Corsair MP600 Pro XT M.2 NVME SSD Review

Intro

What’s up guys, today we are gonna look at a M.2 SSD from our friends over at Corsair. So thank you to them for sending this over for me to take a look at. So here we have the Corsair MP600 Pro XT 2Tb M.2 NVME SSD. This guy is PCIe Gen 4. with 7.1 GB/s in sequential reads and sequential writes up to 6.8GB/s, this M.2 SSD is stupid fast. Let’s see what we find.

So M.2 SSDs, now this may seem like a given, especially in today’s world, but who doesn’t run some form of NVME or Non Volatile Memory Express, in their system? Your boot drive should be at least. Now I can give a nod to those that have a large capacity spinner drive, for those extra large game installs, but the primary OS needs to be on a NVME M.2 drive for the best user experience, not to mention system speed.

So this is Corsair’s third offering this year in the realm of M.2 NVME SSDs. First came the MP600 Core, which was fast, but just barely faster then the older PCIe Gen 3 higher ended M.2 NVME SSDs. The issue with the Core was with it’s 3D QLC nand memory, which it’s speed has been known to quite drastically slow down after 50% capacity. Then the MP600 Pro was released. Now we are talking, 7GB/s read and 5.5GB/s writes. Using 3D TLC nand memory, this meant much better quality, durability and speed. Now Corsair wasn’t done yet, updating two versions of the MP600 Pro XT, both being on the PCIe 4.0 interface, one with a air cooled chonky heatsink and one with a pre installed waterblock. The one we are taking a look at today is the air cooled heatsink version in the 2TB capacity.

Specifications

Features

Corsair this round has decided to use a really good controller, the Phison PS5018-E18 in all variants and capacities of the MP600 Pro XT. This controller is fast, running a 32-bit ARM Cortex R5, which is actually three CPUs, making this Phison controller rated for speeds up to 7.4GB/s reads and 7GB/s writes. So just looking at this information, it looks like we might possibly see a MP600 Pro XTX model with increased speeds in the future. The MP600 Pro XT comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, as well as the monstrous 4TB while using Micron’s NAND memory. While read times stay consistent throughout the entire product stack, write times on the 1TB model are slowed down to 5.8GB/s writes. 4KB Random Reads are rated up to 1 million IOPS on all models except for the 1TB model, which rated is up to 900k IOPS. While 4KB Random Writes on all models are rated to up to 1.2 million IOPS. Another difference between each model is the TBW rating, ie write endurance, which the 1TB is rated for 700TB, 2TB at 1,400TB, and the 4TB is rated for 3,000TB. Now don’t be alarmed at the lower numbers of the 1 and 2TB models. Think of it this way, IF you wrote 1TB a month to your SSD, it would take you 58.3 years to kill that drive, better yet, on the 2TB model, 116.7 years! The 4TB model is just staggering at 250 years! I know this not to be a problem with anyone I know. 😀

Build Quality and Design

Looking at the build quality of the MP600 Pro XT is well, the closest comparison that I can think of is a tank. Yep this guy is built tough. The first and most identifiable feature of the MP600 Pro XT is the aggressive heatsink in a matte black finish. The heatsink alone weighs 57 grams or 2oz , with a total weight of 68 grams or 2.4 oz. The way the custom heatsink is designed seems to be very airflow orientated, with air being able to flow through the ten fins to maximize surface area. The bottom of the MP600 Pro XT, has an aluminum plate to hold the heatsink in place, but this also acts as a heatsink as well. I should also mention the Hydro X version of the MP600 Pro XT, which has a waterblock pre installed for water cooling enthusiasts to take advantage of.

Stripping the heatsink away, which mind you was really easy, shows all the components such as the 8 channel Phison PS5018-E18 controller, 8 Micron 3D 176-layer TLC NAND flash memory modules, complimented by the 2GB of SK Hynix DDR4 DRAM cache memory. All that hardware is housed on the M.2 standard, 2280, running at the newest NVMe 1.4 protocol.

Software

Corsair includes a utility called “Corsair SSD Toolbox”, original right? Aside from the unoriginal name, the software looks a bit outdated, however does seem to give the end user a lot of good information about the drive. Model number, Serial Number, Firmware Version, Drive size, temp and total reads and writes are all at the end user’s fingertips. If over provisioning, optimization, or updating the firmware is needed, this utility does that as well.

Test Bench

CPU – Intel i5 11600K

Motherboard – EVGA Z590 Dark (Review Coming Soon!)

RAM – Teamgroup T-Force XCalibur RGB 16GB DDR4-3600

CPU Cooler – Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE LCD (Review Coming Soon!)

Case – Open Bench Table

OS – Windows 11 Pro Build 21996.1

Benchmarks

For benchmarks, I am going to run a few of the well known ones, CrystalDiskMark, ATTO Disk Benchmark, and AS SSD.

Pricing

Pricing, I saved this one for last purposely. In today’s chip shortage world, I guess anything is really possible. Priced at a starting price of $184.99 for the 1TB Air Cooled version on Corsairs website, is a little bit more than slower competitor SSDs, but right in line with other SSDs in the same speed class. Moving up to the 2TB model, the MP600 Pro XT dethroned the ever popular Samsung 980 Pro at the same price of $369.99. Now the 4TB model, priced at a whopping $939.99, is a lot of bank to drop, but this market is a lot less crowded and you are gonna pay a hefty premium if this is the drive you are after.

Conclusion

Well all good things must come to an end? In the case of the Corsair MP600 Pro XT it really doesn’t have to. This drive is by far is one of the fastest you are going to be able to buy in it’s class. Speeds ALMOST got the advertised speeds. Temperatures never really got higher than 44C, so that’s a great thing, especially with that chonky heatsink. Overall the Corsair MP600 Pro XT is a very fast, good looking M.2 SSD. IMO I would skip the 1TB model and go straight for the 2TB model for the best performance to price ratio, which also made it really easy to award the “Must Have” award. Well done Corsair.

Ok guys, that is gonna do it for my look at the Corsair MP600 Pro XT M.2 NVME SSD. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments below. As always, don’t forget to subscribe and like so we can keep giving you content that you want. Thanks again, I am Ryan with ExtremeHW and I will see you in the next one.

Pro's	Con's
One of the fastest NVME Gen 4 SSD on the market	Not as fast in some benchmarks
Large Effective Heatsink	Heatsink must be removed if used with motherboard cooling
	Pricey