Crucial’s fastest SSD comes at a price, and it’s high

2023-05-03 19:12:38

Recently, we told you about the Crucial T700, the brand’s first PCI-Express 5.0 SSD. And the prices – for pre-order – have just fallen: €197 for the 1 TB version (229 € with a heatsink), 370 and 404 € for 2 TB and 655/687 € for 4 TB.

It’s fast, but expensive.

The fastest SSD… but not for Macs

As we explained, the Crucial T700 uses the recent PCI-Express 5.0 standard, whose compatibility is currently quite low. If you have a Mac, you won’t be able to get the substance out of this model: whether with an M.2 adapter in Macs equipped with a removable SSD or in the Mac Pro 2019 with a PCI-Express to M. .2, you will be limited to PCI-Express 3.0, a standard that does not allow you to exceed approximately 3.5 GB/s. In an external box in Thunderbolt 3 or 4, the observation is the same: the practical limit is around 2.8 GB / s for PCI-Express devices, because of the encapsulation. We are therefore quite far from the 12 GB / s announced by Crucial.

Crucial PCIe 5.0 SSD tested: fastest, but not for Macs

Even in PCs, it’s complicated

In PCs, AMD platforms must be differentiated from those of Intel. If you have a Ryzen 7000 (AM5) and a high-end motherboard, you should have a PCI-Express 5.0 compatible M.2 slot, which allows you to take advantage of the SSD. Please note that the presence of a compatible M.2 connector is not systematic: some motherboards are limited to PCI-Express 4.0, capable of reaching around 7 GB/s.

At Intel, the 12th and 13th generation Cores support PCI-Express 5.0 only on the processor-related lines. To take advantage of the 12 GB/s, it will therefore probably be necessary to move the graphics card into a 16x PCI-Express 4.0 connector – if the motherboard has one – and go through a PCI-Express card with an M.2 slot. . Please note that not all of them support PCI-Express 5.0.

The P3 Plus offers a much better capacity/price ratio.

Finally, note that the switch to Thunderbolt 5 will still not allow you to take advantage of it: this future version will be content with four PCI-Express 4.0 lines, which allow a speed of around 7 GB/s in practice.

Finally, this Crucial T700 makes you pay (very) dearly for its performance: by remaining in the same brand, the Crucial P5 Plus (PCI-Express 4.0) is for 85 € en version 1 To and €150 in the 2 TB version. And if you need a 4 TB SSD, the Crucial P3 Plus — admittedly significantly slower than the T700 — worth 268 €barely more than the 1TB T700.

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