Micron 4600 2TB SSD Review - The New Sheriff in Town

TweakTown's Rating: 100%

The Bottom Line

It's the New Sheriff in Town. Micron's 4600 2TB is the most efficient, best performing SSD we've ever encountered.

Pros

• Power efficiency
• User experience
• Gaming champion
• Single-sided PCB

Cons

• None

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Drive Details

Built on a 6nm process node, Silicon Motion's SM2508 PCIe Gen5 x4 controller is the most advanced of its kind currently in circulation. At the time of this writing, it is the only consumer PCIe Gen5 controller available that can deliver a full 14,000 MB/s throughput both when programming and serving data to the host - better known as writing/reading.

This unprecedented throughput is indeed impressive, but as impressive as that aspect of the controller is, even that is outshined by its unprecedented efficiency. Micron's newest OEM SSD, the Micron 4600, needs only 8 watts to deliver throughput exceeding that of its current 12-15-watt consuming PCIe Gen5 competition.

With its unprecedented efficiency, Micron's 4600 SSD runs an order of magnitude cooler than anything else in its class while at the same time delivering more performance than anything else in its class. Think of it - full PCIe Gen5 throughput without the need for massive thermal mitigation. Being single-sided and cool running, Micron's 4600 SSD is destined to go where no PCIe Gen5 SSD of its kind has dared to go before, including notebooks and SFF PCs.

Micron states that its 4600 client SSD enables outstanding performance and best-in-class user experience for high-speed gaming, the most demanding professional applications, and AI applications. Micron claims up to 107% better random read & write energy efficiency, a 38% better user experience, and up to double the throughput over its PCIe Gen4 predecessor, the Micron 3500. Impressive, considering we believe the 3500 to be the best in its class of PCIe Gen4 SSDs.

This new level of efficiency isn't just a byproduct of Silicon Motion's controller design; it is much more than that. The drive's onboard DRAM, made by Micron is also the most efficient of its kind as are the 3,600 MT Micron G9 flash packages that array the new performance champion. And making everything run in harmony is Micron's in-house custom firmware. Micron's newest is so powerful it can load 13 billion LLMs in less than 1-second. Mind-blowing.

And finally rounding out the package, Micron's 4600 SSD features MS DirectStorage support to accelerate gaming performance. This is becoming an important factor as there are now over 30 games that have DirectStorage technology baked in.

Best controller, best flash, best performance, low power and low heat - this is what Micron's 4600 SSD is bringing to the table for its OEM partners. Exactly what OEM system builders are looking for and the first time it's ever been delivered by a full-on 8-channel PCIe Gen5 SSD.

Now, let's see exactly what Micron's new flagship OEM client SSD can do by the numbers.

Drive Details

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If you find the need to manage your Micron OEM SSD, this can be done with Micron's Storage Executive Software. Firmware updates, secure erasing, health monitoring, and security features are as easy as a couple of clicks right from your desktop. Get it Here.

Jon's Test System Specifications

Intel Test System

AMD Test System

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 Intel Core Ultra 200 Series and 9000 Series AMD platforms going forward for the foreseeable future. Because Intel still delivers the best real-world storage performance, our running chart will continue to be Intel-based until AMD can deliver better real-world storage performance than its rival.

Please note that we have completely retested all the 50 SSDs that comprise our comparison products using our new Intel Ultra Core 9 285K test platform. Results going forward cannot be compared with our previous 14th Gen Intel results or previous AMD results, as we've updated there as well. We believe it is important to keep our platforms current in terms of the latest hardware and operating system versions. We have also updated our OS to Windows 11 Pro 24H2. Overall, the pecking order has remained the same, just at roughly 5% lower real-world performance than before.

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Sony PlayStation 5 - M.2 Storage Expansion

PS5 Read Performance

With Sony's wildly popular PlayStation 5 console now enabled for M.2 NVMe SSDs to be used as fast storage expansion, we are including results for PS5-compatible SSDs we test as a part of our reviews going forward.

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For SSDs that don't have an adequately sized PS5 compatible heatsink or other SSDs where the heatsink provided doesn't fit right and can be removed, we both use and recommend Sabrent's unparalleled PS5 heatsink available Here.

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We only chart SSDs that can deliver a minimum of 5,500 MB/s read, which is Sony's original recommendation.

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Fastest SSD for PC and PS5. How about that?

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, Max IOPS, ATTO

CrystalDiskMark

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We employ CDM as our standard measurement for both sequential throughput and Q1T1 random read. In terms of sequential read throughput, the drive is as fast as they come. In terms of sequential write throughput, we've not encountered anything like it before. 4K QD1 read throughput is also the highest we've encountered to date. Lab records fall. Impressive.

Max IOPS

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The Micron 4600 2TB SSD is factory spec'd for up to 2,100k random read IOPS and up to 2,100k random write IOPS. This is just about what we can attain despite our more demanding user state. Here, our contender again delivers more than almost all of the others in its class.

ATTO

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ATTO gives us a clear picture of what transfer sizes a particular SSD favors in terms of QD4 sequential throughput. We chart 128K transfers. At a queue depth of four, the Micron 4600 2TB favors sequential transfers of 1MB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128KB or larger when programming (writing) data.

Real-World Testing: Transfers, 3DMark SSD Gaming Test, PCM10 Storage

Transfer Rates

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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 is how many times a game is installed vs. how many times it's played. Here, our test subject comes in at a slightly lower rate than most of the E26-controlled SSDs that populate our chart. This can be attributed to its 50% lower power consumption.

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Unlike programming (writing) data, serving data to the host (reading) is typically an important performance metric as it relates to the consumer space. Here we find our test subject capable of delivering among the best we've recorded with our Z890 platform. Excellent.

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 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.

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Gaming is a performance metric that matters to most DIY consumers, especially for the enthusiast crowd that TweakTown caters to. Now, we've reached the point where results start to matter, as they are a direct reflection of user experience.

As this chart shows, Micron's 4600 2TB is at time of writing, the best gaming SSD on the planet, and it won't heat up the room while delivering the goods. Impressive.

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. These tests directly correlate with mainstream user experience.

PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark

This test writes 204GB of 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 such as 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.

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Again, we have a higher level of user experience delivered by Micron's PCIe Gen5 master of efficiency.

PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark

The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23 GB of data over the duration of the test.

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Of all the benchmarks we run, it can be argued that this one offers the best reflection of a typical consumer use case scenario. Again, our test subject delivers massively, recording the fourth-best score we've ever recorded with our Z890 platform. Outstanding.

Final Thoughts

As we see it, Micron's 4600 SSD 2TB has finally delivered everything we've wanted from a PCIe Gen5 SSD and nothing we don't want. It's truly in a class of its own. It's an elegant single-sided SSD which is again another first in its class feature. It outperforms everything in its class while running cooler by far than anything in its class. And to top it all off, it is so efficient it can deliver all this within OEM design constraints.

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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. Currently, we consider a user experience score of 15K or more to verify an SSD as a TweakTown Elite performer. With a user experience score of 21,873, Micron's first OEM client PCIe Gen5 SSD has become our new performance champion.

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There's a new sheriff in town, and its name is Micron 4600. Editor's Choice.