The Kingston A2000 currently retails for $128, which makes it one of the most affordable M.2 NVMe options on the market. At that price point, it won't be easy to find a drive with an SMI controller and DRAM cache chip—most alternatives use Phison or Realtek. One notable alternative is the Crucial P1 which is only $105 at the moment and good enough if you're building an entry-level system, and the savings could go towards another component. Other options we often recommend, like the Sabrent Rocket Q and Silicon Power P34A80, are slower than the A2000 and priced too closely. I'd say don't bother with savings of just $10 or $15. If you are willing to spend a little bit more, several options open up. For example, the ADATA SX8200 is currently $137 and uses an 8-channel controller, which has higher sequential speeds, although in real-life, the difference is just 2%. Another good drive is the HP EX950, which is currently $135 and also 2% faster. I can definitely see how such a small increase is justifiable, but prices are always in a state of flux, too. Last but not least, there is the Kingston KC2000, which is the fastest SSD we ever tested (after the firmware update), but with $186, it's much more expensive; not sure if I'd be willing to spend that money. The only drawback of the A2000 is that the largest capacity available is 1 TB, which is starting to get too small for many power users.