When I first saw the Kingston NV2 SSD, the predecessor to this one, and noticed its clever implementation of speeds that influenced the price, I thought the idea was interesting and I was even supportive of it. However, I didn’t believe it would catch on in the market. A few years later, the Kingston NV2 turned out to be installed in every second budget and even mid-range PC. The only question now is whether the new Kingston NV3 can achieve the same popularity as its predecessor.
Video review of the Kingston NV3 SSD drive
Technical specifications
- Form factor: M.2 2280
- Interface: PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe
- Capacity: 500 GB, 1, 2 and 4 TB3
- Memory: 3D NAND
- Endurance (TBW): 640 TB
- Storage temperature: -40 to +85 °C
- Operating temperature: 0 to +70 °C
- Dimensions: 22.0 × 80.0 × 2.3 mm
- Weight: 7 g
- Mean time between failures (MTBF): 2 million hours
- Warranty: limited, 3 years
Market position and price
I’ll give you the answer right away—yes, the NV3 is set to replace the NV2. It’s available in 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB variants, priced at $54, $80, and $158 respectively. This is about a third more expensive than the NV2 with similar capacities, but the new model’s speed is significantly higher, which justifies the increased cost.
Appearance
The packaging and appearance of the Kingston NV3 2TB are basic. It comes in a blister pack, with essential information displayed on it. The drive itself follows the traditional NVMe M.2 form factor, specifically 2280 with an M key.
It’s so simple that it comes without any heatsinks or thermal pads for the chips. There’s only a sticker covering the memory and the controller underneath.
Controller
There’s no DRAM cache—rather, the NV3 supports HMB, or Host Memory Buffer. This means that instead of having built-in cache, the drive utilizes the RAM of the computer or laptop. More specifically, it’s the controller that does this, which in this case is the Silicon Motion SM2268XT.
This is a fresh model from 2023, built on a 12-nanometer process, featuring two ARM Cortex R8 cores, with 4 KB for error correction, and 4 NAND channels operating at 3200 MT/s. It has potential speeds of up to 7400 MB/s for reading and 6500 MB/s for writing.
The performance in 4K IOPS is 1.2 million for both reading and writing. Additionally, it uses the PCIe 4.0 protocol over 4 lanes.
Kingston NV3 memory
Above the controller are a pair of memory chips from Kingston, which are proprietary, so their specifications are unknown. The full name is “FP01T08UCT1-6BS2412-40754271152897GS-AS-1G4075426.04.” It is known that each chip contains one gigabyte of QLC 3D NAND memory. Given the amount of space left without chips, it’s clear how the SSD will be configured for a 4TB model.
It’s important to remember that if the specification on Kingston’s official website indicates the type as “3D NAND” or does not specify at all, it means the memory type could be TLC or the cheaper QLC. This is typical for budget SSD series like A400, NV2, and NV3, where the manufacturer aims to keep prices accessible for the widest possible range of buyers. All other Kingston SSD series have a fixed memory type of TLC.
Yes, this affects overall performance. No, SSDs don’t become worse because of this, and they still easily receive my recommendations, as memory is not the only factor that matters for a drive. Moving on, Kingston guarantees the NV3 will achieve read speeds of up to 6000 MB/s and write speeds of up to 5000 MB/s.
However, this figure does depend on the model’s capacity. The lower-capacity models support speeds of 5000 and 3000 MB/s, respectively. And yes, Kingston does have an NV3 model with a 4 TB capacity. However, there are currently no prices or links for it, as it will only be released next year. The write endurance for the 2 TB version is 640 TB, and the mean time between failures (MTBF) is 2 million hours. The warranty is limited to 3 years.
Test bench
Let me start with the test setup. For my previous review of the Kingston SSD, the XS1000R 2TB model, I tested it on an ASUS ROG Scar 15 G533QS laptop via the Type-C port. For testing NVMe drives, I use the following configuration.
The processor is an AMD Ryzen 5 7600, with RAM consisting of G.Skill TridentZ 5 RGB 2×16 6000 МТС. The motherboard is an ASUS ROG STRIX B650E-E Gaming Wi-Fi, cooling is handled by an APNX AP1 White, and the power supply is be quiet! Straight Power 12 1200W, The case is a custom-made design from a Ukrainian company, Gorilla Custom X.
The drive was tested in the top slot of the motherboard, which is an M.2 PCIe 5.0 with 4 lanes, ensuring that bottlenecks are eliminated.
However, I should mention that the top slot is equipped with a 56-gram heatsink, so I can say in advance that the temperature tests will be within the normal range.
In response to the question of whether I tested the Kingston NV3 without a heatsink, I will say no, I did not test it that way. I don’t test any storage devices faster than PCIe 3.0 on 4 lanes without cooling for the same reason: I do not recommend using such drives without a heatsink under any circumstances.
Read also: Kingston XS1000R 2TB External SSD Review
There will be overheating issues, which is why I urge you to use a heatsink. The absence of a stock heatsink with the NV3 is not a drawback since motherboards typically have them, and they are almost always better. Additionally, some SSDs I remember have heatsinks that are not even removable. So it’s best to go without one.
Kingston NV3 test results
After initialization in the system, the Kingston NV3 2TB provides access to 1900 GB of free space. The test results will now be on your screens. As we can see, Kingston delivers well above the promised speeds, leaving no questions. The performance in IOPS is also excellent. The graphs for sequential read and write speeds are simply stunning.
Drops in write performance begin after around 28% of the capacity is reached, meaning after 500 GB. In random operations, drops start after about 10%, or 200 GB, resulting in fluctuations that stabilize around 33%, or 600 GB, forming a sinusoidal pattern with a minimum of 30 MB.
If this surprises or concerns you, don’t be alarmed; the controller here is almost budget-level, even though it’s new. And there’s no need to worry, as the primary purpose of this drive isn’t for daily system backups. At most, it will handle games and applications, which primarily involve writes that aren’t overly demanding, especially when it comes to random writes.
As for the temperatures, as you can see, everything is quite reasonable; under the heatsink, the drive reached a maximum of 62 degrees Celsius. Remember, the operating temperatures for the NV3 range from 0 to 70 degrees. However, I must emphasize again that this was under a fairly powerful heatsink, despite testing in a setup with ambient temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius.
Conclusions
I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a year or two, the Kingston NV3 becomes a standard in every second PC, replacing the Kingston NV2. Whether it’s the 2TB model, the 1TB variant, or the half-terabyte version doesn’t really matter. This drive is fast, reliable, and built with quality components, so with proper cooling, you won’t have anything to worry about. So yes, I recommend it!
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