Final Thoughts
If you want speed this is the drive for you! This is the fastest M.2 solid state drive that we’ve ever tested! Previously it was the WD Black SN750, but the AORUS drive beats it out by over 1GB/s! If you were considering building a new Ryzen 3000 series system with an X570 motherboard this is definitely a good enough reason. As we mentioned in many situations time is money so the faster you can transfer a file etc the more money you are saving. I guess the downside is that currently the only platform to support this drive is AMD’s X570 chipset. It is however backwards compatible with PCI-Express 3.0 slot, but of course you’ll see decreased performance.
Gigabyte has outfitted this drive with a massive 70 gram all copper heatsink. This not only looks awesome, but it does keep temperatures in check. During our tests the drive did get noticeably hot, up to 67C, but did not throttle at all. We also tested the drive with one of the M.2 heatsinks on our X570 motherboard and the temperatures were very similar. It is nice that the heatsink does not come pre-installed, that way you have the option to install the heatsink or use one supplied with your motherboard.
Gigabyte does back this drive up with a 5-year warranty, but even more impressive is the massive endurance rating of 3600 TBW (terabytes written). Most drives give you 1200-1500 TBW, but the 3600 TBW should really give you peace of mind.
If there is anything bad I can say about this drive is that it did not come with a screwdriver. The screws for the heatsink are very small, you’ll likely need a screwdriver that comes with an eye glass repair kit to install them.
One thing you have to remember that this is the first generation of PCI-Express 4.0 drives. While the speed is quite impressive, it is still not the upper-limit of what PCI-Express 4.0 can offer. As PCI-Express 4.0 becomes more accessible you’ll see newer controllers and even faster speeds. For a first-generation product AORUS has really knocked it out of the park with this drive. Right now this is the fastest single drive on the mainstream platform! The 2TB version we reviewed today is selling at our favorite online retailer for $459.99, so you definitely are paying a premium for the faster speeds. Overall ThinkComputers gives the AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Fastest M.2 drive we’ve tested to date
– Massive heatsink included
– Endurance rating of 3600 TBW
– 5 year warranty
Cons:
– Need to be on the X570 platform with a Ryzen 3000 processor to take advantage of the speed
– No screwdriver included for the small screws
