T700 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe 2280 m.2 SSD Review
T700 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe 2280 m.2 SSD Review
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Buy it at Amazon: T700 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe 2280 m.2 SSD [Affiliate Link]
Takeaway: Super fast read and write speeds, even in prior gen PCIe 4 slot, futureproof and cool temps.
Thank you to Best Buy for sending me this product for free to try. This 2TB Crucial T700 NVMe Gen5 SSD is currently installed in my gaming tower as secondary storage, but after testing it out, I might just clone and swap it with my primary drive for the performance improvements it offers.
This model is designed for desktop systems as it comes with a fairly chunky aluminum and nickel-plated copper passive heatsink attached and measures ¾” thick. You would not be able to install it in a laptop or low clearance system. There is, however, a non-heatsink version of this drive available, though Crucial recommends using it with an alternate heatsink anyway for optimal performance, as it is prone to overheating quickly without one. The chipset used is an 8-channel Phison PS5026-E26 controller with a Micron 232-Layer 3D TLC NAND Flash memory and 1GB LPDDR4 DRAM cache per 1TB of capacity.
While motherboards that support Gen5 PCIe are not yet ubiquitous, this SSD is also backwards compatible and will operate just fine in a PCIe Gen4 slot, as this was what I have available on my motherboard at the time of testing. Having a Gen5 drive gives me a little bit of future-proofing if I decide to upgrade the motherboard, though currently, I'm not able to take advantage of the fastest read and write speeds the drive offers. To achieve the T700’s fullest potential, you will also need a current generation CPU e.g. Intel's 12th/13th Gen or AMD AM5. My system is using a Intel Core i7-13700KF.
Installation was straightforward; the drive fits into an m-key m.2 slot at a slight upward angle and is then secured with a single screw to the 2280 form-factor terminal (screw not included). It needs to be initialized before you can use it, and I did this by partitioning and formatting it using Windows Disk Management.
When benchmarking the drive with Crystal Disk Mark, the Crucial T700 was able to achieve Read/Write speeds of 7100 MB/s read and 6823 MB/s write respectively, but keep in mind it is installed in a Gen 4 slot. However, this is still a marked improvement from my primary SDD’s performance (a Gen4x4 NVMe) of 4650 MB/s read and 3600 MB/s write. I was able to copy over large quantities of data (~50GB folder) to the drive in under 30 seconds with an average write speed of 2.7GB/s. Typical operating temps when idle are around 38-45°C and when under heavy loads were around 60°C.
The drive works with Microsoft DirectStorage and GPU decompression to enable faster asset loading with less CPU utilization when rendering hi-res 3D textures, which is useful for both gaming and content creation applications. This functionality kicks in automatically as long as you have compatible hardware and a DirectX 12 application/game designed to use this storage acceleration feature.
Overall, this drive performs great with fast read/write speeds while staying relatively cool thanks to the included heatsink. I didn’t experience thermal throttling on my system, though at maximum performance in a Gen 5 slot, you may have different results depending on how hard you push the drive. It was a very simple DIY upgrade for my gaming rig.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned
Buy it at Amazon: T700 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe 2280 m.2 SSD [Affiliate Link]
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