The fastest SSD, but most should stick with PCIe 4.0 for now.
THE CRUCIAL T700 sets a new bar in performance for consumer SSDs, pushing speed higher than any other PCIe 5.0 NVMe drive on the market. It reigns as the king of the hill for sequential bandwidth and random IOPS, at least for now. Its native DirectStorage firmware optimization is an added benefit over almost all PCIe 4.0 SSDs for future gaming. Crucial departs from the reference heatsink design with its own solution, while also offering a cheaper, bare-drive variant for easier installation with motherboard and custom M.2 heatsinks. Together, this makes it a great option for enthusiasts and early adopters.
The T700 is part of a wave of PCIe 5.0 SSDs about to deluge the consumer SSD market, all based on the same Phison E26 controller and Micron flash. Competing controllers are on the way with InnoGrit’s IG5666 and SMI’s SM2508, and flash of the 232-Layer generation should be in wider production from Micron and other manufacturers. Faster drives based on the Phison E26 SSD Controller have also been announced, offering up to 14 GBps, so early drives like the T700 have a limited window. Many of these won’t be available until later in the year, but this drive is currently the fastest of its crop.