I became a hardware writer because I love getting to grips with the latest, shiniest tech—covering all of the big business, inside baseball slap fighting is just a bonus. But the latest big tech palava aside, I've been pining after a PCIe 5.0 SSD since they first became available. As with any hot hardware, pricing is often what stands between me and the bleeding-edge rig of my dreams.
The Crucial T710 is just such a PCIe 5.0 drive that's caught my eye. For a start, it's so new that our review of it is still in the works. So, that's a big tick in the 'shiny' box from me. For another, this otherwise pricey PCIe 5.0 drive with an MSRP of nearly $200 for 1 TB is currently enjoying a deep discount down to $155 at Amazon.
Alright, I'll level with you—while that does make this offering from Crucial currently cheaper than the 1 TB version of the also PCIe 5.0 WD Black SN8100, that's still a lot of cash for the capacity. It really only makes sense if you, say, pick this up as your primary boot drive with a few games loaded up too, and then also have a budget that would allow for you to pick up a secondary, slower 4.0 SSD to run the rest of your Steam library.
Perhaps that's asking a lot—though I feel like I would at least hear out the Crucial T710 if it were to make such demands of me. I've a few reasons for this, but let's start with the most obvious. Crucial is a sub-brand of Micron, so this drive's Micron 276-layer 3D TLC flash memory may enjoy something of a homefield advantage.
Alongside this Micron flash memory, the Crucial T710 also uses the Silicon Motion SM2508 memory controller—that's the same one-two punch as the recently reviewed Acer Predator GM9000 and the Biwin Black Opal X570 Pro. However, the Crucial T710 enjoys a not-so-secret weapon that makes it a touch nippier.
It's not every day I see an NVMe drive with 2 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, but it helps with sustained write speeds. That means the Crucial T710 will be able to hit its sequential limit of 13,800 MB/s for longer than Gen5 SSDs without a DRAM cache. Read speeds do not disappoint either, reaching up to 14,900 MB/s, hence why I initially pitched this as a boot drive primarily.
Otherwise, you wouldn't be off-base for thinking the best PCIe 5.0 SSD prices have a way to drop before you can really justify the upgrade. Still, a $155 price tag is compelling evidence for a downward trend, meaning they might be worth buying if you're on a budget sooner than you think.
1. Best overall:
WD_Black SN7100
2. Best budget:
Biwin Black Opal NV7400
3. Best PCIe 5.0:
WD_Black SN8100
4. Best budget PCIe 5.0:
Crucial P510
5. Best 4 TB:
TeamGroup MP44
6. Best 8 TB:
WD_Black SN850X
7. Best M.2 2230:
Lexar Play 2230
8. Best for PS5:
Silicon Power XS70
9. Best SATA:
Crucial MX500
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