Dethroning the 990 Pro as the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD

Although PCIe 5.0 SSDs are just now coming onto the scene, PCIe 4.0 drives are still very much relevant and will continue to be some of the best SSDs for at least a year. Among PCIe 4.0 SSDs, Samsung’s 990 Pro has reigned as the fastest SSD (or at least tied as the top with WD’s SN850X), and I was pretty confident that it would remain that way forever when I reviewed it back in April.

However, Corsair’s MP600 Pro NH, which launched late last year with very little fanfare, seems to be the true champion, beating out the 990 Pro by just a hair in my testing. The MP600 Pro NH is the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD you can buy, though its high power consumption and the resulting heat mean you’ll definitely need a heatsink.

About this review: Corsair sent us the MP600 Pro NH 2TB for the purposes of this review and did not see its contents before publishing.

Source: Corsair

Corsair MP600 Pro NH

The fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD

$65 $105 Save $40

Corsair’s MP600 Pro NH is the company’s flagship PCIe 4.0 SSD, and is one of the fastest (if not the fastest) PCIe 4.0 drives you can buy. It comes in several different sizes: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB.

Storage capacity

500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB

Hardware Interface

PCIe Gen 4 x4

Transfer rate

7,000/5,700MB/s read/write

TBW

700

MTBF

1,600,000 Hours

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Pros

• Fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD yet (and maybe ever)
• Relatively cheap
• Several options for capacity

Cons

• Gets very hot under load
• No included heatsink, and Corsair doesn’t make it clear you need one

Corsair MP600 Pro NH pricing and availability

Announced back in late 2022, the MP600 Pro NH is now widely available in its 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB capacities and at the discounted prices you see on pretty much every PCIe 4.0 SSD these days. At $65 for the 1TB model and $110 for the 2TB model, at the time of this writing, the MP600 Pro NH isn’t really priced like the fastest SSD, as the 990 Pro is just a hair more expensive. However, unlike the 990 Pro, the MP600 Pro NH offers an 8TB option, and its 4TB option is available right now, whereas the 4TB 990 Pro is only just now coming out as I’m writing this review.

One thing that the MP600 Pro NH is missing, however, is a heatsink, and there isn’t a version of it that comes with one. While this isn’t a problem for desktop motherboards, which almost always come with a heatsink for M.2 SSDs, it does mean this drive on a laptop will almost certainly run without cooling, and you’ll see why that’s a mistake in a bit.

How the Corsair MP600 Pro NH was tested

I installed the MP600 Pro NH in a test bench using Asus’s ROG Strix B650E-I Gaming motherboard, AMD’s Ryzen 9 7900X, and 32GB of G.Skill’s Flare X5 RAM clocked at 6,000MHz and CL36. I installed the MP600 Pro NH under the board’s included SSD heatsink, as the MP600 Pro NH doesn’t come with a heatsink, and for optimal performance, you’ll definitely need to use one. I also tested the 990 Pro again under the same conditions as the MP600 Pro NH.

My benchmarks of choice are CrystalDiskMark and ATTO Disk Benchmark, which are basic synthetic tests that can give a rough idea of how these drives will perform in a variety of workloads. While these benchmarks aren’t technically reflective of the real world, they’re fairly accurate, repeatable, and easily comparable. I used the default settings for both benchmarking apps, and between each test, I waited about 10-15 minutes to ensure each SSD’s cache refilled completely. That way, we got the best results possible.

Performance

Just barely ahead of the 990 Pro overall

We’re starting off with CrystalDiskMark’s six preloaded tests, half of which test sequential workloads and the other half random, with varying queue depths, block sizes, and thread usage.

Scores are organized by read/write and are measured in MB/s.

When I started looking at the results, I thought that maybe there was a mistake since Corsair only rates the MP600 Pro NH at 7,000MB/s in read speeds and 5,700MB/s in write speeds. However, after double-checking the reviewer’s guide, this was apparently about what I should be seeing. When both drives contain very little data, the MP600 Pro NH trades blows with the 990 Pro but mostly comes out on top largely due to superior writing performance across the board, as well as better reading performance in the high queue depth, low thread count random test.

When I filled each drive to 90%, the MP600 Pro NH lost some ground in writing performance in the sequential tests, but it held onto its lead in random tests, which is arguably the more important part of the benchmark. Sequential performance is important for transferring large files, but random performance is useful for basically everything else, which makes the MP600 Pro NH just barely the winner here.

Like with CrystalDiskMark, I tested ATTO Disk Benchmark with its default settings and also only included data points between 512 bytes and 2MB, and I also cut out every other data point within that range since all that extra data doesn’t tell us a ton.

Scores are organized by read/write and are measured in MB/s.

In ATTO, the MP600 Pro NH gets off to a slow start compared to the 990 Pro, but it catches up around the 32KB mark and very briefly has a commanding lead at 128KB. However, the 990 Pro has a slight lead after that point. The 990 Pro is the winner here, though not by a significant margin, and given that ATTO is also a sequential benchmark, the 990 Pro can’t really make up for its loss in CrystalDiskMark with these results.

The one area where the MP600 Pro NH struggles is efficiency and heat. When I first tested this drive, I didn’t put it under a heatsink because there was no indication to me that it would need one, but I saw horrible performance in every sequential benchmark. After putting the MP600 Pro NH under a heatsink, however, I was able to achieve the results above, though the drive still hit a peak of 80 degrees Celsius. The 990 Pro will also thermal throttle without a heatsink, but not to this degree, and while neither SSD is suitable for heatsinkless devices like laptops, the 990 Pro is definitely more usable.

Should you buy the Corsair MP600 Pro NH?

You should buy the Corsair MP600 Pro NH if:

• You want the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD you can buy
• You have an M.2 heatsink you can use
• You want to put it inside a desktop

You shouldn’t buy the Corsair MP600 Pro NH if:

• You’re not doing very storage-intensive tasks like large file transfers or playing DirectStorage games at high settings
• You can’t pair the drive with a heatsink

While the high power consumption and heat are problems for the MP600 Pro NH, it’s not that big of a deal since high-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs are usually used in desktops, and most motherboards from the past few years come with M.2 heatsinks. SSDs like the MP600 Pro NH and 990 Pro shouldn’t be in laptops regardless of efficiency and heat since their relatively high power consumption significantly reduces battery life. Still, Corsair should make it clear this kind of SSD won’t run well without a heatsink since lots of motherboards only provide a heatsink for some slots.

Besides the heat, though, the MP600 Pro NH is a great SSD. It beats the 990 Pro as the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD you can buy, is a little cheaper, has more endurance, and offers both a 4TB and 8TB model. That solidly makes the MP600 Pro NH the new champion among PCIe 4.0 SSDs, which I’m still very surprised about since very few companies can go toe-to-toe with Samsung and come out on top.

Source: Corsair

Corsair MP600 Pro NH

The fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD

$65 $105 Save $40

Corsair’s MP600 Pro NH is the company’s flagship PCIe 4.0 SSD, and is one of the fastest (if not the fastest) PCIe 4.0 drives you can buy. It comes in several different sizes: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB.