O-Sense
CONCLUSION
3 things one needs to take from todays review, 1st that Gen5 drives can easily hit 12.000MB/s (at least high-end models like the T700), 2nd that DirectStorage at least right now doesn’t make a whole lot of difference between Gen3, Gen4 and Gen5 M.2 NVMe drives (that could change later on however, this is an API that gets updated quite often after all) and 3rd that temperatures are still a thing with Gen5 drives. Personally, I’ve been saying ever since the 1st Gen4 drives made their appearance many years back that Gen5 drives should be able to climb as high as 14.000MB/s if not more as long as there are no temperature issues. Since however high temperatures are still a thing (even a heatsink is not enough if you plan on placing heavy workloads onto an Gen5 SSD – regardless if you’re good with mods or you can find a bracket for that purpose, I do suggest placing a fan over it to optimize performance and durability) I guess surpassing 12.000MB/s will do. One last thing I need to mention since some of you may wonder, the reason I will not be performing SNIA tests is, well let’s just say that if the T700 (or any other Gen5 drive probably) suddenly vanishes from your system, it’s due to high temperatures (if that happens shut down your system and wait until the drive cools down).
At the time of this review the T700 2TB PCIe 5.0 Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSD with heatsink by Crucial retails for USD328.81 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 374.46Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) a price tag which is more or less what you’d expect from a Gen5 SSD with such performance numbers. At the end of the day yes, temperatures are still a problem for Gen5 drives when it comes to heavy workloads but since for regular consumer use (gaming included) they perform as advertised the Golden Award is in order.
PROS
- Quality
- Top Performance (Over 12000MB/s)
- Large Heatsink
- DirectStorage Improvements
- Storage Executive Software
- 5 Year Limited Warranty
CONS
- Price (For Some)
- High Temperatures (Heavy Workloads)
