Conclusion
In today’s review, we looked at the Acer Predator GM7000 2TB Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD, one of the fastest SSDs we have reviewed yet. This is a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD that sits at the top tier of PCIe 4.0 SSDs in performance and is able to match Acer Predator’s claims for performance. The SSD is manufactured by BIWIN and made for Acer’s Predator gaming series of products.
The Predator GM7000 SSD comes in 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and even a 4TB flavor, and all of them have a dedicated DRAM Cache. These 3D TLC NAND Flash-based SSDs sport the new Innogrit IG5236 controller, which is a modern 12nm FinFET 8-channel controller. Acer Predator has also implemented a custom-made graphene-laced foam pad heat spreader in a very thin profile. The 2TB model that we reviewed today is $219.99.
Performance
Starting with PCMark 10, we tested the full storage benchmark and quick storage benchmark. In both benchmarks the Acer Predator GM7000 2TB SSD performed at the top of the charts, beating the previous performance champ by a good margin. It was faster than the PATRIOT VIPER VPR400 and MSI SPATIUM M480, which used to be the two performance champions. This was backed up in the full benchmark and the quick one. One of the reasons is the improved access time, where the Acer Predator GM7000 produced the best access time result. Next up, in PassMark PerformanceTEST Disk Mark the performance was at the bottom, but of all the benchmarks in this review, that was the outlier, and it may be due to the random write performance which weighs heavily on it.
In CrystalDiskMark the Acer Predator GM7000 once again proved to be at the top of the charts. The SSD is rated at 7400MB/s read speeds, and indeed we hit above that in sequential read speeds according to CrystalDiskMark. The write speed is quoted at 6700MB/s, and we also hit that in write speeds for sequential performance. The SSD also performed very well in random read tests, performing at the top of the charts in random read performance. It was only the random write performance that fell down a bit compared to some other SSDs. In fact, it was the only weak spot in performance.
In our file copy testing the Acer Predator GM7000 was competitive, in the middle, not the worse, but not the best. This was also the same result in terms of game load times. The Acer Predator GM7000 was vastly superior though, for workstation application performance, it was a lot faster than the competition and would make a really good workstation SSD. Finally, ATTO proved what CrystalDiskMark told us, this SSD is fast, eeking out over the MSI SPATIUM M480.
Cooling
Herein lies a major weakpoint with the Acer Predator GM7000 SSD, the cooling that is implemented. In our temperature test, this SSD reached the highest temperatures out of all the other SSDs, 82c here, it was the worse, and this is ASIC temperatures, the controller.
The reason is simple, the custom foam pad, which is claimed to be a graphene-laced foam pad that has high thermal conductivity and an 18c reduction in temperature, just cannot hold up to a real chunky piece of aluminum heatsinks like the other SSDs here use. The Sabrent Rocket does not have a heatsink at all, but the other SSDs above that do, they use real aluminum heatsinks with more area for heat dissipation, and it pays off. The foam pad just cannot match a real metal heatsink.
In our opinion, you should take the foam pad off, and use your built-in motherboard M.2 heatsink. If your motherboard does not have an M.2 heatsink, then get a good third-party heatsink, for like $12 you can get something like this which will do a much better job than this foam pad.
Final Points
The Acer Predator GM7000 2TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 Gen4 x4 SSD is an extremely competitve SSD. It sits at the top-tier of PCIe 4.0 SSDs in performance. The Innogrit IG5236 controller is a high-end controller made on a modern node process. Combined with 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash chips, and a dedicated DRAM Cache this SSD is geared for gaming and professional workstation applications.
It is rated at 7400MB/s read and 6700MB/s write speeds, sequential, and it can hit those speeds as indicated. It also has very good random read speeds but does fall a little short on random write speeds, depending on the workload. For gaming though, this SSD is perfect, it will access files quickly, that access time is incredible, and it will load games and scenes very fast.
The major weak spot for us is simply the cooling solution implemented. Acer Predator Storage should have gone with a traditional aluminum heatsink with more dissipation area. When stressing writes, this controller can get quite hot, and the foam pad cannot keep up. We recommend either having very good airflow across the SSD (which is an easy way to solve the problem) or taking the foam pad off and utilizing your motherboard’s M.2 heatsink or a third-party heatsink. This will help prolong the life of the SSD and make sure it doesn’t thermal throttle if you are constantly writing to the SSD, for example as a recording SSD for streamers or YouTubers. But if you are just simply using it as your SSD to load games from, it should be ok, reading doesn’t stress the temps as high as writing does.
Overall this is one sickly fast SSD, and with capacities going all the way up to 4TB you can get the capacity you need for your large game installs, plus the insane performance capable out of a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD.
