The Lexar NM700 SSD is the first drive on our new SSD Test Bench with an AMD Ryzen processor, so we're finally able to test PCI-Express 4.0 drives. We also added several new tests and improved existing ones. For the real-life tests, the biggest change is that we're now filling all drives up to 80% used capacity to run them in a more realistic scenario that reduces the nearly empty performance-boosting effects of pseudo-SLC caching, especially on larger drives.

Lexar's NM700 uses a Marvell 88SS1092 eight-channel controller paired with TLC flash and 1 GB of DRAM. A few years ago, Marvell was been the gold standard for SSD controllers, just like SandForce in the years before that. In recent times, however, they've been eclipsed by Silicon Motion and Phison. It's the first time I'm reviewing a drive with the 88SS1092 controller, so I was definitely curious for the results.

When averaged over our new real-life performance test suite, we see the Lexar NM700 in the upper third of our test group. The fastest M.2 NVMe drives are up to 5% faster—not a whole lot. Compared to typical SATA drives, the performance uplift is around 20%, and the NM700 is 10% faster than entry-level M.2 NVMe disks. These results are very decent, but not high enough to justify the $170 price tag, more on that later. Our synthetic results actually paint a much less favorable picture for the NM700 than in real-life testing. One weak point is definitely the low random read rate at low queue depths. This is the most common scenario for typical consumer workloads, an important data point. Sequential throughput is "OK", but not that impressive either way. Still, the real-life data shows that the controller is working fine, and able to compete with other similarly positioned drives. What works very well, too, is the large pseudo SLC cache that will fill the whole drive in SLC mode first to then reorganize its data transparently in the background.

Thermals of the NM700 are very good, too. It seems the Marvell controller doesn't put out as much heat as its competitors. While the drive definitely got quite warm, I didn't encounter any thermal throttling—this could make the drive a good candidate for a notebook with no or limited airflow.

Priced at $170, the NM700 is quite expensive by today's standards. For example, the ADATA SX8200 Pro is a bit faster, yet costs only $130 for the 1 TB version. Another strong competitor is the Kingston KC2000, faster and cheaper at $155. If you are willing to accept slightly slower performance, you can easily find good M.2 NVMe SSDs for around $115. You might even be tempted to invest around $230, or $50 more, to double your capacity with a 2 TB drive. Lexar also offers the NM610, which is only slightly slower than the NM700, but much more affordable, just $103 for 1 TB—a very competitive price. If Lexar can bring the price of the NM700 down a bit, into the $120–$130 range, it would definitely become interesting to many system builders and upgraders.