Conclusion
On our test bench today we have fully reviewed the CORSAIR Force MP600 Gen4 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 SSD in the 1TB capacity. It was $199.99 on CORSAIR’s website and is now at $189.99 on CORSAIR’s website with free shipping. There is also a 2TB capacity model, and 500GB capacity model. However, the 500GB capacity model does have a slower write performance and lower endurance. The 1TB and 2TB capacity models have the best-rated performance, and the 2TB capacity model actually has the highest endurance.
We reviewed the 1TB capacity model today, SKU CSSD-F1000GBMP600. It is a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 SSD. Its rated sequential read speed is 4950MB/s and its rated sequential write speed is 4250MB/s. It has an endurance of 1800 TBW. It also comes pre-installed with a full wrap-around heatsink, covering both sides and connected via clips with thermal pads.
Performance
Our experience was that the CORSAIR Force MP600 SSD exceeded expectations, especially in sequential reads and writes. We not only hit the rated and quoted speeds but exceeded those results. In random performance it slowed down, but still far ahead of the Sabrent Rocket 500GB SSD in read and write. Therefore it had a very strong random 4K performance and did exceptionally well in write performance.
The Phison controller has a best-world potential of 5GB/s sequential read and 4.4GB/s sequential write. The results we got in benchmarking put it right at the edge of this in read and matched it in write. That means it was efficiently utilizing all the performance the controller was capable of, basically, it was maxing out its potential. This is extremely positive.
All of our synthetic storage benchmarks put the CORSAIR Force MP600 above the Sabrent Rocket 500GB SSD. It was 10% faster in PCMark 10 and 26% faster in PassMark. Its access time was also the best. AS SSD copy benchmarks also showed improved times in the CORSAIR MP600 SSD versus Sabrent Rocket 500GB. Game loading time was improved as well with the CORSAIR MP600 SSD. Using workstation applications, the CORSAIR MP600 SSD was 7% faster than the Sabrent Rocket 500GB.
Cooling
We are glad that CORSAIR pre-installs a heatsink on this SSD. It has the potential to get very hot without a heatsink. We honestly would be worried if there wasn’t some sort of heatsink on this SSD. It needed the cooling, and CORSAIR’s heatsink is very robust and does the job very well in keeping it cool.
Our only concern, and area we’d like to see improved, would be to put a full thermal pad on the reverse side to cool the other NAND flash chips. Otherwise, the controller itself is well cooled on the front, and that’s the part that gets the hottest. With the heatsink installed this SSD stays very cool, even under a stress test. It does not throttle. It’s well built and very solid.
SSD Toolbox
The SSD Toolbox software is rather simple. The look of the UI seems outdated, it could use a UI overall, to be honest. Most of the functions you need are there. It’s great that it has a Disk Cloning ability, and S.M.A.R.T. tests. It’s also good that it has the ability to check firmware updates and install new firmware.
We wish this drive supported overprovisioning so that we could change the value. We also wish it had a Secure Erase function in the software in addition to Secure Wipe. Secure Erase would be easier on endurance. The only other feature we’d like to see added is a benchmark to test performance and compare to see if it is degrading over time. An overall reporting of drive health would also be good. So it has some good features, but it is lacking a bit.
Final Points
The CORSAIR Force MP600 Gen4 PCIe NVMe M.2 1TB SSD is an exceptional SSD. It was one of the first SSDs to utilize PCI-Express 4.0 x4 connection speeds. CORSAIR partnered with AMD for the Ryzen 3000 / X570 launch in July of 2019 to showcase PCIe Gen4 NVMe performance using the MP600. It was sent in reviewer kits for that launch. CORSAIR was very confident they had a winner on their hands with this SSD, and they were right.
The Phison controller was the perfect pair-up with the newer BiCS4 96-layer 3D TLC NAND. CORSAIR also put a hefty 1GB of DDR4-2400 DRAM on board to keep the SSD very happy. Combined with a pre-installed robust CORSAIR SSD cooler, this SSD had everything it needed to prove the worthiness of PCI-Express 4.0 NVMe performance and stability.
Even though CORSAIR is selling this SSD for $189.99 right now on its website, you can actually find it as low as $159.99 at Amazon right now at the time of writing. Newegg also has it for this same price. That price certainly makes it appealing for a PCIe Gen4 SSD that is this fast and also includes a heatsink pre-installed.
Discussion
