Buying yourself a fast 512 GB “Nvme SSD” for games or a powerful work PC is no longer so much a luxury for the elite as a small upgrade available to the majority. Therefore, in this article, we have collected the five fastest Nvme SSD 512 GB, which can easily replace the main hard drive or add the speed of existing PC memory. Most importantly, do not forget to check before buying whether the M.2 slot of your PC or laptop supports the NMVe interface or only the slow M.2 SATA.
5 Best Super Fastest Nvme SSD (M.2 512GB)
Silicon Power P34A80 M.2 512GB
Silicon Power P34A80 is the most affordable NVMe SSD with impressive speed ratings, a full DRAM buffer, and 3-bit memory. From NVMe SSDs, either QLC 3D NAND-based drives or bufferless SSDs will be cheaper. This was done thanks to the new Phison PS5012-E12 controller, which is already trying to impose competition on controllers from first-tier brands like Samsung. It is based on a dual-core ARM processor with a frequency of 667 MHz, offers eight channels for connecting flash memory, supports four PCI Express 3.0 lanes, and is equipped with a DDR4 / DDR3L interface for implementing an internal buffer.
Let’s say right away that the miracle did not happen and the savings in money affected productivity. For example, during reading operations, instead of 3400 MB / s, the CrystalDiskMark benchmark showed 2156 MB / s. With external recording, instead of 3000 MB / s, we got 2123 MB / s. On the one hand, this seems to be a minus, on the other hand, even taking into account such “unreliability”, the external speed of this SSD turns out to be higher than that of competitors NVMe based on other inexpensive controllers from Silicon Motion. And it lags behind the reference models quite a bit.
Other advantages of the model include a capacious SLC cache with a write speed of 2000 MB / s, no freezes after deleting large files, and moderate drops in speed when copying large files in steady-state. In this case, a stable 600 MB / s comes out, which can not be called low speed. Most importantly, when buying, pay attention to the location of the M.2 port on your motherboard if it does not have cooling, and the slot itself is located close to the video card, then the Silicon Power P34A80 may be too hot. Fortunately, the manufacturer provides the device with a proprietary 5-year warranty.
A-Data XPG GAMMIX S11 Pro M.2 AGAMMIXS11P-512GT-C 512 GB
The Gammix S11 solid-state drive is one of the fastest drives in the A-Data range. It features an ultra-fast PCI-E 3.0 4x interface, delivers serious read / write speeds (up to 3500/2300 MB / s), and significantly outperforms SATA 6Gb / s. Powered by 64-layer 3D NAND flash, 2nd generation memory, and the well-proven SM2262G controller, this drive delivers stable and reliable performance at prohibitive speeds.
S11 Pro is covered with a heatsink stylish black and red with the XPG logo, this is a thick enough embossed aluminum plate that reduces the temperature during operation by 10 – 15 degrees. Featuring SLC caching, DRAM cache buffer, and LDPC ECC technologies, the device provides high speed and data integrity during the most intense gaming, data transfer, system overclocking, and other demanding operations. Separately, it must be said that the XPG Gammix S11 Pro SLC caching algorithms are built in a special way. Cached data is transferred to the main memory array with some delay. This makes it possible to speed up not only writing, but also read operations when accessing the files just written. True, in practice, this is more important for beautiful numbers in synthetic tests than for real life.
But something else is important here. Due to the rather modest price, the XPG Gammix S11 Pro looks like one of the most interesting solutions among the proposals of the second-third tier companies. In particular, the claimed performance characteristics of this SSD are such that it can be considered almost a direct competitor to the top-end WD Black SN750 and Samsung 970 EVO. At the same time, it has a larger MTBF resource (2 million hours versus 1.5 million for Samsung 980 and 1.75 million for WD Black), and slightly higher TBW.
Samsung 970 EVO M.2 MZ-V7E500BW 500 GB
Thanks to the complete closed-loop, Samsung has been able to produce reference SSDs time after time that set new performance records and fully live up to the Evo name. Moving to a more powerful Phoenix controller and a new three-bit memory with 64 layers, it improved the speed characteristics of its predecessor, got a more generous recording resource and got a little cheaper.
Linear read and write speeds within a 10 GB SLC array are 3400 and 2300 MB / s, which is 5-6 times faster than top-end SATA SSDs. When an array overflows, the read speed does not change, and the write speed drops threefold. It’s a common story for MLC memory, however, you don’t have to handle 10 – 20 GB files very often in ordinary life, so it’s okay. The processing speed of the smallest 4K blocks is even more impressive: 450 thousand and 370 thousand IOPS for reading and writing, respectively. The credit for this is not only the fast Samsung memory and the Phoenix controller, but also the DDR4 RAM cache instead of the low-frequency DDR3.
If we average linear and random read / write values, then the latest Evo model will be many times faster than its predecessor in the face of Samsung 860 EVO M.2 MZ-N6E250BW 250 GB. True, such a revolution did not work out like last time, and the new Evo does not leave competitors far behind, as before. But the price is also nicer this time. If you are planning to build the fastest gaming computer in the world and these numbers will not be enough, then look towards the older model.
Samsung 970 PRO M.2 MZ-V7P512BW 512GB is more expensive, but in terms of speed it turns out to be almost 25% more powerful.
WD Black SN750 NVME SSD WDS500G3X0C 500 GB without heatsink
The WD Black series appeared on the market back in 2012 and since then has always been associated with flagship products for gamers and enthusiasts. So it comes as no surprise that the fastest SSDs in Western Digital’s arsenal come from this series. For example, the new WD Black SN750 is one of the fastest M.2 SSDs that runs on PCI-E 3.0 4x bus.
The drive uses 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory chips of its own production. Additionally, a 512 MB RAM chip is soldered. The sequential read speed is 3430 MB / s and the sequential write speed is 2600 MB / s. The indicator of random reading and writing of the smallest 4K blocks also did not disappoint – 380 and 420 thousand IOPS, respectively. The size of the fast virtual SLC cache is 8 GB, but even after it overflows, the speed drops only by half – to 1300 MB / s. This indicates the use of selected flash memory because often with such drawdowns, the speed drops by 4, or even 5 times.
Just be sure to pay attention to the fact that there are versions on sale with and without a radiator. The fact is that this SSD is built on the basis of a powerful tri-core controller, which balances the prohibitive speed with noticeable heating. Plus, the drive itself supports a special game mode that disables power-saving functions and further contributes to heating. It is not for nothing that the creation of such a seemingly simple thing as a radiator was left at the mercy of experienced specialists from the EKWB company. However, many modern motherboards in the mid and high price segment are equipped with their own M.2 heatsinks.
Gigabyte AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD GP-ASM2NE6500GTTD 500GB
In the last couple of years, Gigabyte has taken up an active expansion and began to promote the Aorus gaming line almost as a separate gaming sub-brand. Like Asus with its ROG. As part of this expansion, the company introduced an interesting M.2 SSD with support for the new fourth-generation PCI-E bus, record speeds, and a rather biting $ 150 price tag.
The novelty is based on 96-layer 3D NAND TLC Toshiba BiCS4 chips and the Phison E16 controller, which is essentially a modified version of the Phison E12. DDR4 with a 2 GB buffer is used as cache memory. The maximum sequential read speed is 5000 MB / s, and the sequential write speed is 2500 MB / s. And this is in some way a historical moment, since before everything came down to the bandwidth limit of the PCI-E 3.0 bus, which is 4000 MB / s. In reality, the speed turns out to be slightly lower: depending on the benchmark and the use case, the drop can reach up to 20%. And even so it will still be very fast. Add in the excellent performance with 4K blocks (especially impressive 550K write IOPS) and you have one of the fastest drives in history.
However, it is necessary to praise not only the impressive performance but also the copper radiator. Many SSDs have a problem with the controller overheating when constantly operating at increased speeds, so Gigabyte decided to abandon the traditional aluminum heatsink and used colder copper. As a result, in tests, he did not step over the 55 degrees Celsius mark. Among other advantages, we highlight the increased volumes of guaranteed data recording, a 2 GB dynamic SLC buffer, and a rather useful utility SSD Tool Box for cleaning, optimizing, and monitoring the state of the disk. Well, the main disadvantage is the high price and limited components supporting PCI-E of the fourth generation. In fact, the only option right now is AMD motherboards based on the X570 chip.
