Corsair Neutron NX500 SSD on Newegg; Available in 400 GB and 800 GB

[Raevenlord]

Corsair has quietly added a new SSD to its portfolio which is currently available on Newegg. The new Neutron NX500 SSDs come in somewhat unusual 400 GB and 800 GB capacities, which likely means an overly increased over provisioning so as to ensure top endurance and performance. The Neutron NX500 SSDs come in the add-in NVMe card form factor, with a beefy heatsink to top it all up. That heatsink serves to cool not only the NAND chips, but also the Phison E7 controller that's lurking underneath.

Interestingly, and even though 3D TLC NAND is all the rage these days due to increased density on the same footprint, without bringing any serious, real-world problems related to endurance, as we've seen, the Neutron NX500 appears to pack MLC memory. Do you even remember that? That's part of the reason why performance is rated so high: there's 3,000 MB/s read, 2,400 MB/s writes, 300,000 IOPS in random read, and 270,000 IOPS on random write workloads. Though you will have to pay a pretty penny for this kind of performance: the 400 GB Corsair Neutron NX500 is currently retailing for $319.99, while the 800 GB version won't give you any benefits from the economy of scale: it retails for $699.99.



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[TheLostSwede]

Hang on, where are the RGB lights? This can't be a Corsair product...

 

[Chaitanya]

Atleast the heatsink is there for cooling the SSD rather than just for "aesthetic" purposes. Samsung 960 Evo seems to offer better value than these Corsair SSDs.

 

[Prima.Vera]

SSDs prices are going haywire....

 

[TheLostSwede]

SSDs prices are going haywire....

In all fairness, this is a "premium" product, so it would carry a matching price tag. It hardly the only premium SSD out there with a premium price tag.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

In all fairness, this is a "premium" product, so it would carry a matching price tag. It hardly the only premium SSD out there with a premium price tag.

There is premium and then there is PREMIUM.

 

[Ubersonic]

SSDs prices are going haywire....

Article lists the 400GB as $320, compare that to ~$400 for an Intel 750 and it looks like a good deal. It only looks expensive when you compare it to M.2 drives which being bare drives originally designed for laptops are much cheaper to produce.

 

[Hood]

Article lists the 400GB as $320, compare that to ~$400 for an Intel 750 and it looks like a good deal. It only looks expensive when you compare it to M.2 drives which being bare drives originally designed for laptops are much cheaper to produce.

This has faster sequential speeds than the Intel 750 (3000/2400 vs 2200/900, but slower random read iops (300,000/270,000 vs 430,000/230,000 for the Intel). I bought my Intel 750 in January 2016 for $299 during a rare sale at Newegg, but they are usually $399 ($450 now for the U.2 version?). The Corsair drive is the better option at this time, and should feel just as fast, but if both were $300, I'd still pick the Intel for it's proven reliability.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Does the Pci-E drives boot faster than M2 or SATA ones?

 

[Chaitanya]

Here is the review of the SSD, seems like Corsair has released it finally:

 

[TheLostSwede]

Does the Pci-E drives boot faster than M2 or SATA ones?

M.2 can be PCIe, so the answer is maybe. Yes, NVMe drives do boot slightly faster than SATA drives if they're faster than SATA drives, which they almost always are, but you're going to be saving yourself 5-10 seconds at the most.