Corsair MP700 PRO XT 2TB SSD Review - World's Most Powerful

TweakTown Rating: 99%

Our Verdict

Corsair's MP700 PRO XT 2TB is the most powerful retail SSD money can buy.

Pros

• Throughput performance
• Real-world performance
• Single-sided design
• Cool running

Cons

• None

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Drive Details

As most storage enthusiasts know, the crown for the fastest and most powerful retail SSD currently worn by Sandisk's WD_BLACK SN8100 2TB. For about five and a half months now, nothing in the retail consumer space has even come close to challenging the SN8100 for performance supremacy.

That said, we did know there would soon be SSDs launched by Phison Partners that would indeed give the SN8100 a run for its money. We knew based on our E28 controller preview that Phison's 6nm based challenger could snatch the performance crown back for Phison if some minor tweaks could be made for retail versions.

Today, Phison Electronics, in conjunction with its partner Corsair, is putting the world on notice that its E28 controller is now powering retail SSDs that can indeed outperform the highest-performing SM2508-controlled SSDs and do so while being even more power-efficient. According to Phison's internal testing, its E28 SSD controller does indeed beat the SM2508 controller in power efficiency as demonstrated by these charts:

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We have no independent verification of these claims; however, we can get a decent feel for the accuracy of these claims by running our standard heat test of CDM Sequentials 9x3:

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A maximum of 52c with nothing but a motherboard heatsink and zero airflow is within the range we would expect to encounter from an 8-channel SSD running at 6-7 watts. Power efficiency looks great and indeed falls within what is needed to be considered laptop-friendly. Corsair's MP700 Pro XT 2TB generates no more heat than we would expect from a power-efficient PCIe Gen4 SSD. Outstanding.

Looking at Corsair's spec sheet and much to our surprise, Corsair is claiming that its newly minted MP700 PRO XT 2TB can deliver sequential write speeds of up to 14,500 MB/s, which is about 350 MB/s faster than we've ever seen before.

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Corsair did provide a screenshot of a CDM run verifying that it can indeed be accomplished under certain testing circumstances:

Further SSD Reading – Our Latest Reviews

• Corsair MP700 Micro 4TB SSD Review - Tiny but Huge
• Biwin Black Opal X570 2TB SSD Review - First 8-Channel DRAMless
• Biwin Black Opal NV7400 2TB SSD Review - Mainstream Value Champion

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The testing circumstances in this case happen to be while running on a W790 workstation platform. After seeing this, we wanted to see if we could get there using our own W790 platform:

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We did get close, but we couldn't quite get there; however, we did come very close to hitting 15 GB/s sequential reads, closer than ever before, in fact. Amazing. Okay, now let's dive in and see what the new world's most powerful flash-based retail SSD can do for you by the numbers.

Drive Details

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The drive we have in hand is Phison E28-controlled and Sandisk BiCS8 TLC arrayed. The drive is a preferred single-sided design. Like all Corsair SSDs, the MP700 PRO XT is supported by the free SSD Toolbox software, which enables convenient features such as secure erase, system migration, and firmware updates directly from your desktop. Get it HERE.

Jon's Test System Specifications

Intel Test System

AMD Test System

Please note: We employ an M.2 AIC for testing on our Intel Core Ultra 9 285K platform.

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Sony PlayStation 5 - M.2 Storage Expansion

PS5 Read Performance

With Sony's wildly popular PlayStation 5 console now supporting M.2 NVMe SSDs for fast storage expansion, we are including results for PS5-compatible SSDs we test in 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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Just as we've seen from Samsung's 9100 Pro, Corsair's fastest and most powerful SSD is not its fastest when employed for PS5 M.2 storage expansion. Performance here is acceptable if you just want to use it, and because it is so power efficient, it shouldn't present any thermal issues if using a PS5-compatible heatsink.

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, Max IOPS, ATTO

CrystalDiskMark

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We employ CDM as our standard measurement for both sequential throughput and 4K Q1T1 random read.

Looking at our Intel platform results, sequential read checks in as the fourth best we've achieved to date. Running on our AMD platform, we find our test subject exceeds Corsair's up to a sequential read performance quote of 14,900 MB/s. Impressive. Sequential write throughput comes in a bit lower than advertised, no matter the platform we use. However, it is still plenty good enough for our liking.

4K Q1T1 random read is looking great here as well. Our test subject delivers the second-best result we've ever attained from any flash-based SSD. This is a powerful synthetic indicator that its real-world performance will be something special.

Max IOPS

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Max 4K random performance for our E28 controlled preview SSD is stated as up to 2.7 million IOPS for random read. Random writes are specified at up to 3.3 million IOPS. Our Intel platform falls short on both quoted numbers, but we get there where it really matters (read) with our AMD platform.

Results here are plenty good enough for our liking, especially considering our far more demanding user state of OS disk vs. an empty secondary device. These results are new lab records across the board. 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, our 2TB Corsair SSD favors sequential transfers of 128KB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128KB or larger when programming (writing) data. Stunning small file performance, the likes of which we've only seen coming from this SSD and the SN8100. Impressive.

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. A new lab record for a retail SSD via our Intel platform.

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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. This is where transfer rates matter most, and we like what we see from our test subject. Another lab record for a retail SSD via our Intel platform. Outstanding.

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.

We consider a score of 8,000 here to be a milestone achievement, and our test subject delivers that and a lot more, dishing up the second-best we've ever recorded for a retail SSD.

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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Exactly like the previous test, we consider a score of 8,000 here to be a milestone achievement, and our test subject responds with yet another lab record for any flash-based SSD we've tested at any time ever. Incredible.

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. Yet another lab record for a flash-based retail SSD falls to Corsair's MP700 PRO XT 2TB. The most performance where it matters most. A score of 10K here is Optane P5800X territory. Stunning.

Final Thoughts

It's been a minute or two and may not last for very long, but Corsair is once again the purveyor of the world's most powerful retail SSD. The MP700 PRO XT 2TB is indeed something special, with its power efficiency to performance ratio being easily the best we've ever seen. The most powerful AND the most power efficient? That's the rarest of rare, and only something we've seen from this SSD and the SN8100 it just took down. Amazing.

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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 19K or more to verify an SSD as a TweakTown Elite performer. We no longer consider any flash-based PCIe Gen4 SSD to be a TT Elite performer. It's the new number 1, how impressive is that?

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Corsair's MP700 PRO XT 2TB is the best of its kind ever made. Editor's Choice.