Is Generation 2 the Same as V2 in Airsoft?

The Fastest M.2 NVMe SSDs in February 2022

Gaming PC Builder is reader-supported. When using links on our site to make a purchase, nosotros may earn an affiliate commission.

Faster storage tin shave seconds off most of your PC activities – from booting up your Os to loading apps and games. But not all SSDs are created equal. If you lot have a spare PCI Express (PCIe) G.2 slot on your motherboard (desktop or laptop), and then this is where to install your arrangement bulldoze. The all-time M.2 drives also employ the mod storage interface protocol NVMe.

Table of Contents

What is NVMe and do I demand information technology?
Fastest Gen4 & Gen3 1000.two SSDs
Best M.2 NVMe SSDs 2022 (February)
What drive is best for gaming?
Will information technology work in my desktop/laptop PC?
How to choose the right capacity

What is NVMe and do I need it?

Prototype credit: Intel

The performance of any storage device boils downwards to how quickly it lets you lot move data from storage (not-volatile, slower) to DRAM (volatile, faster).

The NVMe protocol – short for not-volatile memory express – was created to make the nearly out of solid state drives in combination with the PCIe interface. Information technology replaces AHCI (paired with SATA), which was originally intended for mechanical hard drives. The newer protocol includes many efficiency improvements to deal with parallel transfers and the low-latency nature of SSDs.

When shopping for a new SSD, it is also of import to call up that One thousand.2 is but a grade factor that says zilch of the drive'southward performance. Some M.2 SSDs use the SATA interface and have the aforementioned operation limitations as any 2.5″ drive. If you have a relatively modern motherboard, it nigh probable has a PCIe/NVMe-capable (and therefore much faster) M.2 slot, then this is the blazon of drive to look for.

Fastest Gen4 Vs. Gen3 Chiliad.2 SSD

In improver, yous have to business relationship for multiple generations of the PCIe interface itself. The PCI Limited 4.0 (or Gen4) interface offers twice the bandwidth of PCIe three.0 (or Gen3). But to accept advantage of a Gen4 SSD, you as well demand a motherboard and processor (CPU) combo that supports the interface. That would include either Intel'due south 11th- or twelfth-gen Core platforms or any recent AMD counterpart (an X570, B550, or TRX40 motherboard combined with a 3000- or 5000-series Ryzen/Threadripper CPU or later).

In other words, in that location is no need to invest in a more expensive Gen4 SSD for use in a Gen3 system. Although Gen4 drives are backward-compatible, they offer no performance benefit in a Gen3 arrangement.

If yous own i of the same platforms, even so, the Kingston KC3000 is currently 1 of the fastest Thou.2 SSDs overall. It is closely followed by the Seagate Firecuda 530, which is based on almost identical hardware. In the PCIe 3.0 generation, the Samsung 970 EVO Plus is notwithstanding an excellent choice – not least because it'southward significantly more affordable than the best PCIe Gen4 SSDs.

Product

Fastest Grand.two SSD (Gen4)

Kingston KC3000 PCIe iv.0 NVMe G.2 SSD - High-Functioning Storage for Desktop and Laptop PCs -SKC3000S/1024G

Best Gen3 SSD

SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB, M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid Land Difficult Drive with V-NAND Technology for Gaming, Graphic Design, MZ-V7S1T0B/AM

Image

Sequential read (max., MB/s)

Sequential write (max., MB/s)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random write IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD32)

Random write IOPS (4K/QD32)

Fastest 1000.two SSD (Gen4)

Production

Kingston KC3000 PCIe four.0 NVMe G.ii SSD - High-Performance Storage for Desktop and Laptop PCs -SKC3000S/1024G

Image

Sequential read (max., MB/s)

Sequential write (max., MB/s)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random write IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD32)

Random write IOPS (4K/QD32)

Best Gen3 SSD

Product

SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB, M.2 NVMe Interface Internal Solid Land Hard Drive with V-NAND Engineering for Gaming, Graphic Pattern, MZ-V7S1T0B/AM

Image

Sequential read (max., MB/south)

Sequential write (max., MB/s)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random write IOPS (4K/QD1)

Random read IOPS (4K/QD32)

Random write IOPS (4K/QD32)

Terminal update on 2022-02-01 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

1. Best PCIe four.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Overall: Kingston KC3000

The Kingston KC3000 uses the same Phison E18 controller and 176-layer TLC NAND from Micron that recently propelled Seagate's FireCuda 530 to the elevation of the charts. However, the KC3000 model manages to outperform the FireCuda in several benchmarks. This makes information technology a leading selection if yous are building a PCIe Gen4-uniform system that does not compromise on storage performance.

The main disadvantage compared to the FireCuda 530 is that the latter comes with a higher endurance rating at ane,275 TBW versus the KC3000's 800 TBW (i TB capacities). Another particular worth noting is that, much like the FireCuda 530, you have to opt for the 2TB or 4TB models to become the best possible performance.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

2. Runner-upwardly: Seagate FireCuda 530

Similar the Kingston KC3000, the Seagate FireCuda 530 is equipped with the same winning combination of a Phison E18 and Micron's recently-launched 176-layer Flash chips. In its 2TB and 4TB capacities, the bulldoze reaches its maximum 6,900 MB/s sequential write throughput (compared to vi,000 MB/due south for the 1TB model). What makes the FireCuda 530 specially bonny in the high-end SSD space is the drive's endurance ratings. Fifty-fifty the 500GB capacity offers higher endurance than its 1TB Samsung and WD competitors at 640 TBW.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

3. Corsair MP600 Pro XT

Equally a third "2d-generation Phison E18" alternative, Corsair's MP600 Pro XT is based on the aforementioned hardware and offers roughly the same performance thanks to the college-density Micron Wink. Much like the previously mentioned drives, yous also accept to opt for the 2GB or 4TB capacities to get the all-time possible performance. The endurance ratings are a flake lower than both the KC3000 and the FireCuda 530, at 700 TBW (1TB), 1,400 TBW (2TB), and 3,000 TBW (4TB). On the plus side, the MP600 Pro XT comes with a big heatspreader that should help reduce throttling during intensive workloads.

Cheque prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

four. Western Digital WD Black SN850

Both the SN850 and Samsung'south 980 PRO are stiff competitors to the Seagate FireCuda 530 – and ahead of information technology in some benchmarks. Western Digital's SN850 in particular is an exceptionally fast M.2 SSD with sequential read speeds of up to 7,000 MB/due south (read), 5,300MB/s (write) too as up to 1,000,000 random 4K IOPS. The WD SN850 performs amend than the Samsung 980 PRO in a bulk of benchmarks, although the 980 PRO remains ahead in some.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

five. Samsung 980 PRO

Samsung's 980 PRO was launched in tardily 2020 and was the definite market place leader before the WD SN850 arrived. And to be fair – fifty-fifty subsequently the arrival of the 2nd-gen Phison E18 SSDs, information technology is all the same the best M.2 SSD in some benchmarks. In other words, it remains a good pick for any loftier-finish PCIe Gen4-capable organization. At the fourth dimension of writing (Feb 2022), you can often find it at a slight discount compared to the competition, which makes it even more attractive.

Notably, the 980 PRO is more of a successor to the 970 EVO Plus than to the 970 PRO. Previously, the PRO lineup has been exclusively based on higher-end MLC (multi-level cell) NAND memory chips. With the 980 PRO, Samsung has opted for the aforementioned cost-constructive TLC chips that all of its competitors use. The newer Samsung 980 (non-PRO), on the other hand, is a DRAMless budget Thousand.2 SSD that competes in the Gen3 category.

Cheque prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

6. Best Price/Functioning: Crucial P5 Plus

The Crucial P5 Plus, released in the middle of 2021, is a high-end Gen4 drive positioned as a marginally slower only also more affordable alternative to the market place leaders from Samsung and WD. It uses a proprietary controller and sequential reads and writes are rated at up to 6,600 MB/south and 5,000 MB/sec, respectively. Random reads and writes are also a bit more modest than the fastest Chiliad.2 SSDs at 630/700K IOPS just this seems to be more than than sufficient to earn a price/performance mention.

Check prices (1TB): Newegg

seven. Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus

Outside of storage behemoths like Western Digital and Samsung – who develop and produce SSDs from the ground up in their own fabs –, Sabrent is one of the most interesting manufacturers. Although the visitor is a comparatively recent addition to the storage industry, it has consistently managed to exist first on the marketplace with a variety of attractive products, exist it high-capacity M.2 drives, early on PCIe Gen4 drives, or affordable QLC-based models.

This is likewise the case with the Rocket 4 Plus, which takes reward of the new Phison E18 controller. On the whole, it looks like this drive is a stiff competitor to the flagship devices from WD and Samsung, though not quite on par in most cases.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

8. Corsair MP600 Pro

Another drive based on the same E18 controller is the Corsair MP600 Pro which besides arrived in 2021. Its performance seems to be largely comparable to that of the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus. Maxed-out sequential transfer rates are the headline features of the MP600 Pro as well, just like the Rocket 4 Plus, it lags a bit backside the Samsung and WD flagships in about other benchmarks.

An advantage over some of the competitors is that Corsair's drive includes a heat spreader. It'due south even bachelor in an extravagant 'Hydro X' version with a highly constructive water-cooling block.

Cheque prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

ix. XPG Gammix S70 Blade (2TB)

Adata's sometime flagship M.2 SSD, the Gammix S50, was and is 1 of many drives to apply the ubiquitous Phison E16 controller. The XPG Gammix S70 brought something new to the table in the form of Innogrit's IG5236 "Rainier" controller, which placed the S70 amongst the leaders in terms of sequential functioning. Its performance was as well improved recently with the release of the S70 Blade successor.

To get the best possible performance, you need to opt for the 2 TB model, which offers sequential read/write transfer rates of upward to vii,400/half dozen,800 MB/s. These sequential numbers are conspicuously very high, only the S70 Blade's random performance puts it slightly backside the fastest Thousand.2 drives in most real-world benchmarks. The Gammix S70 Bract is nevertheless an uncommonly fast SSD.

Check prices (2TB): Amazon, Newegg

10. Gigabyte Aorus 7000s

Like some of the same high-terminate M.2 alternatives on the market in early 2022, Gigabyte'due south Aorus 7000s uses a combination of Phison'due south E18 controller and 96-layer TLC NAND from Micron. As a result, it offers about the aforementioned performance, which is to say quite a lot.

Officially, sequential operation amounts to 7,000 MB/s read and 5,500 MB/s write for the i TB capacity, with 350K IOPS random read throughput. The ii TB version is however faster with up to 6,850 MB/s sequential write speeds and 650K IOPS random read.

Check prices (1TB): Amazon, Newegg

eleven. Patriot Viper VP4300 (2TB)

The Patriot Viper VP4300 strongly resembles the aforementioned Adata S70 Bract in that information technology employs the same Innogrit IG5236 controller. All the same, information technology does not utilize identical NAND memory – compared to the S70 Bract's 176-layer TLC NAND, the Viper VP4300 uses the older 96-layer diverseness. Sequential operation is nevertheless excellent, although normally slightly behind SSDs such every bit the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850.

Check prices (2TB): Amazon, Newegg

Best Gen3 M.2 SSDs: Samsung 970 PRO and EVO Plus

No single bulldoze will take home the crown as the fastest Thousand.2. SSD in every benchmark or use case. However, i of the best general performers in the PCIe iii.0 segment is withal the MLC-based Samsung 970 PRO. Samsung'southward performance and reliability track tape in the SSD segment has been almost flawless for a decade, so this drive is a very comfortable recommendation.

The 970 PRO comes with Samsung'south proprietary controller and MLC chips, as well as an excellent endurance rating of 1,200 TBW (1TB) or 600 TBW (512GB). When looking at the performance/$ equation, the 970 PRO has e'er been a somewhat questionable choice, only it might be a sensible investment for the most enervating users. Unfortunately, in that location are no large capacities available.

Check prices: Amazon, Newegg, Amazon United kingdom

Samsung'due south 970 EVO Plus is a lot more affordable than the PRO but very close in terms of actual performance. Although it doesn't use loftier-finish MLC NAND, this drive is yet among the very best in the PCIe Gen 3 category.

Check prices: Amazon, Newegg, Amazon United kingdom

Boosted Gen4 Options: The Phison E16 Lineup

Right until Samsung launched the 980 PRO, all PCIe 4.0-capable SSDs for consumers were based on the same Phison PS5016-E16 controller and 3D TLC NAND combo. What this means is that all of these drives offer roughly the same operation of upward to 5,000 MB/southward (sequential read) and 4,400 MB/s (sequential write). Some of the near identical drives are:

Overall performance is about the same with any of these drives, and all come with the advantage of superb endurance ratings compared to the competition. They are also known to run relatively hot, so unless you take a motherboard with an included heat spreader (often supplied with Z590 and X570 motherboards), this might exist a useful addition. Although the E16 drives are no longer in the lead, they are now strong alternatives in the affordable Thousand.2 NVMe category for anyone looking for Gen4 performance on a budget.

ix of the Best PCIe Gen3 M.2 SSDs

If your system is non PCIe Gen4 ready, y'all tin salvage quite a lot by opting for a Gen3 bulldoze, without losing much in terms of existent-world operation. The post-obit list includes some of the best-performing Thou.2 SSDs from the past couple of years. They are ordered by sequential operation first, random 2nd. Because of the drives' dissimilar controllers and memory types, these numbers are only an indication of bodily functioning.

Loftier-Stop Alternative: Intel Optane 800p

The last drive on our list is also a high-end option. Although its sequential performance might non sound similar much, Intel's Optane 800p is faster than all other M.2 SSDs in certain areas. Its extremely low latency makes random performance at low queue depths peculiarly practiced, which is an advantage for a system drive. The reason why it'south hard to compare it with other SSDs is that it uses Intel'south proprietary 3D XPoint memory instead of 'normal' NAND Flash.

Unfortunately, it also comes with a much higher cost/GB than competing drives and is only available in two tiny capacities – 58 GB and 118 GB. Besides unfortunate is that the 800p is existence discontinued by Intel and has no direct successor. Read more about it here, or head over to AnandTech for the most detailed review online.

Which is the Best M.2 SSD for Gaming?

The departure betwixt an SSD and a hard drive in terms of user experience is clearly noticeable. The effect of shifting from one type of SSD to another is non nigh as dramatic, at to the lowest degree when it comes to gaming.

All storage-intensive tasks that movement lots of files around will be affected by an SSDs capability. But a faster SSD will not necessarily shorten loading times in games by noticeable amounts. Here's an interesting exam from the web, comparing an M.2 PCIe SSD (970 Pro) versus an older 2.v″ SATA SSD (plus a mechanical hard drive) when loading diverse games:

SSD game loading exam: fastest Samsung 970pro vs Quondam SATA SSD vs HDD

Here'south a summary of the information:

Game	Loading from HDD	Loading from 2.5" SATA SSD	Loading from 970 Pro (PCIe/NVMe)	Decrease/Increment, (NVMe Vs SATA)
Destiny 2	45s	31s	29s	-half-dozen%
Deus Ex: Flesh Divided	71s	27s	21s	-22%
DOOM	65s	49s	47s	-four%
Civilization vi	27s	18s	17s	-vi%
Far Cry 5	25s	10s	11s	+10%
Path of Exile	23s	3s	3s	+0%
Earth of Warcraft	36s	7s	6s	-xiv%
Skyrim Special Edition	20s	9s	12s	+33%
Witcher 3	13s	7s	5s	-29%
Full	325s	161s	151s	-6%

Source: YouTube user Alexandr iuneWind

With these results in mind, it is probably safe to assume that a comparison of individual high-end 1000.2 PCIe SSDs volition result in modest differences equally far as gaming is concerned. The usual toll/performance calculation will serve you well. Of grade, all seconds saved add together up to minutes and hours in the long run, so a fast Thousand.two NVMe SSD is still a key component in a high-terminate PC. Simply in most cases, yous should non expect the sort of radical performance gains that yous see when coming from a traditional hard drive.

Will information technology Work on my Laptop/Desktop PC?

For the aforementioned drives to work with your computer, you volition need an Thou.ii slot and support for PCIe/NVMe. But there may be exceptions: Even without an Grand.2 slot on your (desktop) motherboard, you lot may still exist able to use one in a total-size PCIe x4 slot using an adapter. But if you want to run your OS from the drive, your motherboard must even so support booting from PCIe, which is no guarantee with older motherboards.

All recent, loftier-end ATX-size motherboards, on the other hand, include at least one M.2 slot and will be able to run a modern SSD at PCIe 3.0 speeds at a minimum. With an older board, you might not be so lucky. In whatever effect, it's ever best to check the transmission before ownership a new drive.

Keying and Sizes

G.ii SSDs (and other One thousand.2 cards) come in unlike sizes and some motherboards – specially in laptops – volition only hold a drive upwardly to a certain size. They also have different sets of notches (keying) that will prevent you from installing it the wrong way.

1000.2 Keying and Size

Three different primal types or 'notch styles' may be used by M.two SSDs: B, Thousand or B&M. The socket tin be either B or M, just not both.

High-stop SSDs, equally well as contempo motherboards, will have to use an Grand-key slot, as this is the only blazon that provides 4 lanes of bandwidth, or 20 Gbit/s, also known as PCIe x4. B-fundamental supports 'only' PCIe x2, or ten Gbit/south.

On many motherboards, the connector itself or the PCB next to information technology will be labeled with the keying. Otherwise, check the specs or the manual. Besides, One thousand.ii card length might be stamped on the lath, looking something like this:

High-capacity drives accept additional memory chips mounted on the carte and may require more space in some cases. The M.two standard allows for cards of five different lengths, with the number format meaning width-length in millimeters. All sizes are the same width, so the ii almost common, 2280 and 2242, are 80mm and 42mm long, respectively (and so on). All sizes:

2230
2242
2260
2280
22110

Not all motherboards – and much less all laptops – can accommodate the longest cards and some might not fifty-fifty support the common 2280 size (the format used by most of the drives listed above). 22110 drives are however very rare.

Also, don't confuse M.ii and mSATA, which is another, older standard. These slots may look similar on the motherboard, but they're not compatible. Yard.2 SSDs may also use the SATA interface, merely that doesn't mean information technology's an mSATA bulldoze.

Aye, it really is a bit confusing, but fortunately, M.2 2280 is the nearly mutual standard past far, so it'south really hard to become it wrong. Simply just to be safety:

Checklist Earlier Ownership an Yard.two SSD

Check the drive'due south interface and M.2 keying, e.yard. B+Chiliad-central/M-key (all PCIe x4 SSDs are M-key).
Brand sure it matches the slot on your motherboard or in your laptop. You lot can commonly detect this information on the specs page.
Too ensure that the length of the bulldoze is supported, e.g. 22fourscore or 2242 (numbers in bold are millimeters).

To sum things up about keying and interfaces: information technology might sound complicated, merely actually isn't. If you are building a high-end PC based on a Z170, Z270, B350/B450, X370/X470 chipset, it volition likely have an One thousand-key slot. And if and then, almost of the popular M-central or B+K-key drives will work. But there are a few exceptions, and then it'south best to double-check.

Choosing the Correct Chapters

Yous tin hardly ever accept too much storage space, but all of information technology doesn't take to be super fast. There is no reason to use an expensive, high-end SSD to store family unit photos or your Steam library backups.

What capacity y'all need is ever a personal question. If you just want a actually fast estimator for piece of work (and who doesn't?), yous can probably get by with as footling as 128 GB and use mechanical hard drives for general storage. Even so, when looking at the price/performance ratio (performance is usually improved in larger capacities), 1 TB is an attractive price bespeak with few compromises.

Most importantly, you want to kicking from your fastest drive. That means it must be able to store the Os and all of its associated files (such as caches and swap). And it's not that much:

Windows 10 (64-bit): 20GB
MacOs Catalina: 12.5GB
Ubuntu 20.04: 25GB
Manjaro eighteen/xix: 30GB
Linux Mint xx: 20GB
Simple OS v (Debian/Ubuntu): 15GB
Fedora thirty Workstation: 10GB
OpenSuse Tumbleweed: 40GB

Those numbers may or may not be a minimum requirement, only too add together – at the very least – the amount of RAM in your system to be on the safe side (to make room for the bandy file). Function apps are usually not that demanding either, with MS Office taking up virtually iv GB of space on your SSD.

Games tend to utilise a lot more only can range in size from a few hundred megabytes to dozens of gigabytes, so in that location is no simple answer. On the other mitt, loading games from a slower device (but preferably however an SSD) is still a viable option, as seen above.

MLC Vs. TLC Vs. QLC NAND

In whatever SSD context, you will inevitably run into the MLC, TLC, and QLC abbreviations. What these signify is the number of bits that tin be written to each cell in NAND (Not-AND) memory chips. In the early on days, just one bit could be written to each cell, hence the name single-level cell, or SLC. Solid state drives using SLC memory were (and now only in very rare cases, are) extremely durable just besides prohibitively expensive.

Consumer SSDs became common one time density increased to two bits per jail cell, also known every bit multi-level cell or MLC. Most high-end drives today apply the fifty-fifty denser triple-level jail cell, or TLC, memory type, whereas some budget SSDs utilize quad-level jail cell, or QLC NAND.

The downsides to increased densities are – all other things beingness equal – worse performance and durability. Adding additional $.25 per jail cell adds to the complexity and cells will exist worn down in fewer write/erase cycles.

Nevertheless, today's TLC-based drives are far faster than older MLC drives thank you to some highly innovative employ of buffering and caching technology, whereby data is commencement written in SLC mode and then to the slower TLC memory. The immovability problems have also mostly been solved using, amongst other things, spare chapters (overprovisioning) to spread out the wear over time. On the whole, today'due south TLC-based SSDs are not just much faster but also durable plenty to outlive most other PC parts for the average user.