Final Thoughts
I’ve been wanting to get my hands on the Patriot Viper VPR100 since we first saw it at CES 2019! As I mentioned in the introduction of this review we really don’t have that many options of showing off our M.2 drives. I mean sure, some heatsinks can look pretty cool, but RGB just takes things to another level. While we’ve seen a few RGB M.2 drives I think that Patriot really executed the VRP100 quite well. First the RGB itself is not in your face, it is more subtle, which I happen to prefer. Secondly, you have full control of the RGB lighting via software, you can use the Viper software or your motherboard’s RGB software.
Besides the RGB lighting, which is a big selling of the drive, under the hood you have the Phison E12 controller and Toshiba 3D TLC NAND to give you sequential speeds of 3300 MB/s read and 2900 MB/s write. In our testing the drive performed pretty close to those numbers, making it one very fast Gen3 drive. Now you do have to take into account that the drive will take a performance hit when you have RGB effects activated. We noticed this mostly when using our motherboard’s RGB software. So if you plan to use this drive with your motherboard’s RGB software expect both read and write performance to take a decent hit.
Right now you can pick up the 1TB version of the Viper VPR100 at our favorite online retailer for $179.99. Now if RGB is not your thing Patriot does have the Viper VPN100, which lacks RGB lighting and can be had for a little cheaper. Patriot also backs the drive up with a 5-year warranty. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Patriot Viper VPR100 RGB Solid State Drive a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Awesome RGB lighting
– Software control of the RGB’s
– Great overall performance
– 5-year warranty
Cons:
– Performance takes a hit when using your motherboard RGB software
