Crucial T710 review - we benchmark the company's new flagship gaming SSD

Not content to let WD and Samsung take all the glory when it comes to new super-fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs, Crucial has just unleashed its latest flagship drive. Like the WD Black SN8100, the new Crucial T710 boasts a top speed of 14,900MB/s, making it the company's fastest drive yet. There's a catch here, though, which is that only the 1TB drive in the range can hit this speed - the 2TB drive I'm reviewing here tops out at 14,500MB/s.

Even so, that puts it ahead of the last top-speed Crucial drive, the T705, while the claimed top write speed of 13,800MB/s puts this drive in competition with some of the fastest drives on our guide to buying the best gaming SSD. There's more to a good SSD than sequential read and write speeds, though, so I've put this drive through its paces in a number of benchmarks to see how it squares up to the competition, particularly when it comes to gaming.

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Specs

As with the WD Black SN8100, the new Crucial T710 uses a Silicon Motion SM2508 controller as its foundation, but unlike the WD drive, Crucial has paired this chip with Micron G9 NAND flash memory, which Micron claims is the "world's fastest" triple-level cell NAND. While Crucial's performance claims about the 2TB T710 aren't record-breaking, they still suggest that this drive is immensely fast.

A heatsink option will also be available, complete with RGB lighting across the center, although I'm testing the bare drive for this review. It comes on a single-sided M.2 2280 module, and features a basic monochrome heat-conducting sticker on the top. It's not particularly pretty, but that hardly matters when it's going to be under a heatsink anyway. In our case, we're testing the Crucial T710 using the chunky PCIe 5.0 SSD heatsink that comes with our MSI X870E Carbon WiFi motherboard.

As you would expect from a new top-speed drive, the Crucial T710 also uses the 4x PCIe 5.0 interface, and the 1TB drive looks as though it will push this close to its limit. Meanwhile, the endurance rating is in line with that of other recent top-speed drives, with 600 terabytes written (TBW) for the 1TB drive, 1,200TBW for the 2TB drive, and 2,400 TBW for the 4TB model.

We're testing the 2TB model for our review, which gives you 1,863MB of storage space once it's formatted, with 48GB allocated for overprovisioning (where the drive allocates more storage than strictly necessary to ensure consistent performance and reliability). The drive's performance is also assisted by 2GB of LPDDR4 DRAM running at 4,266MT/s.

How we test

To assess the performance of SSDs, I run CrystalDiskMark to gauge peak sequential and random performance. I also run the PCMark 10 full system drive benchmark to get an idea of real-world performance as a system drive, and run the 3DMark storage benchmark to assess gaming performance, which is the priority for our reviews as a gaming site.

The latter runs traces from real games, including Battlefield V, The Outer Worlds, and Overwatch, to measure performance for game installs, saves, and loading times. All the SSDs in the graphs below were tested on the same test rig, which has the specifications listed below. All tests are conducted in a full PC build inside a Cooler Master MasterCase H500P case with two 200mm front intake fans and one 140mm exhaust fan, with the glass side panel attached, to get a realistic idea of thermal performance and throttling.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• CPU cooler: Corsair H100X Elite
• Motherboard: MSI X870E Carbon WiFi
• RAM: G.Skill TridentZ RGB 6,000MT/s, CL28
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080
• SSD (system drive): WD Black SN850X heatsink 2TB

Benchmarks

Let's start with the top figure that SSD makers put on the box, which is the peak sequential read speed. Crucial claims the T710 can hit a top speed of 14,500MB/s, and that's largely borne out in our tests, with the CrystalDiskMark sequential read speed hitting 14,480MB/s. It can't catch the new 2TB drives from WD and Samsung in this test, but it's still very fast.

However, the 2TB T710 struggled to hit the 13,800MB/s sequential write speed that Crucial claims, with CrystalDiskMark topping out at bang on 13,500MB/s (this was its highest score over several runs). This is still fast enough to beat nearly every other drive we've tested - it's only beaten by the WD Black SN8100, which hits a massive 14,088MB/s.

Move over to the CrystalDiskMark random 4K tests, and the Crucial T710 again puts in a strong showing, with slightly faster performance than the Samsung 9100 Pro, although it again can't catch the WD Black SN8100. The ageing PCIe 4.0 WD Black SN850X also puts in a very strong showing in this test, beating the Crucial T710, and showing that decent performance isn't just about achieving peak sequential speeds.

Where the Crucial T710 really comes into its own is in our game benchmark tests, where it beats the top-speed competition in a couple of tests. Crucial's last top-speed PCIe 5.0 drive, the Crucial T705, is also strong in these tests, and the T710 takes it a step further. Most notably, in the 3DMark game install test, which uses traces from The Outer Worlds, the Crucial T710 hit a top speed of 313MB/s, putting it 26MB/s in front of the WD Black SN8100, and 77MB/s ahead of the Samsung 9100 Pro - a great result.

Likewise, in the save game test, which is again based on The Outer Worlds, the T710 hits a top speed of 244MB/s, which is well ahead of the 178MB/s from the Samsung drive, and significantly in front of the WD Black SN8100 at 193MB/s as well.

The story is less rosy in the other game tests, though. For example, the Battlefield V load test sees the Crucial T710 running at 1,355MB/s, while the WD and Samsung drives hit over 1,500MB/s. Bizarrely, the Crucial T710 also slips behind the company's former flagship, the Crucial T705, in this test as well.

Similarly, the WD and Samsung competition is also quicker than the T710 in the Overwatch load test, as is the older T705. That said, all the results from the PCIe 5.0 drives are strong in this test, and a fair bit quicker than the PCIe 4.0 WD Black SN850X. The Crucial T710 isn't slow in these tests; it's just that other drives are a bit quicker.

Finally, the PCMark system drive tests again show the Crucial T710 holding up well. Its drive access time of 39µs is on par with the Samsung 9100 Pro, and only slightly behind the WD Black SN8100. Plus, while the Samsung drive is quicker in terms of performance, there's only a small difference between 631MB/s and 637MB/s.

In short, the Crucial T710 excels in a couple of game tests, but is otherwise slightly behind the competition, particularly the WD Black SN8100. The performance differences aren't always massive, though, and the Crucial T710 is still a high-performance drive.

Temperature

Now we come to the one problem for the Crucial T710, which was also a problem for its predecessor, the T705, and that's the amount of heat it generates. I recorded a peak temperature of 83°C from the Crucial T710 during stress testing (with back-to-back runs of the CrystalDiskMark sequential read and write benchmark), and that's with the same MSI PCIe 5.0 heatsink I also used to test the WD Black SN8100 and Samsung 9100 Pro.

Of course, high-speed PCIe 5.0 drives get hot - with the exception of the Corsair MP700 Pro, which has its own cooling fan, all the drives hit at least 70°C, but 83°C is much higher, and it hit the same result after reseating the drive and heatsink several times. The 14,480MB/s read speed result suggests the drive at least isn't throttling at this temperature, but you'll want to make sure you install this drive in a case with plenty of airflow.

Crucial's own heatsink design, which is due to come out later, may well reduce this temperature (Samsung's own heatsink knocked a couple of degrees off the 9100 Pro's temperature compared to our MSI heatsink), but if you're planning to use your own heatsink, this drive does run hot when it's running at peak load.

Price

The Crucial T710 price is $179.99 / £153.99 for the 1TB drive, $279.99 / £233.99 for the 2TB drive, and $549.99 / £519.99 for the 4TB model. These US prices are identical to those of the WD Black SN8100 at launch, and they're slightly cheaper than the original Samsung 9100 Pro prices.

However, both the Samsung 9100 Pro and WD Black SN8100 have already started dropping in price, which makes the new Crucial T710 look like relatively poor value on release, especially with its often slower performance compared to the WD drive. If it drops in price, though, and the plummeting price of the Crucial T705 since launch suggests this is likely, then the Crucial T710 will be much more competitive.

Alternatives

WD Black SN8100

If you want the fastest drive that money can buy, then make no mistake, the WD Black SN8100 is the benchmark king right now. This drive hit a record-breaking 14,897MB/s sequential read speed in our tests, and a top write speed of 14,088MB/s, and it dominated the graphs in all but one of our other benchmarks as well. It's not cheap at MSRP, but you can often get it discounted. You will need to use a decent PCIe 5.0 heatsink with it, though.

Read our full WD Black SN8100 review.

Corsair MP700 Pro

While this Corsair drive can't hit the same record-breaking speeds as the fastest drives out there, we love the optional fan-assisted air cooler, which keeps temperatures in check and stops your drive from overheating. Besides, its 12,400MB/s top speed is hardly slow, and this drive still offers a decent step up from a PCIe 4.0 SSD without you having to worry about your drive running too hot.

Read our full Corsair MP700 Pro review.

Verdict

Crucial's fastest SSD yet shows the company making more of the PCIe 5.0 interface, with a drive that would have been the top dog if it had launched a few months earlier. While the T710 has the upper hand in a couple of our game tests, though, it's otherwise clear that Crucial has missed the boat on this one.

The 1TB drive might have some good speeds on the box, but the 2TB drive (and that's the capacity sweet spot right now) can't catch the WD Black SN8100 in most benchmarks, despite having the same MSRP, and it also runs comparatively hot when it's running at peak speed.

That said, SSD MSRPs rarely last for long in this competitive market, and it's likely that the price of the Crucial T710 will drop in the near future. If the price drops to a point where it's significantly below the cost of the WD Black SN8100, then it will be worth picking up, as long as you have a heatsink that's up to the job. At the moment, though, the WD Black SN8100 remains the drive to beat.

If you're looking for a motherboard that can house a high-speed drive such as the Crucial T710, check out our full guide to buying the best gaming motherboard, which includes a number of boards with 4x PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots.