PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 NVMe Gen4 SSD Review

There's no shortage of ultra-fast storage these days, but that doesn't mean to say there isn't room for even more of it! The new PNY drives have landed, and as part of their high-end gaming range, XLR8, the new PNY XLR8 CS3140 promises some pretty impressive performance figures. Utilising the latest PCIe Gen 4 technology, you'll need a compatible motherboard and CPU to take full advantage of what it has to offer. However, with read speeds of up to 7500 MB/s and write speeds of up to 5650 MB/s and that's 6850 MB/s on the 2 TB model, it is certainly worth the investment, as this is promising to be one of the fastest consumer M.2 drives on the market today. PNY XLR8 CS3140 For next-gen consoles, your laptop, or your desktop PC, the PNY XLR8 CS3140 promises to be a god-like upgrade for many things. Since it's the most common M.2 2280 form factor, it should be broadly compatible with most things too. However, keep in mind that PNY sells this drive on its own, with an SSD cover that would fit the PS5 (this is the version I have) and with a chunky heatsink, so be sure you pick the right version to suit your needs. Features Available in 1TB, 2TB & 4TBSequential read speed of up to 7500 MB/s and write speed of up to 5650 MB/sNVMe 1.4 TechnologyM.2 2280 Form FactorPCIe Gen4 x43D Flash Memory2,000,000 Hours MTBF5 Years Warranty What PNY Had to Say "The CS3140 M.2 NVMe Gen4 x4 Solid State Drive is the ideal solution for PC enthusiasts, gamers, and video rendering professionals to upgrade to the latest in NVMe technology. The NVMe Gen4 x4 interface delivers exceptional performance of up to 7,500MB/s seq. read and 5,650MB/s seq. write speeds. It is designed to be an ultra high performance SSD to deliver the performance you demand for your laptop or desktop system. Boot up in seconds, enjoy lightning fast application launches, and incredible system performance. The PNY XLR8 CS3140 is highly durable, less likely to fail, and features a 5 year warranty.The PNY XLR8 CS3140 is engineered with the same level of quality and durability that our customers have enjoyed for over 35 years. We've taken the world's most advanced NAND flash and refined the CS3140 to achieve a higher threshold for endurance and reliability. PNY's extensive testing and rigorous validation process ensures compatibility across various platforms and multiple operating systems." - PNY Packaging & Accessories The box is classic PNY XLR8 with that old-school PC gaming trope of black and red. You can see the M.2 drive, the PS5 compatible heatsink and all the main features detailed on the front of the box too, which is always a good sign. Around the back, it gets nice and technical. All the specifications, dimensions, and even the weight are well detailed. There's even a list of all the components in the box. In the box, you'll find the SSD cover with an integrated heatsink, an M3 screw, a thermal pad, and the SSD itself. A Closer Look By their nature, M.2 drives look largely the same, and this drive is of little exception here. The 2280 form factor is pretty much the common size now, and I can't recall the last time I saw any other sizes. It comes with a nice XLR8 sticker on the top that keeps things looking neat and tidy, and it's ready to drop into your PC, laptop or console as it is. The drive users the latest Micron 96-layer 3D TLC NAND, which is a large part of why it can hit those massive read and write speeds. 7,500MB/s seq. read and 5650 MB/s seq. write is extremely swift and I'm eager to put it on the test bench to see how close I can really get. The controller is the Phison E18 PS5016-E18-41, which uses the latest NVMe Version 1.4 interface. It also leverages a Penta-core 8 channel design. There's also an SK Hynix DDR4 DRAM Cache. While the drive uses the PCIe 4.0 x4 design, it is backwards compatible with PCIe 3 slots, but of course, you'll be severely limited in read/write speeds by that interface. While the drive looks good on its own, this version comes with this gorgeous XLR8 Gaming SSD Cover. While you can absolutely use this M.2 cover as a heatsink in your PC or any other device that has room for it, it's designed to fit into the PlayStation 5 also, ensuring you can get the best performance possible when upgrading your console. Preparation The drive will be formatted as NTFS with default settings, as most users will do. The quick format option isn’t used as that might affect the performance the first time data is written. Modern operating systems all take care of the TRIM command in the background and it isn’t something to worry about for regular users. However, for these reviews, I will add a waiting period between each benchmark to make sure that the TRIM command has been fully executed and finished. After all, we want a clear picture of the drive’s performance with minimal interference from the operating system. Data We will start with a typical benchmark analysis of the formatted drive with various fillage scenarios. However, depending on how a drive is built, the performance may differ depending on how much data it is already storing. The drive will be tested empty and at 25%, 50%, and 75% space usage for this area. We're using Anvil’s Storage Utilities, AS SSD Benchmark, and CrystalDiskMark for this part of the review. Application and Gaming Besides the synthetic fill tests, the drive is tested with PCMark 10’s storage benchmark to get real-world performance results for various gaming and application usages. Drive Conditioning Durability is a vital factor in NAND-based drives as the chips can only be rewritten so often before they’ll stop working properly. Modern SSDs come with wear-level algorithms to increase the lifetime and reduce this factor as much as possible. Where appropriate, we will test this using Anvil’s Storage Utilities. Following this conditioning process, all of the previous benchmarks will be run again in the same scenarios and the same order. Hardware ASRock X570 ProMAMD 3700XGeForce RTX 2080Crucial Sport 4 x 8GB 3200MHz DDR4be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 (1200W)Noctua NH-U15S Software Anvil's Storage UtilitiesAS SSD BenchmarkATTO BenchmarkCrystalDiskMarkPCMark 10 Storage BenchmarkWindows 11 64 bit Anvil's Storage Benchmark Anvil’s Storage Utilities is a complete benchmark solution used to test any writeable storage drive. AS SSD Storage Benchmark The AS SSD software determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains five synthetic and three practice tests. The synthetic tests determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD, and they aren’t using the operating system cache. The copy tests are cached and as such not viable results at this time. ATTO Disk Benchmark The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customise your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small HDD and SSD benchmark utility that allows you to measure a drive’s sequential and random performance. All results are MB/s, and higher is better. How Much Does it Cost? The PNY XLR8 CS3140 M.2 NVMe Gen4 SSD is available now, but being a high-end item, you're only likely to find it at the biggest retailers. The faster 2TB is currently on Amazon for £299.99, which the model I reviewed is just £175. However, that's the version without the heatsink, the additional heatsink versions are around £20-30 more should you need them, otherwise, you're better to save yourself the cash if your motherboard has a built-in M.2 cooling system that you would prefer. Overview Make no mistake, this is a seriously fast drive, and if you have a need, a need for speed, this is your answer. There are competitive drives out there though, and for around the same price, all the big-name brands have something that can pretty much go head-to-head with it give or take a little. However, this drive does have some very impressive read and write performance figures that put it ahead of many rivals. To get the most out of this drive, you're going to want a system that's already pretty fast. You'll need a recent motherboard with PCIe Gen 4 support, you'll need to ensure your CPU is compatible to deliver on those features, and generally, the drive will perform better in systems that are equipped with other high-end components in general. Of course, it'll also work in the PlayStation 5, but in fairness, that system is no slouch in its own right. This drive will allow you to run PS5 games natively from it too, and you may even find it runs a little fastest than the internal storage too. The PNY XLR8 CS3140 really is the sum of its parts. It's got a good quality controller, the Phison E18, a large DRAM DDR4 cache from SK Hynix, and high-performance Micron 96-layer 3D TLC NAND. 7,500MB/s seq. read and 5650 MB/s seq. write was promised and it certainly didn't disappoint in that regard, so you may want to learn to read faster, as those loading screen tips will be gone in a flash. Should I Buy One? Tired of slow storage or simply have a craving for more ultra-fast storage? Then the PNY XLR8 CS3140 is one of the best drives on the market today. It's the perfect addition for the PlayStation 5 or any high-end PC. Sure, it's not cheap, but if you want the latest and greatest storage technologies and class-leading performance, you have to pay up for it.