The introduction of Solid State Drives was one of the best things that happened in the tech scene, giving us smaller-sized hard drives that are faster than your conventional hard disk storage. Now a few years later, we were treated with new variants of SSDs with the NVMe variants that are much smaller and faster than the SATA-type SSDs. Kingston continues to provide new solutions for more rapid and affordable storage drives with their new NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. Can this new product from Kingston be your most preferred storage? Stay tuned to find out.

Before we continue, let’s take a look at the specs of the Kingston NV3

• Form Factor: M.2 2280
• Interface: PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe
• Capacities: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB
• Sequential Read/Write:
  • 500GB – 5,000/3,000MB/s
  • 1TB – 6,000/4,000MB/s
  • 2TB – 4TB – 6,000/5,000MB/s
• NAND: 3D
• Endurance (Total Bytes Written):
  • 500GB – 160TB
  • 1TB – 320TB
  • 2TB – 640TB
  • 4TB – 1280TB
• Storage Temperature: -40°C~85°C
• Operating Temperature: 0°C~70°C
• Dimensions: 22mm x 80mm x 2.3mm
• Weight: 7g (All capacities)
• Vibration Non-operating: 20G (10-1000Hz)
• MTBF: 2,000,000 hours

Here is the disk info with the use of CrystalDiskInfo

In terms of packaging, the NV3 does not include any heatsink that can help dissipate heat when used as an enclosure or with the PlayStation 5, which is not much of a surprise as most NVMe SSDs sold don’t include any heatsinks. But it wouldn’t hurt much if manufacturers would also include at least the M.2 screw needed to mount the drives on your motherboard especially when you have multiple NVMe or M2 drives installed where you wouldn’t have any spare screws.

In terms of appearance, the NV3 only has its flash chips on just one side as compared with conventional NVMe SSDs which have chips on both sides. As for its size, it goes with the standard sizing of any NVMe drive. For the pricing, the 2TB variant is around PHP 8,800,  the 1B is at around PHP 4,500 and the 500GB is at around PHP 2,400

As for our benchmarking, We used several tools to check its performance on file transfers and read/write performances.

We first tested with Crystal Disk Benchmark for the read and write performance through random data sampling and so far with the performance with Sequential Throughput, the scores were really good though our motherboard is from a 2023 model that may have some slight impact on the performance in smaller degree, but still an exceptional score.

Next, we tried with the ATTO Disk Benchmark for the read/write performance on compressible data. With a 1GB file size, it handled well as it reached 16kb and continues to show higher scores.

Another tool that we used is the AS SSD Benchmark which is used to measure performance with incompressible data. I also measure the data transfers in scenarios when testing its speed for programs and games.

And with the Kingston NV3 having 6000 MB/s and 5000 MB/s for its reading/writing speed, it’s fully compatible with the PlayStation 5 as an expanded storage. And having at least 1 or 2 TB capacity, users can install a ton of games even the AAA games that have at least 50GB of game size. If you’re thinking of upgrading your laptops, then this is a great choice for its competitive price and really good performance.

Overall, the Kingston NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD showed some great performance that has a competitive price. Anyone looking to build a new gaming rig on a budget or looking for a new storage upgrade for their laptop and PS5 won’t be disappointed in choosing the NV3. The NV3 is available on the official Kingston store pages on Lazada and Shopee as well as from official retail partners.