Crucial P510 1TB SSD Review - First 11,000 MB/s DRAMless SSD

TweakTown Rating: 97%

Our Verdict

Crucial's P510 1TB SSD is the best choice for DRAMless gaming storage and it's certified TweakTown Elite.

Pros

• Sequential throughput performance
• Single-sided design
• Gaming performance
• Certified TT Elite

Cons

• None

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Drive Details

Crucial's P510 Series is one that we've been eagerly anticipating. Crucial's newest is the first SSD of its kind to pair Phison's super-efficient, top of the food chain 4-channel DRAMless E31T SSD controller with Micron's 3,600 MT G9 flash. As we anticipated, from the moment we caught wind of the P510, the P510 is indeed the fastest DRAMless SSD we've encountered to date.

Crucial is touting its newest offering as follows: "The Crucial P510 offers blazing-fast Gen5 read/write speeds of 11,000/9,500MB/s1, reducing load times while enhancing overall system responsiveness. Built for both laptops and desktops with an easy to install single-sided design and power-efficient architecture, the P510 offers lower energy consumption for longer battery life. Backed by Micron's 45-year reputation for quality and reliability, the Crucial P510 delivers top-tier performance that can boost everything from your workflow to your next game."

This is an accurate description of some of the benefits the P510 1TB has to offer, but after testing it, we can attest to a few that are missing. Its gaming performance as measured by both 3D Mark Storage testing and PlayStation 5 sequential throughput are exceptional as well. As for PC gaming, the P510 1TB takes top honors as the best DRAMless SSD for gaming. As it relates to PS5 sequential throughput, the P510 1TB delivers fourth best all-time for any SSD we've tested. Impressive.

As we see it, Crucial's P510 1TB offers the perfect balance of efficiency, elite performance and price, making it an ideal choice for anyone looking to expand their storage capacity. Okay, now let's dive in and see what Crucial's P510 1TB SSD can do for you by the numbers.

Drive Details

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As it is with most Crucial products, Crucial offers for free its excellent toolbox software - Crucial Storage Executive as well as Acronis True Image for Crucial for drive cloning, backup and imaging.

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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As our chart demonstrates, Crucial's P510 1TB delivers as good as it gets. Impressive.

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 throughput, the drive's factory spec'd up to sequential throughput is given at up to 11,000/9,500 MB/s, which is more or less what we are getting between our Intel and AMD platforms. Our Intel platform is returning exceptional 4K Q1T1 random read performance, giving us a strong synthetic indication that its real-world performance should be excellent.

Max IOPS

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Max 4K random read performance for the P510 1TB SSD is factory specified for up to 1.5 million IOPS and that's exactly what we are getting from both of our test platforms. 4K random write is also factory spec'd at up to 1,500K IOPS and here we are seeing significantly more from both platforms. Impressive.

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 P510 1TB favors sequential transfers of 256KB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128KB or larger when programming (writing) data. Again, this is best-in-class performance.

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 such, we do not consider it to be an important performance metric in the consumer space. An example being how many times a game is installed vs. how many times it's played.

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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. Again, exceptional performance where it matters.

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.

Stunning performance here where it matters most to most of you. Crucial's P510 1TB delivers even more than the 2TB MP700 Elite, making it the best-performing flash-based DRAMless SSD for gaming we've ever encountered.

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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In this testing scenario, capacity can make a big difference, which is in our opinion why the P510 1TB is the second highest performing DRAMless SSD we've encountered when running against UL's PCMark 10 Full System Drive benchmark. Nevertheless, it's a remarkable score for a DRAMless SSD, and again where performance really matters.

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. In this testing scenario, capacity can make a big difference, which is in our opinion why the P510 1TB is ranking fourth best all-time for a flash-based DRAMless SSD. Nevertheless, it is indeed the best we've achieved with any 1TB flash-based DRAMless SSD. Excellent.

Final Thoughts

At a whopping 11,100 MB/s throughput, Crucial's P510 1TB is the fastest DRAMless SSD we've encountered. More importantly though, it's currently the best gaming choice for DRAMless storage expansion. This applies both for PC and PS5 storage expansion. Its physical attributes also make it highly desirable being a single-sided SSD. It can fit more places than common double-sided designs. And finally, because it is a 4-channel controlled DRAMless SSD, it is inherently cool running and power efficient.

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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. The Crucial P510 1TB is certified 15K TweakTown Elite. Impressive.

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It's elite performing, a gaming masterpiece and it's among the best bargains going, making it a Must Have Editors Choice award winner.