The Bottom Line
Pros
- Fastest SSD
- Best gaming SSD
- Best performing SSD
Cons
- Not PS5 Compatible
Should you buy it?
AvoidConsiderShortlistBuyIntroduction & Drive Details
Today is the day many of us have been patiently waiting for to roll around. It's been about a month and a half since we got a foretaste of PCIe Gen5 storage performance on steroids. Back in April, we got the opportunity to PREVIEW an engineering sample of the Crucial SSD that is officially launching today. Crucial's T700 ES 2TB redefined what we had come to expect from consumer PCIe Gen5 SSDs.
Until Crucial's T700 ES drive arrived, 10,000 MB/s had been the speed limit for all consumer PCIe Gen5 SSDs. Crucial upped that with its T700 ES to a mind-blowing 12,400 MB/s, or 20% more than all SSDs previous to it. Crucial is able to extract 20% more throughput, even though it is controlled by the very same Phison PS5026-E26 PCIe Gen5 controller as all consumer Gen5 SSDs to this point. How? Faster flash is how.
Until today, all consumer Gen5 SSDs that have made their way into retail channels sport identical hardware configurations being Phison E26 controlled and arrayed with 232-Layer Micron B58R 1,600 MT flash. Crucial's T700 ups that by employing a 20% faster, 2,000 MT 232-Layer B58R flash array. The faster flash enables the T700 to take more advantage of the potential bandwidth PCIe Gen5 affords.
Now, if you are at all familiar with Phison's E26 controller, then you know it is spec's by Phison as capable of up to 14,000 MB/s throughput.
We bring this up to inform you that if you are waiting for 14,000 MB/s before pulling the trigger on Gen5 goodness, you will be waiting for quite some time due to the underlying reason for a 12,400 MB/s cap being current M.2 power delivery, and not the flash speed like it was with the previous E26/1,600 MT 10,000 MB/s speed limit.
The T700 comes in two variations; with heatsink and without heatsink. The variation with heatsink is perfect for those with motherboards with Gen5 M.2 slots that do not have adequately sized or engineered integrated cooling solutions.
We like what Crucial has done, in that the T700's factory heatsink is a passive cooler and that it is fairly conventional in shape and size. Most of all, we like how effective it has proven to be during our testing, keeping the world's fastest SSD running throttle free even during demanding workloads involving hundreds of gigabytes of data.
For those that do have motherboards with integrated M.2 cooling solutions designed specifically for Gen5 heat dissipation, Crucial offers the T700 with a thermally conductive copper label for $30 less than the heatsink version. We have been gaming with this version for a month now, using the passive heatsink that is integrated on our X670E AORUS Master, and temps are really good, never exceeding 59c no matter how hard we hammer it.
Speaking of gaming brings to mind another attribute of the T700: in addition to being the world's best-performing gaming SSD, it is inherently futureproof as it relates to the soon-to-be ubiquitous Microsoft DirectStorage API. MS DirectStorage is revolutionary because it provides a direct path from SSD to GPU for data streams, bypassing the CPU bottleneck.
As demonstrated by the above screenshot, with the T700's baked-in Phison I/O+ technology DirectStorage optimizations running in conjunction with GPU Deflate decompression technology, CPU utilization is 99% lower while at the same time boosting data performance by a huge 60% margin. Amazing.
At this point, we only know of two games that are DirectStorage enabled, Forespoken and Diablo IV. Of the two, so far, we've played Forespoken running on assorted SSDs to get a feel for Phison's I/O+ technology in action. The non-Phison controlled SSDs we put to the test could not stream data to the GPU as well as the T700 and suffered slower load times and even stuttering. The difference is real, and it is noticeable.
Now that we have a brief overview of what the T700 is and what makes it tick, let's dive right in so we can put some exact numbers to the world's best gaming SSD.
Drive Details
Jon's Test System Specifications
Intel Test System
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS Tachyon
- CPU: Intel Core i9-13900KS - Buy from Amazon
- Cooler: Alphacool Eissturm Hurricane Copper 45 - Buy from Amazon
- RAM: Sabrent Rocket DDR5 32GB - Buy from Amazon
- Graphics Card: MSI SUPRIM X RTX 3080 12GB - Buy from Amazon
- Case: PrimoChill's Praxis Wetbench - Buy from Amazon
- Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1200W - Buy from Amazon
- OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Buy from Amazon
AMD Test System
- Motherboard: GIGABYTE B650E AORUS Tachyon
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X - Buy from Amazon
- Cooler: Alphacool Eissturm Hurricane Copper 45 - Buy from Amazon
- RAM: Sabrent Rocket DDR5 32GB - Buy from Amazon
- Graphics Card: MSI SUPRIM X RTX 3080 12GB - Buy from Amazon
- Case: PrimoChill's Praxis Wetbench - Buy from Amazon
- Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1200W - Buy from Amazon
- OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Buy from Amazon
Because we at TweakTown like to be first at everything whenever we can, we will present our storage performance results for the test subject on both 13th Gen Intel and 7000 Series AMD platforms going forward for the foreseeable future. Because Intel still delivers the best real-world storage performance, (Look Here), our running chart will continue to be Intel-based until AMD can deliver better real-world storage performance than its rival.
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Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, Anvil, ATTO
CrystalDiskMark
We employ CDM as our standard measurement for both sequential throughput and Q1T1 random read. Crucial spec's its T700 as capable of up to 12,400 MBs sequential read and 11,800 MBs sequential write. As fully expected, based on the ES model, we hit these numbers right on the money.
Anvil's Storage Utilities
The T700 manages a new lab record for a flash-based SSD by edging out the ES model for the top spot. Impressive.
We employ Anvil's random read test as our standard for measuring max random read IOPS. This test is very accurate as it at its core is Iometer skinned over. We test at QD128. We come up a bit short of the drive's quoted up to specs being 1.5 million RR IOPS. That said, 1.35 million IOPS here is more than satisfactory considering our more demanding user state.
ATTO
ATTO gives us a clear picture of what transfer sizes a particular SSD favors in terms of sequential throughput. Our test subject favors sequential transfers of 4MB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128K or larger when programming (writing) data.
Real-World Testing: Transfers, 3DMark SSD Gaming Test, PCM10 Storage
Transfer Rates
Our 100GB data transfer test is not your ordinary 100GB of data. Ours is a crushing mix composed of more than 62K files. Write performance random or sequential, is an infrequent operation, and as such, we do not consider it to be an important performance metric in the consumer space. An example being how many times is a game installed vs. how many times it's played. If you are a file copy enthusiast, then this is the SSD you've been waiting for.
Unlike programming (writing) data, serving data to the host (reading) data is always an important performance metric, and here again, our test subject does it at unprecedented levels. Additionally, the retail T700 has the distinction of being the first SSD to exceed 6,000 MB/s while running on our Intel platform. Impressive.
Now that we've demonstrated through synthetic benchmarks and file copy testing that Crucial's T700 is indeed the world's fastest consumer SSD, let's show you why it is more importantly the world's best gaming SSD and overall the world's best-performing flash-based SSD.
3DMark SSD Gaming Test
UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. We consider it superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs on the actual game itself. This test is in fact the same as running the actual game, just without the inconsistencies inherent to application testing. In short, we believe that this is the world's best way to test an SSDs gaming prowess and accurately compare it against competing SSDs. The 3DMark SSD Gaming Test measures and scores the following:
- Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
- Loading Call of Duty Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
- Loading Overwatch from launch to the main menu.
- Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
- Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
- Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
- Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.
Gaming is a performance metric that matters to the majority of DIY consumers, especially to the enthusiast crowd that TweakTown caters to. Again, we are rewarded with another lab record, and this time it's where we want to see it most. Gaming. Do you want the world's best flash-based gaming SSD? This is it.
PCM10 Storage Tests
PCMark 10 Storage Test is the most advanced and most accurate real-world consumer storage test ever made. There are four different tests you can choose from; we run two of them.
The Full System Drive Benchmark and the Quick System Drive Benchmark. The Full System Drive Benchmark writes 204 GB of data over the duration of the test. The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23 GB of data over the duration of the test. These tests directly correlate with mainstream user experience.
PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark
This particular test writes 204GB data and covers a broad range of common consumer tasks, including booting Windows 10, file transfers, Adobe and Office applications, and startup times for games, including Battlefield V, COD Black Ops 4, and Overwatch. Unlike synthetic numbers, this is comprehensive real-world data which is why we use it to rank SSDs in terms of user experience.
The most performance where it matters most. This is really what makes the T700 stand out as clearly superior to everything flash-based that's come before it. Outstanding
PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark
Hey, will you look at that, another lab record as a parting shot. This is real performance, performance that matters.
Final Thoughts
Having already tested the T700 as an engineering sample, we knew exactly what to expect, as did some of our more informed readers. Simply stated, it's quantifiably the best enthusiast-grade flash-based SSD we've ever tested.
In fact, this is the first SSD that can deliver the goods at levels approaching those of the now-defunct Optane SSDs. Additionally, and as it relates to DirectStorage, we are of the considered opinion that the T700 is indeed the best-performing gaming SSD ever made with Optane included.
We rank SSDs in terms of overall user experience (performance where it matters most) as expressed by PCMark 10 storage and 3DMark gaming storage tests. We consider a user experience score of 14K or more to verify an SSD as a TweakTown Elite performer. If 14K is elite, how good is 20K?
As we alluded to with our T700 PREVIEW, this is the first time, at least as far as we can remember, that Crucial is the sole purveyor of the world's best performing flash-based consumer SSD. Crucial has done an amazing job with the T700, making it worthy of our highest award.