

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

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

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

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

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

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

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

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test

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

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

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

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

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

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

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

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

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

Power Consumption and Temperature

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

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

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

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

Test Bench and Testing Notes

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

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

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

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

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

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

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

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

MORE: Best SSDs

MORE: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

TeamGroup's DDR5-4800 32GB (2x16GB) memory kit (via momomo_us) has gone up for purchase on Amazon and Newegg for $310.99. Currently, there's no processor or motherboard that supports DDR5 memory, but Intel's 12th Generation Alder Lake chips should change that very soon.

The memory modules arrive with a naked black PCB, lacking a fancy heat spreader or flashy RGB lighting. Remember this is the brand's value memory, the flamboyant T-Force series aimed at gamers and ethusiasts will arrive later on.

The memory kit (TED532G4800C40DC01) comes in a dual-channel presentation, so you get two 16GB DDR5 memory modules. They operate at DDR5-4800 with 40-40-40-77 timings. The memory module only requires 1.1V to hit the aforementioned data rate, though. There's nothing spectacular about the specifications since this is the initial rollout.

Adhering to JEDEC's specifications for DDR5, TeamGroup's DDR5-4800 memory modules pack a built-in power management IC (PMIC) and voltage regulator module (VRM). While DDR5 flaunts really high data rates, the first modules sport very loose timings. It remains to be seen whether DDR5 memory can hang with the best RAM on the market, but then would expect the first kits to be far from the best. 

The TeamGroup DDR5-4800 32GB memory kit doesn't come cheap, but this was to be expected since it's bleeding-edge hardware, after all. Furthermore, the global semiconductor shortage has impacted memory pricing. Pricing-wise, TeamGroup's memory kit is in the same category as some of the high-end DDR4-4000 32GB (2x16GB) C16 memory kits on the market. But if you want to start parting out your next-gen build right this minute, it's currently your only option.