Crucial claims its new Gen4 NVMe SSD makes Windows boot faster than Samsung, WD

Micron today has released its latest NVMe SSD. The new M.2 drive, Crucial P310, is a new variant of the one existing with the same name, but this one, comes in the 2280 form factor instead of 2230. Micron distinguishes the two variants as "P310 2280" and "P310 2230".

Both of them are built on PCIe Gen4 technology and although it is not the latest and greatest, it is still plenty fast for most people. In terms of performance, Micron makes some pretty big claims regarding Windows performance, especially in terms of booting and startup. It says that the Crucial P310 can deliver 20% faster performance compared to Samsung's 990 Evo and Western Digital (WD)'s SN580 SSDs. It also adds that app performance is also better, as well as game load times.

These claims are based on UL Benchmarks' PCMark 10 and 3DMark synthetic tests which help give a rough estimate of how a Windows (10) system should perform, though something like the Storage Benchmark would have been a nice addition too.

It writes:

20% faster performance in real-world tasks than other Gen4 SSDs booting Windows, starting applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and loading seamless gameplay on PCs.

 

• Based on PCMark 10® Benchmark test results comparing the Crucial P310 to Samsung 990 EVO and WD SN580 SSDs. Performance may vary.

• Based on 3DMark Benchmark test results comparing the Crucial P310 to Samsung 990 EVO and WD SN580 SSDs. Your performance may vary.

The performance advantage the P310 enjoys is not hard to understand though. The new drive from Crucial comes with higher sequential reads and write speeds of 7100 MB/s and 6000 MB/s respectively.

In contrast, the 990 Evo is rated at 5000 MB/s and 4200 MB/s respectively and the SN580 has 4150 MB/s for both reads and writes. Micron has not provided the random throughputs (IOPS).

However, these get interesting when we take price into consideration. Micron is launching the P310 2280 SSDs in three variants, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB, and their MSPRs are $88.99, $114.99, and $189.99 respectively.

At this launch price, it is cheaper than what the Samsung 990 Evo debuted at ($124.99 for the 1TB model and $209.99 for the 2TB model), although current prices are much lower. Meanwhile, the WD Blue SN580 came out cheaper at $79.99 for the 1TB and $134.99 for the 2TB, and like the 990 Evo, the WD too is much cheaper now.

Hence, the Crucial P310 can certainly be a good recommendation if the price settles at a similar level as that of the 990 Evo and the WD SN580. Until then though the claim is not really all that meaningful.

One major caveat of the Crucial drive is that it is built on QLC NAND compared to TLC on the other two products. This means the endurance on the P310 2280 is far lower at just 440 TBW for the 2TB variant and 220 for the 1TB.

The Samsung blows it out of the water with a rating of 1200 TBW for 2TB and WD does not do too badly at 900 TBW for the 2TB.

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