Kingston NV3 2TB Review – A Great SSD For Budget Builds

Unboxing & Walkaround

The Kingston NV3 SSD is the next iteration of the company’s budget SSD lineup, and here we have the 2TB variant to check out. As seen in the photos above, this drive adopts a single-sided design that allows it to be installed in certain devices with low-profile M.2 slots – think ultra-thin laptops and gaming handhelds.

Under the sticker and you’ll find the Silicon Motion SM2268XT controller, which is only launched just early last year as the brand’s third generation PCIe 4.0 controller. The SM2268XT is designed to handle the full bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 protocol (up to 7,400MB/s), and is rated for 1,200,000 IOPS. However, do note that this does not necessarily reflect the drive’s performance.

As for the NAND flash, it’s the rebranded 162-layer QLC NAND from Toshiba which has the data density to allow 2TB of data to be packed within a single side of the M.2 2280 form factor. No DRAM modules here, as cheaper SSDs like the NV3 these days often uses HMB (host memory buffer) to boost sequential write performance.

Specifications

Kingston NV3

Full specifications available on the product page.

Capacity	500GB, 1TB, 2TB (as tested), 4TB* *4TB variant available starting Q4 2024
Form Factor	M.2 2280
Interface	PCIe 4.0 x4
Controller	Silicon Motion SM2268XT
NAND Type	Kingston FP01T08UCT-6B (Toshiba 162-layer QLC)
DRAM	None, HMB (Host Memory Buffer) only
Read/Write Speed (Rated)	500GB: 5,000 MB/s (Read) / 3,000 MB/s (Write) 1TB: 6,000 MB/s (Read) / 4,000 MB/s (Write) 2TB: 6,000 MB/s (Read) / 5,000 MB/s (Write) 4TB: 6,000 MB/s (Read) / 5,000 MB/s (Write)
IOPS	Unspecified
Write Endurance	500GB: 160 TBW 1TB: 320 TBW 2TB: 640 TBW 4TB: 1280 TBW
Max Power Draw	Unspecified
Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)	2,000,000 hours
Warranty	3 years
Dimensions	22 x 80 x 2.3 mm (single-sided)

Test System

CPU	Intel Core i9-14900K
Cooling	Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux 30th Anniversary Edition Cooler Master MasterGel Maker
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 HERO
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition
Memory	Kingston FURY RENEGADE RGB DDR5-6400 CL32 (2x16GB)
Storage	ADATA LEGEND 960 MAX 1TB (Boot) – Kingston NV3 (as tested)
Power Supply	GameMax Rampage GX-1050 PRO (ATX 3.1) 1050W
Case	VECTOR Bench Case (Open-air chassis)
Operating System	Windows 11 Home 23H2

Performance

CrystalDiskMark

For a budget SSD, the Kingston NV3 certainly does well in terms of performance. Both read and write speeds exceeds Kingston’s official claims of 6,000MB/s and 5,000MB/s respectively, though the random I/O performance is naturally lower compared to high-end models such as ADATA LEGEND 960 MAX 1TB, AGI AI838, or the PNY CS3140. Comparing to the similarly-segmented PNY CS2241, the Kingston NV3 comes out ahead in sequential throughput, though random write performance is behind the said drive.

AS SSD Benchmark

A fairly respectable showing for the Kingston NV3 in the AS SSD Benchmark, recording 5.2GB/s read and 4.9GB/s write. It performs similar to the PNY CS2241 once again, with similar scores.

Anvil’s Storage Utilities

Anvil’s Storage Utilities shows slower performance for the NV3, recording just 4.5GB/s and 4.7GB/s in read and write speeds, though this is a figure similar to the AGI AI838. However, the latter does outperform the NV3 in write tests with its DRAM and controller combination, particularly in high queue depths.

ATTO Disk Benchmark

ATTO Disk Benchmarks shows us that the NV3 maxes out at around 5.8GB/s read, falling off slightly at the 48MB and 64MB blocks; meanwhile, write speeds maxes out at 5.3GB/s, though peak speeds aren’t reached until using at least the 4MB block sizes (high-performance models can reach that at 256KB, or even 128KB block sizes).

Write Endurance (AIDA64)

The drive fill test shows a surprisingly solid performance for the Kingston NV3, despite its lack of dedicated DRAM modules onboard – it managed to mostly sustain around 5GB/s until ~28% full, and settles at around 300MB/s at the later phases of the process (with intermittent speed spikes).

Value

SSD pricing has fallen pretty low these days, and that means you can get some good value out of even the 2TB drives today. The prices we’ve found listed for the models shown in this chart has generally lowered in the past three months, and the Kingston NV3 is one of the cheapest PCIe 4.0 SSDs we’ve tested so far.

Verdict

The Kingston NV3 is very good for what it’s worth, which is currently sold for RM625 in its official Shopee Store listing (you might find cheaper prices from other authorized dealers). For this price, you’re getting a pretty solid performance out of it, and you’d be hard-pressed to see its flaws thanks to the solid combination of the controller and the HMB design.

Of course, being a budget drive means there are some minor sacrifices – for one, you certainly need some kind of heatsink if your workload is particularly demanding, and a 3-year warranty is likely due to the fact that QLC NAND just don’t last as long as SSDs with TLC NAND (but costlier). If you know what you’re getting into, though, I think the NV3 is a solid choice if you’re looking for a budget SSD that can still deliver.

Our thanks to Kingston Technology for providing the NV3 2TB SSD for this review.