Kingston recently expanded its budget-friendly NV series SSDs with the launch of the new NV3. We got a chance to try out the new Kingston 2TB NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, and here are our thoughts about the new drive.
Design
Unlike the Renegade and KC3000 series PCIe 4.0 SSDs that come with a black board, the new NV3 still retains the blue-colored circuit board as the predecessor models. While the lack of a Graphene Heat Spreader is compensated here with the low-power consumption of the drive, there is a basic white sticker on the top with the Kingston logo, model number, capacity, and more.
The review unit that we received is the 2TB version, and as you can see on the image below, the 2TB NV3 is a single-sided PCIe 4.0 drive. This should be good for those who are looking for slim form-factor drives for handheld devices. Kingston offers the NV3 in four capacities, including the modest 500GB, then the 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB versions. Do note that Kingston plans to launch the 4TB model later this year. We should also add that the weight of the SSD is only 7g.
Performance
The Kingston NV3 drive is a non-DRAM based PCIe 4.0 SSD with 3D QLC flash chips onboard. As for the lack of DRAM chips, the drive uses 64MB Host Memory Buffer (HMB) for maintaining its performance. The controller used on the SSD is a budget based chip. The 2TB NV3 model features a sequential read and write speed of 6000 MB/s and 5000 MB/s, respectively. The 4TB model shares the same performance rating. However, the 1TB model features the same read speed, but with a reduced write speed of 4000 MB/s. The 500GB model is the slowest performer, featuring a read speed of 5000 MB/s, and a write speed of 3000 MB/s.
The endurance ratings of the NV3 series SSDs are just decent. The TBW of the 500GB model is only 160TB, along with the 1TB model featuring a TBW rating of 320TB, the 2TB for 640TB, and 4TB with 1280TB. We did a series of tests on the drive, starting with a simple file copy transfer. We made a 80GB RAR test file and copied it from the primary SSD drive to the to Kingston NV3, and the transfer speed was about 3GB/s on average. Our test setup features our testbed comes with the AMD Ryzen 7700X processor, 32GB Kingston Fury Beast RGB DDR5 6000 MHz memory, ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard, XFX 1000W PSW, XFX Radeon 5700XT GPU, and more.
We also tested the Kingston NV3 SSD with CrystalDiskMark, AS SSD, 3DMark Storage test, and Final Fantasy EndWalker storage tests. Check the scores below.
Verdict
The Kingston NV3 is a good choice for those looking for a budget-friendly SSD drive with PCIe 4.0 speeds. The NV3 is available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. While its not the fastest PCIe 4.0 drive, the 2TB model is capable of read speeds up to 6000 MB/s, and write speeds up to 5000 MB/s. The 2TB model also features a single-sided design.
The TBW of the NV3 series may not be as impressive, but the 2TB model comes with an endurance of 640TB. The drive also consumes less power, which should also bring down the heat. The NV3 series uses QLC 3D NAND chips, and while it lacks a dedicated DRAM chip, the performance is optimized with the help of HMB.
