CONCLUSION

   There may have been many M.2 NVMe Gen4 SSDs to arrive in the lab wearing the E18 NAND flash controller by Phison (and some even the 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash by Micron) but the XS70 did something none other has, it showed no signs of thermal throttling during my mixed SNIA tests. Yes, the 12 hour test is a bit extreme so even the XS70 did show signs of thermal throttling (alas limited compared to other models) but I expect this is not something which many out there will take into account. Moving to performance things are very good and honestly slightly better than expected across the board, just as you’d expect by the hardware configuration Silicon Power chose. My sole "issue" with the XS70 is that probably because of the large heatsink fitting into an M.2 port was not as easy as with all other drives I’ve tested to date. Now since the 3950X system that I use for gen4 SSD tests is not located in the lab (and thus I’m clearly not as accustomed to it as my very own) I also mounted the XS70 onto my Z490/Z590 DARK motherboards with the same results so I do recommend a bit of caution when mounting it.

   With a retail price tag currently set at USD132.99 inside the USA (Newegg.com) and at around 190Euros inside the EU the XS701TB M.2 NVMe Gen4 SSD is priced extremely well, on the other side of the Atlantic (Silicon Power needs to focus more on EU prices). Price aside however the XS70 1TB is a very good PCIe 4.0 SSD not only because of its performance but also because of its endurance (yes, not stellar but on par with other PCIe 4.0 Gen4 SSDs) and the large heatsink and that’s why it deserves the Golden Award.

PROS

- Excellent Performance Levels
- Endurance (700TBW / 1.6 Million Hours MTBF)
- Large Aluminum Heatsink
- 5 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (USA)

CONS

- Thermal Throttling (Limited - During SNIA 12 Hour Tests)
- Price (EU)