Lexar NM790, M.2

If this review looks like déjà vu to you, then you are not mistaken. We tested the NM790 4 TB in August and gave it a glowing review—excellent performance at fantastic pricing. After our review went live, several readers contacted me and asked if I had any thoughts on performance of the 2 TB drive, because that's the model they were interested in most. I never doubted that performance would be similar to the 4 TB model, but I wasn't 100% sure, because the 4 TB model runs with 40 MB Host-Memory-Buffer for the mapping tables of the SSD, which is a limitation of the MAP1602 controller. The 2 TB model in this review has 32 MB HMB, which is not half, but 80%. Besides the change in HMB, everything else is as expected. The 2 TB model uses the same MAP1602 controller as the 4 TB version, and it's also built using 1 TB YMTC 232-layer NAND flash chips—there's just two instead of four. A DRAM cache is not included, ensuring the low price point can be achieved.

Eine 4-TB-SSD mit über 7 GB/s via PCIe 4.0 für unter 200 Euro? Zu diesem Kampfpreis ist die Lexar NM790 aktuell sehr gefragt. Im Test prüft ComputerBase, ob das potenzielle Schnäppchen auch Schwächen offenbart.

Even though lately storage media manufacturers have either already released or are about to release new PCIe 5.0 Gen5 M.2 NVMe SSDs the most popular drives currently are PCIe 4.0 Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSDs. Yes, Gen4 models may not be quite as fast as their Gen5 brothers but for most people across all segments of the market speeds up to 7500MB/s are more than plenty and as for both temperatures and durability they usually do significantly better. The NM790 2TB PCIe 4.0 Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD model by Lexar which i had the chance to review late last year (review here) was a good all-rounder and today with me i have the 4TB with heatsink variant.

The Lexar NM790 is one of the fastest SSDs we've ever tested, being able to match the Samsung 990 Pro. It is still priced very competitively, at just $210 for the 4 TB version. Not long ago that only got you 2 TB. Thanks to a highly optimized controller design, the NM790 runs very efficiently and doesn't put out a ton of heat.

oday, we are checking out another variant of Lexar’s budget-friendly SSD – the Lexar NM790 with Heatsink M.2 SSD. We previously reviewed the no-heatsink variant NM790, which was generally a good SSD despite being DRAM-less. The NM790 with the heatsink variant I have here also has a 4TB capacity, so we can compare apples-to-apples if there’s any difference between a no heatsink and a heatsink variant. Spoiler alert: it’s basically the same. But if you’re looking for an M.2 SSD with a heatsink or an SSD compatible with the PS5, please continue reading our review and find out if Lexar’s NM790 with heatsink is the one you want.