Best 1TB NVMe for around ~$200

I am currently putting together a build for CAD (specifically SolidWorks) and I am looking for the best 1TB NVMe drive around ~$200. The cheapest option looks to be something with QLC, but I keep hearing bad things about them. The cheapest one i can find is the ADATA XPG SX6000 PCIe 1TB which is TLC, but the Crucial P1 1TB which is both QLC and $5 more, has significantly higher speeds (2000MB R / 1700MB W to 1000MB R / 800MB W). Is there something that should prevent me from getting the higher speed QLC drive?

Thanks.

QLC is slower and I believe wears out faster.

I’d have to double check.

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das true

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Does that mean I should go with the ADATA? The 800MB write seems kind of sketchy.

What’s wrong with an hp ex920?

It supposedly is one of the fastest queue depth 1 speeds ssds.The sx8200 has a little more cache then the hp ex920 but is a little slower then the ex920. But both are very fast.

Idk about the sx6000. Would have to look into that.

It’s around $200 but upwards of $240.

It was cheaper during Black Friday.

And that’s like $215.

I didn’t realize they were so expensive.

My bad bro.

Bro

~$150

Grabbing one of these this weekend.

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It’s controller limitations

Not sure if it was just the drive I received, but I got an HP EX920 1TB on black friday for $180 to add to my laptop, but it had some funky issues where it would sometimes be detected by the BIOS other times not. Loaded up GParted and even it couldn’t see the disk, even if it showed up in the BIOS just prior to booting to it. I tried my 970 EVO in my main desktop and no such issues.

I have a feeling the QA for those drives is just garbage, as the controller is a Silicon Motion SM2262 which is in some other NVMe drives like the Eluktronics drives. I don’t think it should have any problems being detected if it functioned properly.

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possibly just a bad drive?

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Try the SX8200… It usually isn’t much more expensive than the 6000 and it’s got quite good reviews…

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WAIT!

This was just announced yesterday.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13719/adata-announces-xpg-gammix-s11-pro-sm2262en-3d-tlc-up-to-35-gbs

It has the new SM2262EN chip, which is supposedly faster/as fast as a 970 pro.

But ADATA did not disclose the selling date yet. They just announced the fact that the product exists.

EDIT: I just noticed that the pic above has major discrepancies. Difference software versions are being used to benchmark the SSDs . But this was done by SMI themselves and is not an ADATA picture. ( sauce : https://www.anandtech.com/show/12928/smi-eyes-samsungs-performance-crown-with-sm2262en-controller )

Another option is the refreshed SX6000 pro, that have 2GB read…
The price limitation doesn’t really give you a lot of wiggle room…

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