Corsair MP700 Pro SE review: One of the best PCIe 5.0 SSDs

At a glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

• As fast as you’ll find
• Available in up to 4TB
• Optional heatsink/cooler

Cons

• Expensive

Our Verdict

The Corsair MP700 Pro SE came within a whisker of capturing the NVMe SSD performance crown — missing by a difference not worth mentioning. A true short-lister of a PCIe 5.0 drive.

Best Prices Today: Corsair MP700 Pro SE PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD

The MP700 Pro SE that Corsair sent us for review truly is a “special edition,” and not just a marketing opportunity, as many are. Thanks to a NAND upgrade, the SE’s benchmark performance blows the doors off its slightly older sibling, a very worthy drive in its own right.

In fact, the MP700 Pro SE paced itself into a virtual tie with the mighty Crucial T705 for fastest consumer NVMe SSD we’ve ever tested.

Further reading: See our roundup of the best SSDs to learn about competing products.

What are the Corsair MP700 Pro SE’s features?

The MP700 Pro SE is a 2280 form factor, PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe SSD utilizing the latest TLC NAND. The upgraded 2,400MT/s (megatransfers/second) NAND (the older Pro is only 2,000MT/s) is the main difference in this latest Special Edition. Both drives use the same Phison PS5026-E26 controller and 2GB of DRAM per terabyte of NAND.

The company warranties the MP700 Pro SE for five years, or 750TBW (terabytes to be written) per 1TB of capacity. That’s greater than the norm, which is around 600TBW per TB of NAND.

Corsair offers its SSD Toolbox for download, which lets you see S.M.A.R.T info, wipe the drive, and TRIM the drive. As a reviewer courtesy, the company provides the component level tech specs to us, not hiding them as some other vendors do. Good on ya’, Corsair!

How much does the Corsair MP700 Pro SE cost?

The 4TB Corsair MP700 Pro SE I tested retails for $625. It will also be available with a heatsink cooler, and if pricing follows the norm, those SKUs will cost $10 to $20 more. Pricing for the heatsink SKUs wasn’t set at the time of this writing.

The MP700 Pro SE is priced a bit on the high side, even for a 4TB PCIe 5.0 SSD. But it’s not outrageous given the performance and generous TBW rating. In all likelihood, you’ll find it online at a price nearer that of the like-performing competition when it finally ships.

Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry

Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry

Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry

No pricing was available for the plain 2TB version of the drive; however, the reviewer’s guide also made mention of a Hydro X series in a 2TB capacity for $355.

How fast is the Corsair MP700 Pro SE?

Long story short, the 4TB MP700 Pro SE I kicked the tires on is very, very fast. In fact, while being the second-fastest drive I’ve tested, it only fell short by a gnat’s eyebrow to the Crucial T705.

And I mean a gnat’s eyebrow — less than one-hundredth of a percent. That’s absolutely within the margin of error and nothing to concern yourself about. Take a gander at the CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential results and see for yourself.

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

Random performance in CrystalDiskMark 8 was also very good, although slightly behind that of the Adata legend 970, which isn’t as fast in the CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential test above, but does well in the real world.

Our real-world transfers also had the MP700 Pro SE in a photo finish with the Crucial T705. The other drives weren’t far behind.

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

In the 450MB write, the corsair MP700 Pro SE was again right in the mix. A 3-second difference in a 450GB write is a mere bagatelle. However, you may notice that there’s not a lot of difference between the top drives and the cheaper competitors in either real-world test. Remember that when it’s time to purchase.

When I finally wrote enough data to exhaust the initially allotted secondary cache, performance waffled between 750MBps and 1.3GBps. It’s likely that the faster NAND and smart/temporary allotment of more secondary cache kept the pace reasonable.

The MP700 Pro SE is so close to the Crucial T705 in performance, that with a slight variance in testing it indeed could have been number one. Judge it accordingly.

Should you buy the Corsair MP700 Pro SE?

The Corsair MP700 Pro SE is a fantastic NVMe SSD, though it faces stiff competition from the Crucial T705. If every ounce of performance is your desire, you’ll be happy with either. Buy whichever you get the best price on.

How we test

Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11, 64-bit running on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4 are integrated to the back panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB of total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which also runs the OS.

Each test is performed on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This can be less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with far faster late-generation NAND.

Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know.

Best Prices Today: Corsair MP700 Pro SE PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD