Patriot’s Viper VP4300 pumps out fast sequential speeds of up to 7.4 / 6.8 GBps read/write and features wicked good looks, making it a top contender for our best SSDs list. Whether you're loading up the latest Call of Duty update or scrubbing 4K or 8K content, Patriot’s Viper VP4300 delivers responsive performance. And with two optional cooling solutions included, it will keep cool and look cool during the most strenuous tasks you can throw its way.
When PCIe 4.0 SSDs first hit the market, they all had one formula in common — they came powered by a Phison E16 SSD controller that was merely a repurposed PCIe 3.0 design modified to work with the PCIe 4.0 interface, and then paired with BiCS4 flash. This pairing improved the end-user experience, but it lacked the oomph we now see from new clean-sheet controller designs that leverage the speedy PCIe 4.0 interface, like the Phison E18 and the controllers with the latest Samsung and WD SSDs.
Patriot’s Viper VP4300 now joins the list of new drives with completely new controllers. This SSD slithers its way onto our test bench with a new Rainer controller designed by InnoGrit. This new PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD controller comes paired with a healthy helping of Micron’s 96-Layer TLC flash to serve up fast performance.
The Viper VP4300 also comes with many of the features we expect from a high-end NVMe SSD, and even some we don't. Patriot even throws in two cooling solutions - a sleek-looking 4mm thick aluminum heatsink and an ultra-thin graphene label for tighter-tolerance installations, like in notebooks. Add in the VP4300's high endurance ratings, which even outstrip the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850, and it appears to be a very competitive drive. Let's put it to the test.
Specifications
| Product | Viper VP4300 1TB | Viper VP4300 2TB |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $ 254.99 | $ 499.99 |
| Capacity (User / Raw) | 1024GB / 1024GB | 2048GB / 2048GB |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4 |
| Controller | InnoGrit IG5236 | InnoGrit IG5236 |
| DRAM | DDR4 | DDR4 |
| Memory | Micron 96L TLC | Micron 96L TLC |
| Sequential Read | 7,400 MBps | 7,400 MBps |
| Sequential Write | 6,800 MBps | 6,800 MBps |
| Random Read | 800,000 IOPS | 800,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 800,000 IOPS | 800,000 IOPS |
| Security | AES 256-bit encryption | AES 256-bit encryption |
| Endurance (TBW) | 1,000 TB | 2,000 TB |
| Part Number | VP4300-1TBM28H | VP4300-2TBM28H |
| Warranty | 5-Years | 5-Years |
Patriot’s Viper VP4300 comes in just two capacities of 1TB and 2TB. Each is rated to deliver speeds of up to 7.4 / 6.8 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and sustain up to 800,000 random read/write IOPS. Priced at $255 for the 1TB model and $500 for the 2TB, the Viper VP4300 launches with high pricing that exceeds both the WD Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro.
The Viper VP4300 carries very robust endurance ratings, though. The 1TB model is rated to endure up to 1,000 TB of writes within its five-year warranty period, while the 2TB is rated for up to 2,000 TB. The VP4300 has very little factory overprovisioning, roughly 7% of the SSD's capacity is dedicated to the task, and it uses InnoGrit’s Proprietary 4K LDPC ECC along with end-to-end data path protection to ensure reliable performance within the lifespan of the product.
A Closer Look
Patriot’s Viper VP4300 comes in an M.2 2280 double-sided form factor and includes two optional thermal solutions (“heatshield options,” as they refer to them) to choose from. You can either install the slim yet aggressive-looking aluminum heatsink that measures roughly 72 x 22 x 4 mm, or you can use the very thin graphene sticker for installation into tighter spaces, like notebooks.
Like the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850, the Viper VP4300 leverages a high-end PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD controller and NAND flash to match. Codenamed Rainer, InnoGrit’s IG5236 is a multi-core NVMe 1.4-compliant SSD controller with a DRAM-based architecture.
Two 8Gb SK hynix DDR4 DRAM chips are present on the PCB, one on each side, that accelerate FTL accesses to ensure responsive performance. The controller is fabbed on TSMC's 12nm FinFET process and uses multiple consumer-oriented power management techniques to maintain its cool and perform efficiently, too.
Patriot paired the controller with Crucial’s fast 512Gb 96-Layer TLC flash. The controller interfaces with this flash over eight NAND channels at speeds of up to 1,200 MTps, and there are 32 NAND dies spread among the four NAND packages. The flash has a quad-plane architecture for a high level of parallelism per die, and it's also quite robust and efficient thanks to the unique application of CuA (circuitry under array) design and tile groups.
Comparison Products
We put the Patriot Viper up against some of the best SSDs on the market. We include the company’s Viper VP4100, a first-generation PCIe 4.0 SSD, and VPR100, an RGB PCIe 3.0 SSD. We also included a near-doppelganger, the Adata XPG Gammix S70. Additionally, we included the WD Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro along with cheaper competition like the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus and Silicon Power US70.
Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.
Patriot’s Viper VP4300 delivers responsive game load times, outpacing Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus by a hair, but it isn’t the most responsive in the test pool. Both the WD Black SN850 and Samsung 980 Pro outpace the Viper by roughly half a second during the benchmark.
Transfer Rates – DiskBench
We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.
While the Viper VP4300 comes with some of the fastest sequential performance ratings we've seen, that doesn’t carry over entirely to its file copy and loading performance. The VP4300 delivers respectable results, but it places fourth and fifth, respectively, coming up short of the best.
Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test
PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark is more relatable to power users.
Patriot’s Viper VP4300 is fairly quick at responding to PCMark 10's requests, but again, it lags the top heavy-weight contenders in our comparison pool.
Both the VP4300 and the Adata XPG Gammix S70 deliver similar performance during the very intensive Full System Drive Benchmark. However, the VP4300 couldn’t match the S70 during the lighter Quick System Drive Benchmark no matter how many times we retested.
Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer
iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.
At a queue depth of 1 (QD1), the Viper’s sequential write performance is on par or better than many of the fastest PCIe Gen4 SSDs. The Viper's peak sequential speeds also rank among the fastest results we've seen, matching Adata’s XPG Gammix S70. However, as we can see with a reduction in performance at 512KB, Innogrit still needs to work out a few kinks at smaller block sizes.
The VP4300's random performance is average to above-average at best, though. While it can achieve massive write IOPS at high QDs, it falters at the all-important QD1, which helps us measure the 'snappiness' of the drive in everyday workloads. As a result, the VP4300 is roughly 25% slower than Samsung’s 980 Pro at QD1 random writes.
Also, the VP4300's high-QD random read performance knocks it back to last place. As we can see, its read speed doesn’t scale too well at higher QDs as we see with the more established and mature controller designs. We hit peak speeds of 371,000/601,000 random read/write IOPS at high queue depths, falling short of the 800,000 read/write IOPS rating.
Sustained Write Performance & Cache Recovery
Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.
Patriot’s Viper VP4300 features a large dynamic SLC cache that spans one-third of its available capacity. Our 2TB sample wrote roughly 690GB of data at an average rate of 6.8 GBps before its performance degraded. First speeds fell to roughly 2GBps, but after writing an additional 150GB, the VP4300 degraded once more, falling to a sustained write speed of 900MBps.
Additionally, the SSD features a static SLC cache that measures roughly 36GB - 40GB. Only the static portion of the cache recovered after half an hour of idle time.
Power Consumption & Temperature
We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.
We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.
The Viper VP4300 has decent power efficiency under load, taking third place in our efficiency testing, but peak and idle power consumption aren’t as well regulated as we see with other designs. With the Viper VP4300 consuming nearly 9W under peak load and 1.7W at idle, the SSD can run hot if you choose not to use one of the two included cooling solutions.
Without the heatsink, the SSD idled around 62 degrees Celsius while peak temperatures measured roughly 90 degrees Celsius. Throwing on the included heatsink lowered idle temps by roughly 7 degrees Celsius, and peak temperatures measured only 70 degrees Celsius. Thermal throttling wasn’t an issue with the heatsink, but it might an issue if you're moving over 200GB of data at a time and not using any cooling solution at all. Obviously, given that the drive comes with two included cooling options, this isn't a concern for most users.
Patriot’s Viper VP4300 is a high-performance PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that comes with the killer looks to match its fast performance, and its performance results look amazing on paper — its rating for 7.4/6.8 GBps of sequential read/write throughput is the fastest we've seen yet, and the company specs the drives for up to 800,000 random read/write IOPS during heavy workloads.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to reach those numbers in our testing. Patriot rates the Viper VP4300 to sustain 800,000 random read/write IOPS, but our sample only achieved 371,000/601,000 random read/write IOPS under heavy load. It also wasn’t quite as responsive as competing drives under lighter loads, either.
The Viper VP4300 is very responsive during most daily tasks, but it's not the fastest NVMe SSD on the market. Compared to the best of the best, the InnoGrit powered VP4300 has a lot to offer but, like most new Gen4 NVMe SSDs controllers, there's still some performance optimization work to be done.
Sequential performance could be improved at smaller file sizes, and while the SSD comes with a large dynamic SLC cache and recovers a decently-sized portion of the static SLC cache, performance was inconsistent, especially when taxed with heavy write workloads that exceed the size of the cache. That's partially because the large dynamic cache recovers slowly.
The VP4300's five-year warranty matches the Samsung 980 Pro and WD Black SN850, but it also has a higher endurance rating than either of those drives and comes with some nice add-ons and features. The included heatsink and ultra-thin graphene heat spreaders not only look good, but are very effective at cooling the SSD. Like the Samsung 980 Pro, the VP4300 features AES 256 full disk encryption, which is useful for those that need the added security.
While it comes with everything you could want from a high-end, enthusiast-grade NVMe SSD, the VP4300's launch pricing of $255 for the 1TB capacity and $500 for the 2TB is a little high, even for an SSD of this caliber. The WD Black SN850, Samsung 980 Pro, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, and even the Adata XPG Gammix S70 offer a better price-per-GB ratio, retailing at roughly $100-150 cheaper for a 2TB drive. Patriot will have to price the Viper VP4300 a bit more aggressively to sway our recommendation away from one of these alternative picks.
Original page link
Best Cool Tech Gadgets
Top favorite technology gadgets
0 comments:
Post a Comment