Crucial today launched the latest member of its fifth-generation consumer NVMe SSD series – the T705 PCIe 5.0 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. It takes over the flagship duties of the Crucial T700 released last year. The company has been focusing on high-end consumer SSDs over the past few quarters. The T700 was one of the first drives to offer read speeds in excess of 12 GBps, and the T705, introduced today, is one of the first drives available for purchase in the 14+ GBps read speed category.
The Crucial T705 uses the same platform as last year’s T700 – Phison’s E26 controller and Micron’s B58R 232L 3D TLC NAND. The main difference is that the B58R NAND in the new T705 runs at 2400 MT/s (compared to 2000 MT/s in the T700). Micron’s 232L NAND process is now mature enough that the company can launch a 2400 MT/s version with sufficient margins. Similar to the T700, this drive is targeted at gamers, content creators, professional users, and data-intensive artificial intelligence use cases.
Crucial claims that with 2400 MT/s NAND, all four aspects of the drive’s performance have been improved – random write speeds increased by 20% and sequential read speeds by 18%. Additionally, Crucial claims the new drive has more bandwidth in a similar power window.
The T705 is launched in three capacities – 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. Available in radiator and non-radiator versions. Crucial also offers a limited edition white radiator for the 2TB version. This caters to users of white themed motherboards which have a growing market share.
Phison has been pushing DirectStorage optimization in its high-end controllers, so it’s no surprise that the T705 advertises the use of Phison’s “I/O+ technology” to appeal to gamers. Given its high-performance nature, it is not surprising that the E26 controller requires DRAM to manage the Flash Translation Layer (FTL). To do this, Crucial uses Micron LPDDR4 DRAM (1GB/TB flash) in the T705.
| Crucial T705 Gen5 NVMe SSD Specifications | ||||
| capacity | 1TB | 2TB | 4TB | |
| model | CT1000T705SSD3 (without heat sink) CT1000T705SSD5 (radiator) |
CT2000T705SSD3 (without heat sink) CT2000T705SSD5 (black radiator) CT2000T705SSD5A (white radiator) |
CT4000T705SSD3 (without heat sink) CT4000T705SSD5 (radiator) |
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| controller | Phison PS5026-E26 | |||
| flash memory | Micron B58R 232L 3D TLC NAND at 2400 MT/s | |||
| Overall dimensions, interface | Double-sided M.2-2280, PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 | |||
| sequential reading | 13600MB/sec | 14500MB/sec | 14100MB/sec | |
| sequential write | 10200MB/sec | 12700MB/sec | 12600MB/sec | |
| Random read IOPS | 1.4M | 1.55 meters | 1.5M | |
| Random write IOPS | 1.75 meters | 1.8M | 1.8M | |
| SLC cache | Dynamic (up to 11% of user capacity) | |||
| TCG Opal Crypto | Yes | |||
| Warranty | 5 years | |||
| write endurance | 600TBW 0.33 deep work time |
1200TBW 0.33 deep work time |
2400 TBW 0.33 deep work time |
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| Suggested retail price | $240 (24 cents/GB) (without heatsink) $260 (26 cents/GB) (cooler) |
$400 (20 cents/GB) (without heatsink) $440 (22 cents/GB) (black heatsink) $484 (24.2 cents/GB) (white heatsink) |
$714 (17.85 cents/GB) (without heatsink) $730 (18.25 cents/GB) (cooler) |
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Crucial is confident that the passive heatsink provided is sufficient to prevent the T705 from severe throttling over extended periods of use. Firmware throttling kicks in at 81C and protectively shuts down at 90C. Flash pricing is not as low as it was last year, with 2400 MT/s flash allowing Micron/Invest to put a premium on the product. At the 4TB capacity point, drives can be purchased for as low as 18 cents/GB, but traditional 1TB and 2TB drives are priced at 20 – 26 cents/GB, depending on heatsink options.
There will be a number of Gen5 consumer SSDs on the market in the coming months (Sabrent’s Rocket 5 is one of them) using the same 2400 MT/s B58R 3D TLC NAND and Phison E26 controller. Crucial/Micron’s vertical integration in NAND may give the T705 some advantages in terms of pricing relative to such SSDs. That said, the Gen5 consumer SSD market is still in its infancy, with only one mass-market (Phison E26) controller pictured. Increased consumer demand for these high-performance SSDs may coincide with the appeal of other vendors such as Innogrit (with its IG5666) and Silicon Motion (with its SM2508). Currently, Crucial/Micron (in partnership with Phison) are the only Tier 1 supplier with a high-performance consumer Gen5 SSD portfolio, and the T705 further solidifies their leadership in the category.