Introduction
The TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO SSD (P/N: TM8FPR002T0C129) is a PCIe Gen4 SSD from TEAMGROUP in its T-FORCE gaming lineup, geared for fast 7,400MB/s read speeds and 7,000MB/s write speeds offering flexible installation options with two cooling options. TEAMGROUP mainly produces its own brand of memory modules, memory cards, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, peripheral series, and mobile accessories. Under TEAMGROUP’s banner of SSD products, it has three distinct M.2 SSD lines, including the T-FORCE Gaming, T-CREATE Creator, and its TEAMGROUP line of SSDs. 
The T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO SSD falls under its T-FORCE SSD line, which is made up of SSDs from all generations, in various forms of cooling and special series. The T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO is on the more value side of pricing of the T-FORCE lineup but is still a premium-grade drive, for gamers. The CARDEA A440 PRO is an upgrade over the original T-FORCE CARDEA A440 by offering a newer and higher density 3D TLC NAND flash and upgrades the read and write speeds from the A440’s 7,000MB/s read and 6,900MB/s write speed, though endurance remains the same while both do have an onboard DRAM cache. 
In addition, TEAMGROUP offers the T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO in two different cooling formats, one with an integrated aluminum heatsink, and the other with a patented graphene heatsink for the ultimate fit in tight spaces, such as laptops and the PS5. You will even find capacities ranging from 1TB to 2TB, to 4TB, and even an 8TB model with either the aluminum heatsink or graphene heat spreader, providing a wide range of capacity options for your needs. This is all thanks to the newer Micron 176-layer TLC NAND flash on board the A440 PRO and Phison E18 controller.
TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO
The first thing that makes the TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO stand out is its flexible options for cooling. The T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO has a patented ultra-thin graphene heatsink option on TEAMGROUP’s website, though we’d call it more of a heat spreader than a heatsink. TEAMGROUP claims that heat dissipation can be enhanced by up to 9% compared to no heat spreader at all. Additionally, TEAMGROUP also offers a model with a full aluminum fin-type heat sink that can reduce the temperatures by 48%. This gives you options, for space, size, and your cooling needs. 
Keep in mind that with the graphene heat spreader you can (and we recommend it) install your motherboard’s provided M.2 heatsink on top of the graphene heat spreader, for maximum heat dissipation. In today’s review, we will be reviewing the TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO 2TB Graphene Heatsink model (P/N: TM8FPR002T0C129). TEAMGROUP offers a 5-year limited warranty on this SSD.
The TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO runs on the PCIe Gen4x4 interface with NVMe 1.4 protocol. These are PCIe 4.0 SSDs, sporting an onboard DRAM cache and in the standard 2280 M.2 form factor size. TEAMGROUP offers several capacity options with the T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO, there is a 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB options available. The capacity does dictate the maximum performances, only the 1TB has a slower read and write speed, while the other higher capacities all have the fastest performance. 
The 1TB T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO has a read speed of 7,200MB/s a write speed of 6,000MB/s and 1,000K IOPS read and 1,000K IOPS write. Whereas, the T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO 2TB and 4TB capacities have a read speed of up to 7,400MB/s read and and write speed of up to 7,000MB/s write also with 1,000K IOPS read and write. The endurance ratings are also dictated by the capacities. The 1TB capacity has a 700TBW endurance rating, while the 2TB has a 1,400TBW endurance rating and the 4TB has a 3,000TBW endurance rating. All SSDs have an MTBF of 3 Million hours.
SSD Pictures
The TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO 2TB Graphene Heatsink SSD comes packaged in a box that clearly shows the type of cooling you will get in the box. The one with the aluminum heatsink also shows that it is the aluminum heatsink option, so you won’t confuse which model you are purchasing. There is also a label on the box that says “Graphehe Heat Sink” which is clearly marked, as well as the PCIe generation and capacity largely printed.
The TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO 2TB Graphene Heatsink SSD comes in the box with the graphene heat spreader separate, and not attached to the SSD. If you choose not to use the graphene heatsink, then you can do so and don’t have to worry about removing it. This is if you want to use only our motherboard’s M.2 heatsink, or if you want to install a third-party cooler. 
Otherwise, you can apply the graphene heat spreader very easily by peeling the back protection layer off so it will simply stick to the components. You can actually install your motherboard’s M.2 heatsink right on top of the graphene heat spreader, and this is in fact the recommended way for the best heat dissipation as the graphene helps transfer the heat and spread it across the surface area.
The TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO 2TB is based on the is based on the popular Phison E18 controller. We’ve seen this controller in several modern SSDs. The Phison E18 controller is manufactured on the TSMC 12nm manufacturing process. It supports a maximum capacity of 8TB and a max of 8 channels and supports the NVMe 1.4 protocol and Gen4x4 M.2 interface. It can run up to 1600MT/s per channel and supports DDR4. It runs a 32-bit ARM Cortex R5 (three CPUs) CoXProcessor Technology CPU. It supports dynamic SLC cache, 4th gen LDPC, end-to-end data path protection, SMartECC, internal SRAM ECC/parity, AES 128/256 bit, SHA 160/256/512, RSA 4096, TCG & Opal 2.0, Pyrite, Sanitize, and Crypto Erase.
The NAND flash is labeled ICBHG94AYA which is Micron 176-layer 3D TLC. The TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO 2TB capacity we are reviewing here today has 2GB of SK Hynix DDR4 at 2666MHz for the onboard DRAM cache.
Note that for our benchmark testing, we did install our motherboard’s included M.2 heatsink right on top of the TEAMGROUP T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO 2TB’s graphene heat spreader (with the original thermal pad in place), which made a noticeable reduction in temperatures. We will show temperatures on the last page, with and without the motherboard M.2 heatsink so you can see what the temps of the SSD are with just the graphene heat spreader, and then with the graphene heat spreader + the motherboard’s M.2 heatsink. 
We wanted to ensure the best performance for benchmarking and opted to use the combo of graphene heat spreader + motherboard M.2 heatsink so we wouldn’t hit any bottlenecks. This is the most likely method that will be used when installing into a desktop PC, as we test all our SSDs with.