Crucial T710 review – we benchmark the company's new flagship gaming SSD

Not content material to let WD and Samsung take all of the glory in terms of new super-fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs, Essential has simply unleashed its newest flagship drive. Just like the WD Black SN8100, the brand new Essential T710 boasts a prime pace of 14,900MB/s, making it the corporate’s quickest drive but. There is a catch right here, although, which is that solely the 1TB drive within the vary can hit this pace – the 2TB drive I am reviewing right here tops out at 14,500MB/s.

Even so, that places it forward of the final top-speed Essential drive, the T705, whereas the claimed prime write pace of 13,800MB/s places this drive in competitors with among the quickest drives on our information to purchasing the most effective gaming SSD. There’s extra to a superb SSD than sequential learn and write speeds, although, so I’ve put this drive by way of its paces in quite a lot of benchmarks to see the way it squares as much as the competitors, notably in terms of gaming.

Specs

As with the WD Black SN8100, the brand new Essential T710 makes use of a Silicon Movement SM2508 controller as its basis, however not like the WD drive, Essential has paired this chip with Micron G9 NAND flash reminiscence, which Micron claims is the “world’s quickest” triple-level cell NAND. Whereas Essential’s efficiency claims concerning the 2TB T710 aren’t record-breaking, they nonetheless recommend that this drive is immensely quick.

A heatsink possibility may even be accessible, full with RGB lighting throughout the middle, though I am testing the naked drive for this evaluate. It comes on a single-sided M.2 2280 module, and incorporates a primary monochrome heat-conducting sticker on the highest. It isn’t notably fairly, however that hardly issues when it will be below a heatsink anyway. In our case, we’re testing the Essential T710 utilizing the chunky PCIe 5.0 SSD heatsink that comes with our MSI X870E Carbon WiFi motherboard.

As you’ll count on from a brand new top-speed drive, the Essential T710 additionally makes use of the 4x PCIe 5.0 interface, and the 1TB drive appears to be like as if it’ll push this near its restrict. In the meantime, the endurance score is in keeping with that of different current top-speed drives, with 600 terabytes written (TBW) for the 1TB drive, 1,200TBW for the 2TB drive, and a couple of,400 TBW for the 4TB mannequin.

We’re testing the 2TB mannequin for our evaluate, which supplies you 1,863MB of space for storing as soon as it is formatted, with 48GB allotted for overprovisioning (the place the drive allocates extra storage than strictly essential to make sure constant efficiency and reliability). The drive’s efficiency can be assisted by 2GB of LPDDR4 DRAM operating at 4,266MT/s.

How we check

To evaluate the efficiency of SSDs, I run CrystalDiskMark to gauge peak sequential and random efficiency. I additionally run the PCMark 10 full system drive benchmark to get an concept of real-world efficiency as a system drive, and run the 3DMark storage benchmark to evaluate gaming efficiency, which is the precedence for our critiques as a gaming web site.

The latter runs traces from actual video games, together with Battlefield V, The Outer Worlds, and Overwatch, to measure efficiency for recreation installs, saves, and loading instances. All of the SSDs within the graphs beneath have been examined on the identical check rig, which has the specs listed beneath. All exams are performed in a full PC construct inside a Cooler Grasp MasterCase H500P case with two 200mm entrance consumption followers and one 140mm exhaust fan, with the glass aspect panel hooked up, to get a practical concept of thermal efficiency and throttling.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• CPU cooler: Corsair H100X Elite
• Motherboard: MSI X870E Carbon WiFi
• RAM: G.Talent TridentZ RGB 6,000MT/s, CL28
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080
• SSD (system drive): WD Black SN850X heatsink 2TB

Benchmarks

Let’s begin with the highest determine that SSD makers placed on the field, which is the height sequential learn pace. Essential claims the T710 can hit a prime pace of 14,500MB/s, and that is largely borne out in our exams, with the CrystalDiskMark sequential learn pace hitting 14,480MB/s. It might probably’t catch the brand new 2TB drives from WD and Samsung on this check, but it surely’s nonetheless very quick.

Nonetheless, the 2TB T710 struggled to hit the 13,800MB/s sequential write pace that Essential claims, with CrystalDiskMark topping out at bang on 13,500MB/s (this was its highest rating over a number of runs). That is nonetheless quick sufficient to beat practically each different drive we have examined – it is solely overwhelmed by the WD Black SN8100, which hits a large 14,088MB/s.

Transfer over to the CrystalDiskMark random 4K exams, and the Essential T710 once more places in a powerful displaying, with barely quicker efficiency than the Samsung 9100 Professional, though it once more cannot catch the WD Black SN8100. The ageing PCIe 4.0 WD Black SN850X additionally places in a really robust displaying on this check, beating the Essential T710, and displaying that respectable efficiency is not nearly reaching peak sequential speeds.

The place the Essential T710 actually comes into its personal is in our recreation benchmark exams, the place it beats the top-speed competitors in a few exams. Essential’s final top-speed PCIe 5.0 drive, the Essential T705, can be robust in these exams, and the T710 takes it a step additional. Most notably, within the 3DMark recreation set up check, which makes use of traces from The Outer Worlds, the Essential T710 hit a prime pace of 313MB/s, placing it 26MB/s in entrance of the WD Black SN8100, and 77MB/s forward of the Samsung 9100 Professional – an ideal end result.

Likewise, within the save recreation check, which is once more based mostly on The Outer Worlds, the T710 hits a prime pace of 244MB/s, which is nicely forward of the 178MB/s from the Samsung drive, and considerably in entrance of the WD Black SN8100 at 193MB/s as nicely.

The story is much less rosy within the different recreation exams, although. For instance, the Battlefield V load check sees the Essential T710 operating at 1,355MB/s, whereas the WD and Samsung drives hit over 1,500MB/s. Bizarrely, the Essential T710 additionally slips behind the corporate’s former flagship, the Essential T705, on this check as nicely.

Equally, the WD and Samsung competitors can be faster than the T710 within the Overwatch load check, as is the older T705. That stated, all the outcomes from the PCIe 5.0 drives are robust on this check, and a good bit faster than the PCIe 4.0 WD Black SN850X. The Essential T710 is not sluggish in these exams; it is simply that different drives are a bit faster.

Lastly, the PCMark system drive exams once more present the Essential T710 holding up nicely. Its drive entry time of 39µs is on par with the Samsung 9100 Professional, and solely barely behind the WD Black SN8100. Plus, whereas the Samsung drive is faster by way of efficiency, there’s solely a small distinction between 631MB/s and 637MB/s.

Briefly, the Essential T710 excels in a few recreation exams, however is in any other case barely behind the competitors, notably the WD Black SN8100. The efficiency variations aren’t at all times large, although, and the Essential T710 continues to be a high-performance drive.

Temperature

Now we come to the one downside for the Essential T710, which was additionally an issue for its predecessor, the T705, and that is the quantity of warmth it generates. I recorded a peak temperature of 83°C from the Essential T710 throughout stress testing (with back-to-back runs of the CrystalDiskMark sequential learn and write benchmark), and that is with the identical MSI PCIe 5.0 heatsink I additionally used to check the WD Black SN8100 and Samsung 9100 Professional.

After all, high-speed PCIe 5.0 drives get sizzling – except the Corsair MP700 Professional, which has its personal cooling fan, all of the drives hit not less than 70°C, however 83°C is far increased, and it hit the identical end result after reseating the drive and heatsink a number of instances. The 14,480MB/s learn pace end result suggests the drive not less than is not throttling at this temperature, however you will need to be sure to set up this drive in a case with loads of airflow.

Essential’s personal heatsink design, which is because of come out later, could nicely cut back this temperature (Samsung’s personal heatsink knocked a few levels off the 9100 Professional’s temperature in comparison with our MSI heatsink), however in the event you’re planning to make use of your personal heatsink, this drive does run sizzling when it is operating at peak load.

Value

The Essential T710 value is $179.99 / £153.99 for the 1TB drive, $279.99 / £233.99 for the 2TB drive, and $549.99 / £519.99 for the 4TB mannequin. These US costs are similar to these of the WD Black SN8100 at launch, and so they’re barely cheaper than the unique Samsung 9100 Professional costs.

Nonetheless, each the Samsung 9100 Professional and WD Black SN8100 have already began dropping in value, which makes the brand new Essential T710 appear to be comparatively poor worth on launch, particularly with its usually slower efficiency in comparison with the WD drive. If it drops in value, although, and the plummeting value of the Essential T705 since launch suggests that is seemingly, then the Essential T710 shall be rather more aggressive.

Alternate options

WD Black SN8100

If you’d like the quickest drive that cash should purchase, then make no mistake, the WD Black SN8100 is the benchmark king proper now. This drive hit a record-breaking 14,897MB/s sequential learn pace in our exams, and a prime write pace of 14,088MB/s, and it dominated the graphs in all however one in all our different benchmarks as nicely. It isn’t low cost at MSRP, however you possibly can usually get it discounted. You’ll need to make use of a good PCIe 5.0 heatsink with it, although.

Learn our full WD Black SN8100 evaluate.

Corsair MP700 Professional

Whereas this Corsair drive cannot hit the identical record-breaking speeds because the quickest drives on the market, we love the elective fan-assisted air cooler, which retains temperatures in test and stops your drive from overheating. In addition to, its 12,400MB/s prime pace is hardly sluggish, and this drive nonetheless gives a good step up from a PCIe 4.0 SSD with out you having to fret about your drive operating too sizzling.

Learn our full Corsair MP700 Professional evaluate.

Verdict

Essential’s quickest SSD but exhibits the corporate making extra of the PCIe 5.0 interface, with a drive that might have been the highest canine if it had launched just a few months earlier. Whereas the T710 has the higher hand in a few our recreation exams, although, it is in any other case clear that Essential has missed the boat on this one.

The 1TB drive may need some good speeds on the field, however the 2TB drive (and that is the capability candy spot proper now) cannot catch the WD Black SN8100 in most benchmarks, regardless of having the identical MSRP, and it additionally runs comparatively sizzling when it is operating at peak pace.

That stated, SSD MSRPs not often final for lengthy on this aggressive market, and it is seemingly that the value of the Essential T710 will drop within the close to future. If the value drops to a degree the place it is considerably beneath the price of the WD Black SN8100, then it is going to be value selecting up, so long as you may have a heatsink that is as much as the job. In the mean time, although, the WD Black SN8100 stays the drive to beat.

Should you’re on the lookout for a motherboard that may home a high-speed drive such because the Essential T710, take a look at our full information to purchasing the most effective gaming motherboard, which incorporates quite a lot of boards with 4x PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots.