With the Genuine G560, Klevv is releasing their first PCI-Express 5.0 M.2 NVMe SSD, and it's of the highest possible performance tier—14 GB/s. This is right up to the limit of the new Gen 5 interface. These speeds are only possible thanks to Micron 232-layer NAND chips running at 2400 MT/s. The first Gen 5 SSDs from other vendors started out with 10 GB/s and then 12 GB/s later—Klevv starts with the highest speed grade available. Unlike some other vendors, Klevv is bundling a heatsink with their drive, and it's preinstalled too, which keeps things simple, especially for novices who might be afraid of installing a heatsink themselves. Just like on all other Gen 5 SSDs in the market, the G560 uses the Phison E26 controller, paired with Micron TLC and Hynix DRAM—a battle-tested combination.

Synthetic performance results of the G560 are impressive, and as expected, sequential read and write is increased when compared to 12 GB/s class drives like the Corsair MP700 Pro. We did notice a small performance regression in sequential mixed. We can confirm that Klevv's "up to 14 GB/s" claim is accurate (for sequential writes at QD8 and higher). Marketing materials for Gen 5 all focus on blazing fast sequential transfers. The reason is that random IO performance is virtually identical to the results of PCIe Gen 4 drives, like the Phison E18-based Kingston KC3000.

Phison has a long history of optimizing their controllers for typical synthetic reviewer workloads on an empty drive. That's why it's important to also include real-life testing. We're even running those tests with the drives filled to 85% capacity, not empty. This approach puts additional pressure on the various algorithms and the SLC cache, just like in real-life. Here the Klevv Genuine G560 does excellently and comes out as the fastest SSD we've ever tested. Compared to Gen 4 SSDs, the performance uplift is around 5-10%, which is a repeat of what we've seen from the first Gen 4 drives, when compared to Gen 3 SSDs.

Klevv's drive comes with an SLC cache size of 30%, or 200 GB, which is enough to soak up nearly all bursts of write activity, and it has the benefit that sustained rates are much better. First-gen PCIe 5.0 SSDs had a bigger SLC cache of 600 GB, but got penalized when that cache was full, so they filled their whole capacity at an average of 1.5 GB/s, whereas Klevv's new SSD more than doubles that to 3.5 GB/s—very impressive.

The preinstalled heatsink of the G560 is definitely decent and competitive with similar aftermarket cooling solutions. If you hammer the drives with non-stop activity at full speed you will still get thermal throttling, which isn't totally unexpected. If you really need to completely avoid throttling you will have to opt for a fan-cooled solution, which is overkill for most scenarios—how much data do you actually expect to read/write at 10 GB/s sustained and for how long? Still, thermals are definitely the weakest point of Gen 5 SSDs, but consider the heat output of a stack of 100 (!) mechanical hard drives—that's how much faster the Klevv G560 is.

Our power consumption testing confirms that the Klevv G560 really uses a lot of power. We've measured up to 11.6 W, which is essentially 50% more than what we've seen on Phison's E18 Gen 4 controller. Hitting 11 W is quite rare though, you should rather plan with 5-6 W during typical loads, which is still a lot for an M.2 SSD. Of course, you're getting higher performance at the same time, but our numbers show that even when running at only 1 or 2 GB/s, the power consumption is still high. It seems that once the controller goes out of idle, it will always use 4 W at least, no matter how little actual work it does. What's important is that with PCIe ASPM power management enabled, the drive can reach its lowest power state with just 0.15 W, without ASPM it idles at a rather high 2.2 W. Just to clarify, this is not Klevv's fault—the problem is that Phison's E26 controller isn't very optimized for power usage.

The Klevv Genuine G560 2 TB is currently listed online for $295 (including the heatsink), a 4 TB variant is available for $540. Both these price points are a little bit higher than competing drives. All SSDs using the Phison E26 controller are identical, using the same hardware components, the only difference is the NAND speed rating and the maximum sequential transfer rates achievable. In the 14 GB/s space, such identical models are Crucial T705, Corsair MP700 Pro SE and MSI M580, so buy whatever is the most affordable, or consider the included heatsink options. If you can live with "only" 12 GB/s, then you could grab something like a Crucial T700 for $230. Still, even $200+ is A LOT of money for a 2 TB SSD. Gen 4 SSDs are much more affordable. An interesting option is the WD Black SN850X, which sells for $140, the Samsung 990 Pro for $180, or the Lexar NM790 4 TB for $160, all of which are considerably less expensive, yet offer very similar performance using a PCIe Gen 4 interface.