Bigger, Faster, Cheaper The speed of SSDs continues to increase and with PCIe 4.0 around the corner, performance only seems to improve while prices continue to fall. That is a reason for many people to purchase a new drive in the next twelve months. Tweakers has examined no fewer than fifty SSDs from well-known manufacturers and newcomers. Although the vast majority still use PCIe 3.0, there are also plenty of PCIe 4.0 copies among them.

The reviewers, whom we still know well, have especially designed the PCIe 4.0- drives developed a new test method and also built new test systems based on an AMD CPU.

At the AS SSD Benchmark it is the Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB drive that gets the most points from the total score (8413) closely followed by the 980 Pro 500 GB with 8065 points. Patriot has a good third place with 7846 points with the VP 4100 1 TB to conquer. The 2 TB variant gets 7719 points. Right behind it is Silicon Power with the 1TB large US 70 which gets 7707 points. It’s plain to see that the PCIe 4.0 drives have raised the bar quite a bit. These drives reach 4.2 GB / s while reading and 4.1 GB / s while writing. The PCIe 3.0 drives do not exceed 3.1 GB / s in reading and 3 GB / s in writing.

At the Atto Disk Benchmark it is the Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 AIC-ssd 8 TB that takes the cup. This pcie 4.0 expansion card (which consists of four 2TB SSDs) achieves read speeds of up to 9.6 GB / s and write speeds of 10 GB / s with peaks to even 12, 8 GB / s. In second place is the Samsung 980 Pro 500 GB with 6270 MB / s followed by the 250 MB / s Instance (6030 MB / s) and the 1 TB model (5970). Patriot’s drives (VP ​​4100 1 and 2 TB) and Silicon Power (US 70) find out with a read speed of 5250 MB / s.

In the PCMark 10 – benchmark it is again Samsung that always ends at the top. The 980 Pro 1TB and 500 GB drives respectively reach 442 and 407 MB / s of bandwidth and Kingston ranks third with 402 MB / s . The Gigabyte Aorus is with 395 MB / s on the fourth spot.

Among the trace benchmarks, it is the Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 AIC 8TB that scores well above the rest with a throughput rate of 2641, 89 MB / s. Second place is for Kingston with the KC 2500 1TB drive and 1286, 21 MB / s. The Seagate FireCuda finished in third place with 1277, 92 MB / s. The Samsung 980 Pro 1TB gets 1277, 92 MB / s and is in fourth place. This is incidentally in the light desktop workload test. The list looks at the gaming workload and heavy workload very different. Then it is again Samsung who finishes at the top with all three 980 Pro drives.

In the consistency test, it is the Aorus Gen4 that stands head and shoulders above the rest. With 714, 31 MB / s, this drive is almost twice as fast as the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB, which with 381, 37 MB / s in second place. Also third and fourth place are again for Samsung with 332, 32 MB / s for the 500 GB version and 294, 42 MB / s for the 970 EVO Plus 2TB.

The list looks very different when looked at to power consumption. The Patriot VPN 100 1TB is with 2.9 watts most economical, followed by WD Blue SN 550 500 GB with 3 watts and the WD Blue SN 550 1 TB that gets 3.3 watts. Here it falls on the controller in the PCIe 4.0 drives is not exactly economical. That is why these end up a lot lower in the list.

Looking at the Performance index we see the usual suspects reappear at the top of the lists. The Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 AIC 8 TB is with 846 points at number 1 and the Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB is in second place with a score of 710 dots followed by the 500 GB version with 689 points.

Tweakers therefore concludes that the new PCIe 4.0 ssd’s are slowly showing added value compared to the PCIe 3.0 models. Still, Kingston and Kioxia show that PCIe 3.0 drives can still make it to the top. The best PCIe 3.0 models are now the new mid-range drives.

The testers further point out that 250 GB models are no longer worth buying and users should have a better look at a 500 GB model. You get a lot more in return.

Although Samsung and Gigabyte come out on top in almost every test, many users mainly look at the price / performance ratio. In that respect, it is the A 2000 drives from Kingston that are identified as the winner by Tweakers. The Kioxia Exceria 500 GB also scores well and is only ten euros more expensive. That is why these SSDs also receive the Great Value award.

If it really concerns you purely for performance, Samsung is lord and master. The 500 GB and 1TB 980 PRO drives both receive the Ultimate award. The third Ultimate award goes to the 2TB major Patriot VP 4100, as Samsung does not have a 2TB unit.

The Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 AIC SSD 8TB receives the Innovation award. This drive is not for everyone due to its price and form factor, but it performs very well.

Read the full round-up: Fifty NVMe SSDs Round-up

The full list of SSD specifications and performance can be found here.