Game Load Time and Workstation Performance
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Benchmark
The Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Benchmark is a unique game benchmark that allows us to objectively calculate the load times of different game scenes loading on the SSD. This benchmark runs multiple scenes that it benchmarks, it also keeps track of the scene load times for each scene and reports a duration, in addition, it provides an overall average duration of all the scenes together. This provides consistency in testing. We report the overall average scene load time of all the scenes in seconds, lower is better.
In the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Benchmark, the average game scene load times were 9.4 seconds on the MSI SPATIUM M480 2TB SSD. In terms of performance, this is fastest than the Sabrent Rocket, but technically higher than the MSI SPATIUM M470 and CORSAIR Force MP600.
So far, the CORSAIR Force MP600 still has the fastest scene load times. Now, these scores are very close for sure, you wouldn’t be able to tell a difference in the real world, but we did run these many many times and they were repeatable. The result of this test may be down to the fact of smaller file sizes, and random read performance. The capacity of the drive could also be affecting the result if the data was read across multiple cells. Still, at only .1 or .2 difference, we can pretty much call it “on par” with the SPATIUM M470 and CORSAIR Force MP600.
SPECworkstation 3.1
We are using SPECworkstation 3.1 and specifically the WPCstorage test. “The storage workload is based on storage transaction traces from a wide variety of professional applications engaged in real work.” It includes media and entertainment, product development, life sciences, energy, and general operations. Each program receives a score, and they are averaged together for an overall score, higher is better.
The MSI SPATIUM M480 2TB SSD scored very well in SPECworkstation 3.1 storage workloads WPCstorage tests. It was the best performing SSD for professional workstation-class workloads. At a score of 5.19, it far exceeded any other SSD on our graph. It’s 13% faster than the next fastest drive here, the CORSAIR Force MP600, which is mighty impressive. It’s 14% faster than the MSI SPATIUM M470 1TB and 21% better than the Sabrent Rocket.
Temperature
Stress Test Temperature
In our first temperature test, we run a stress test to maximize the temperature of the SSD as much as possible. Basically, we want to get it running as hot as possible. We run a Secure Erase function with the same disk management software on all the drives to make it apples-to-apples. This heats up the SSDs as much as possible. If the SSD comes with its own heatsink, we use it, if it does not, we use the standard motherboard M.2 heatsink that comes with our motherboard.
The MSI SPATIUM M480 2TB SSD, with MSI’s custom heatsink installed, hit a maximum of 61c in our stress temperature test. Keep in mind that the whole point of this test is to push the SSD as hard as possible, above the normal usage, to find its maximum temperature. We are writing to all 2TB of NAND flash on this SSD, and writes are typically a hotter data load. With 256GB NAND ICs, and 8 of them total, that’s a lot of surface area heating up. It’s a higher density and has more ICs than the other SSDs on this graph. Therefore, it’s going to get potentially hotter.
The point that this graph makes is that even with this amount of heat, with this particular heatsink, the SSD is still not reaching throttling levels, and that is what is important. Yes, it runs the hottest, that makes sense, but what’s important is that it isn’t reaching temperatures stressed out that would throttle performance, and that says a lot for the MSI heatsink keeping it from throttling in this stress test. We shudder though, to think what it would be without a heatsink, we definitely recommend running a heatsink on this SSD that can cool both sides, as the MSI one does.
Typical Usage Temperature
Our typical usage temperature test notes the temperature of the SSD in typical usage scenarios. This is what you will experience in normal workloads.
When we aren’t stressing the SSD, but utilizing it in typical workloads, the temperature is right on par with the CORSAIR Force MP600 which also has a custom heatsink. They both hit 40c, but it is more impressive in regards to the MSI SPATIUM M480 2TB’s cooling though, since this SSD runs much faster, and has a higher capacity. The SPATIUM M480 is running much faster in throughput compared to the CORSAIR Force MP600 and has a higher capacity, yet remains the same temperature. This shows a positive result for MSI’s heatsink, that it is doing a good job cooling this SSD.