Crucial T700 2TB PCIe Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSD Review

SPECworkstation 3.0.2 Storage Benchmark

SPECworkstation benchmark is an excellent benchmark to test systems using workstation-type workloads. In this test, we only ran the Storage component, which is fifteen separate tests.

SPECworkstation is the only test where the Gen 5 drives have yet to make a significant impact compared to their Gen 4 predecessors, and that trend continues today. While the T700 manages to eke out a win in both Energy and General Operations, it is only by a tiny sliver and the other three sub-tests show the T700 trailing Gen 4 drives. The T700 still performs fine here, but if you’re looking for a truly dominant Gen 5 showing then the T700 is not it.

Sustained Write Performance

This is not necessarily a benchmark so much as trying to catch the post-cache write speed of the drive. While I am filling the drive with data to the 85% mark with ten simultaneous write threads, I monitor the drive for the write performance to dip to the lowest steady point and grab a screenshot.

The most interesting part of this test for me is how different the FireCuda 540, T700, and TD510 results are, given that all three drives are made up of such similar components. The FireCuda 540 essentially broke my test and its result should really read “3000+”, while the T700 and TD510 both turn in much more modest results. Taken in isolation, 1750 MB/s is absolutely just fine.

Temperatures

We monitored the idle and maximum temperature during testing with HWMonitor to get some idea of the thermal performance and requirements of the drive.

As noted before, the T700 says it requires a heatsink; I tested it briefly without a heatsink to validate that requirement.

Well, Crucial was not lying; this drive definitely needs a heatsink. All of my actual performance testing was done with both my motherboard heatsink applied and with active airflow to prevent thermal throttling, and anyone purchasing this drive needs to follow Crucial’s system requirements and provide a heatsink or just buy the heatsink-included variant.

Final Words

The Crucial T700 2TB is currently $300 or $315 with a heatsink. which represents a small price premium over the Inland TD510 which is $250 and the FireCuda 540 at $330. If maximum read performance is your goal, the T700 is the fastest drive I have seen so far and comes in at a slight discount compared to the FireCuda, though the TD510 remains a competent budget alternative. If write performance is your goal, the FireCuda 540 or TD510 may be better options.

The T700 is the fastest drive I have tested so far for sequential throughput. If that is what you want, then look no further. With that said, we have not yet hit the limits of Gen5 drives, and at some point, we should begin to see second-generation controllers hit the market. I expect drives will push all the way up to the interface limit of 14GB/s for an x4 Gen 5 drive. Until then, I suspect the T700 will reign as the sequential throughput king, with a small performance asterisk when it comes to highly random write performance. All told, this is a good drive and if Gen 5 is your target, it is one to consider.

Where to Buy

You can find these units on Amazon. Here is an Amazon affiliate link:

• Crucial T700 2TB without heatsink
• Crucial T700 2TB with heatsink