Corsair MP700 PCIe 5 SSD Review: 2TB Screaming At 10GB/S

EFD Software's HD Tune is described on the company's website as such: "HD Tune is a hard disk utility with many functions. It can be used to measure the drive's performance, scan for errors, check the health status (S.M.A.R.T.), securely erase all data and much more." The latest version of the benchmark added temperature statistics and improved support for SSDs, among a few other updates and fixes.

HDTune v5.75 Benchmarks

Note that all of the charts above are sorted by write performance. That said, the Corsair MP700 offered similar average throughput to the Crucial T700 and Phison E26 PCIe 5 reference drives, but trailed the entire pack in burst rate. Perhaps there's some firmware tuning still to be done here. When it comes to random access times, however, the Corsair MP700 struts performance at the top of its class.

CrystalDiskMark x64 Benchmarks

CrystalDiskMark is a synthetic benchmark that tests both sequential and random small and mid-sized file transfers using incompressible data. It provides a quick look at best and worst case scenarios with regard to SSD performance, best case being larger sequential transfers and worse case being small, random transfers.
In CrystalDiskMark's random transfer tests, the Corsair MP700 trails ever so slightly, and the deltas separating these high-end drives are relatively small overall. Let's look at some more real-world application load times, next...

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Game Level Load Times

We also tested game level load times using the Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker benchmark. This tool loads an array of different game levels during its graphics benchmark and outputs the average result when complete.


Although the margin of victory is slim, the Crucial T700 takes the top spot yet again, edging out the Samsung SSD 990 Pro and other Phison E26-based drives by a fraction of second in the Final Fantasy load-time tests. Shaving tenths of a second off a game load time will hardly be user-perceptible, however, and the Corsair MP700 once again looks equally as strong.

UL's 3DMark Gaming Storage Benchmark

UL recently added a gaming-centric storage benchmark to 3DMark, that leverages trace-based tests of actual PC games and gaming-related activities (like streaming with OBS) to measure real-world gaming performance in a variety of scenarios. The tests include things like loading Battlefield V, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and Overwatch from the initial launch to the main menu, recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS while playing Overwatch, installing The Outer Worlds and saving game progress. And finally, copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive from one drive to another.


All of the results in the 3DMark Storage test are sorted based on the drives' overall scores. Here, the Corsair MP700 trades victories with Crucial's T700, and outruns all of the other retail drives, trailing only Phison's E26 reference platform.



Here, Corsair's MP700 latency results in the 3DMark Storage Benchmarks are again in the top quadrant of the fastest SSDs we've tested to date. The overall score shows the Corsair MP700 falling in right on the heels of Crucial's T700, and clearly outpacing the PCIe Gen 4 drives from Samsung and ADATA (Innogrit).

UL's PCMark 10 System Drive Storage Test

We like PCMark 10's new quick storage benchmark module for its real-world application measurement approach to testing. PCMark offers a trace-based measurement of system response times and bandwidth under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system use cases.

PCMark 10's storage benchmark also had the Corsair MP700 near the top of the pack. In PCMark's trace-based tests, which are a good indicator of typical consumer-class workloads, the Corsair MP700 just misses catching the Phison E26-based Crucial T700, but still puts up very strong performance versus all the other drives tested.

Corsair MP700 PCIe Gen 5 SSD: The Review Verdict

When it comes to premium, first generation products based on new storage technologies, often times buying decisions come down to price, because top-shelf products generally have a higher cost basis and thus command top dollar. In this regard, the Corsair MP700, which is only the second retail-ready PCIe Gen 5 drive we've tested to date, drops in at a very competitive price point versus its primary competition in our test group of SSDs. At $289.99 for the 2TB capacity and $169.99 for the 1TB model, the Corsair MP700 drops in a full $50 less at 2TB but only a $10 cost savings at its 1TB capacity, versus the Crucial T700 PCIe 5 SSD, at least if we consider street pricing on Amazon versus Corsair MSRP. Corsair's MP700 has yet to land on Amazon, but keep watching this space as they should show any day now.