Published: November 14, 2023 | Source: Corsair | Author: Tom Logan

Corsair MP700 Pro 2TB Gen 5 NVMe Review

Conclusion

Should you regularly be investigating things that are at the cutting edge of hardware potential then you’ll be aware of some caveats. Rarely does the first generation of something that is a massive step forwards come without any issues, and the Corsair MP700 Pro is no exception. Thankfully those small things are niggles, rather than deal-breakers, but they are things to be aware of nonetheless.

Sir Speedy

Of course the headline feature is the speed. There is no doubt, at all, that the Corsair MP700 Pro is the fastest storage solution we’ve ever tested. Ever. If you look at just single drives then the only thing that gets close is the Gigabyte Aorus 10000 G5, but even looking at our four drive RAID0 Sabrent setup the Corsair still romps home to victory in the absolute top end speed tests. Should you merely want the fastest drive around, regardless of any other considerations, then the MP700 Pro stands alone. Corsair claim 12400 read and 11800 write. We saw 12254 read and 11719 write. That’s close enough for us, and a feather in the cap of Corsair for not making claims the product doesn’t match. Excellent.Â There are, however, some caveats.

Caveats

Firstly the smaller block sizes don’t give us speeds that are equally as stunning as the sequential ones. If you look at Sequential speed as the top speed of something, and the smaller block sizes as acceleration, then the MP700 Pro takes a while to get up to speed, but is great once it gets there. Compare it to the aforementioned Gigabyte Aorus G5 drive and it’s almost no contest. The Gigabyte is at the horizon while the Corsair is still getting its boots on. Everything is relative, but in smaller block sizes the Corsair does more closely resemble the PCIe 4.0 drives we’ve seen.

The second, and somewhat larger, caveat is that cooler and fan. As you saw on the previous page when the MP700 Pro is flat out it gets hot, and when it’s hot it slows down. You almost have to run the fan. Which means you have to run this heatsink. And it won’t easily fit in every motherboard*. So it might compromise your aesthetics – even before considering where to route the power cable. Fortunately it’s a quiet fan, and the noise of it will get lost in your case below all the bigger fans sucking cool air in, but it’s something to bear in mind. This is not a drive you can run naked. Nor even one you can trust to your motherboards heatspreader.

* We need to clarify here. As you may have seen on our OC3DTV video, it just isn’t gonna fit into either of the flagship ASUS motherboards we’ve recently reviewed. Those that it does, if you remove the heatsink, it’s going to run too hot. Thankfully the Gigabyte Master works fine both in terms of keeping it relatively cool and also fitting in nicely. We could make it fit into some by swapping the heatsink around, because of the detritus you get around that area of the motherboard, particularly with modern VRM heatsink sizes. However, if you do this the heatsink isn’t symmetrical, so you can’t turn the Corsair logo up the right way. Upside down logos drive us hairless, especially with premium hardware such as this. What we really need is EK to do full cover waterblocks for the newest PCBs so we’ve got simple, easy, attractive all-in-one solutions for the insane heat these Gen 5 M.2s produce.

Summation

Whilst there might be some elements to be aware of, there is no denying that if you believe that biggest is best, fastest is everything and there is no replacement for raw speed, the Corsair MP700 Pro blows the doors off everything else. There is simply nothing else quiet as fast.