Corsair goes big, and Intel revamps
its NAND
Corsair neutron GTX 480GB
When we last paid a visit to the Corsair
Neutron GTX in the December 2012 issue, we declared it one wicked-fast SSO, but
it was unfortunately nicked at the finish line by the Samsung 840 Pro. Corsair
isn’t too worried about that, though, and seems to have adopted an “onward and
upward” mentality, which we see manifested in the capacious 480GB variant of
the GTX that landed on our test bed this month. Like its smaller capacity
brethren, it’s sporting a brand-spankin’ new Link A Media controller (LAMOI exclusive
to Corsair at this time and it’s wedded to Toshiba 24nm toggle-NAND. Running
the show is an ARM microcontroller that pumps data through a SATA 6Gb/s
connection. The Neutron GTX is also a slim 7mm jobbies, so it’ll fit in even
the most anorexic UItrabooks. Desktop jockeys are also given consideration via
the included 3.5-inch bay adapter.
The
Neutron GTX is also a slim 7mm jobbies, so it’ll fit in even the most anorexic
UItrabooks.
Though it’s natural to focus on the specs
of a drive like this, it’s worth pointing out that this thing is built to Last
with a mean time between failure rating of 2 million hours, the Longest rating
you’ll ever see for an SSD. Corsair also backs it up with a five-year warranty,
which is an industry topper.
In testing, the GTX tore up our benchmark
charts in heavily queued workloads, dominating even its old foe the Samsung 840
Pro. This dominance was seen in the lometer test, where we queue up 32 4KB
write requests and hammer the drive mercilessly, as well as in the AS SSO 4KB
incompressible data test where the GTX even outpaced the Samsung 840 Pro by a
hair iri write speeds.
Corsair
also backs it up with a five-year warranty, which is an industry - topper.
The Neutron GTX also performed extremely
well in compressible 64KB sequential read and write tests, throwing down a
sequential read speed of 491MB/s and write speed of 391MB/s. placing it just
slightly behind the Samsung drive in read speeds but a bit further behind in
write speeds. In CrystalDiskMark the Neutron GTX also fell slightly below its
500MB claimed speeds, at 436MB/s and 473MB/s. making this the drive’s worst
showing in our benchmark suite. Admittedly. Nobody would argue that 400MB/s
speeds are slow, but when compared to its competition, the drive is slightly
off the mark here.
Finally, we come to our PCMark Vantage
“real-world” test, where the Neutron took our number one spot by a decisive
margin, its score almost double that of some older drives Like the Crucial M4
and OCZ Vertex 4.
When we previously reviewed the 240GB
version of this drive, we awarded it a 9 verdict, and that ruling stands. The
drive is amazingly fast in a Lot of tests, but not all. It’s certainly the
fastest drive we’ve ever tested at this capacity, though, so as we begin to
transition to 512GB, the Neutron GTX will no doubt be a serious contender.
Intel 335 Series SSD 240GB
The last time we heard from Intel’s SDD
department, it was throwing around its performance-oriented 520 Series SSD that
rocked a SandForce controller and custom Intel firmware with 25nm NAND (Lash.
That drive earned a 9 verdict from us (April 20121 but no Kick Ass award, as
its performance was about equal to its peers’ but not better. The crux of that
drive was SandForce performance with Intel reliability, and though that’s a
potent combo, it’s one that came in the form of a higher price tag. With
Intel’s new budget-oriented 335 Series SSO, that tax is gone, as this drive is
priced right below $200, the current sweet spot for 240/256GB SSOs. It still
has the same SandForce SF-2281 controller and the same Intel reliability, but
includes new smaller-die 2Onm MLC NAND flash. The smaller flash marks the
industry’s foray into the 2Onm era, and Intel is the first manufacturer to take
us there.
Intel
335 Series SSD 240GB
We know it’s hard to get excited about a
smaller manufacturing process for NAND flash; the benefits are reduced power
consumption, higher capacities, and lower prices at some point in the future,
but it doesn’t bring an automatic performance gain, so keep your hopes in
check. Smaller flash aside, the SSO uses a familiar metallic 2.5-inch chassis,
and it stands at 9.5mm, making it too Tait for Ultrabooks. It’s running on a
SATA 6Gb/s interface and comes with a three-year warranty, which is typical for
drives in this price range.
In testing, we found the 335 Series drive
to be an above-average performer, but sadly, there’s no improvement what so
ever from the previous generation of drives. If anything, we saw a decrease in
performance in certain tests compared to the Intel 520 drive, which isn’t an
apples to-apples comparison, as that drive is more tuned for performance than
the 335 series. Sadly, we never received an older 330 drive (which this drive
is based upon) for comparison’s sake.
Starting with sustained read and write
speeds, we saw the Intel 335 hitting 462MB/sand 324MB/s. respectively, giving
it mid-pack status. In our compressible data test it rocked the hizzy, though,
racking up impressive 507MB/s read and 413MB/s write speeds that were only out-
paced by the mighty Samsung 840 Pro an impressive feat indeed. When dealing
with incompressible data such as JPEGs and video, the 335 drive equaled the
performance of the Intel 520 Series drive in read speeds, and placed shoulder
to shoulder with the Corsair GTX and Sam- sung 840 Pro.
Intel
335 Series 240GB SSD
In our 4K random-write test with 32
commands queued up, the Intel 335 again placed welt among other drives in its
class, with 57,412 lOPS, but that score is no match for its older sibling Intel
520, which hit 81,624 lOPS in the same test. In our real world PCMark Vantage
test, the 335 again scored about mid-pack, but below the Intel 520 Series drive
by a considerable margin. We also noted an anomaly where the drive’s lifespan
decreased faster than expected, dropping down to 93 percent after just a few
terabytes had been written to it. Intel claims this is a bug in the reporting
software, and a firmware update will resolve the issue.
Overall, the Intel 335 series is a
reasonably fast drive that matched the Intel 520 in some tests but was slower
in others, making it a mixed bag. It’s priced much lower than what we’re used
to seeing from Intel. However, which is a step in the right direction but
ultimately not enough to move the needle too much on our verdict chart. We’re
not hating on this drive, but suffice to say we’re more excited about Intels
next drive, which will hopefully use a new iteration of its SandForce
controller.
