While most PC hardware seems to have gone up in price recently, SSDs are, thankfully, bucking that trend to some extent and thanks to price drops, PCIe 4.0 SSDs are particularly good value with plenty of models capable of speeds over 7,000MB/sec available for less than $150 for two terabytes.
The Verbatim Vi7000G hasn’t quite made it to US shores yet, but in the UK it’s currently available for just £127 and it comes with a heatsink included too. The WD Black SN850X will cost you around £25 more and currently retails for $145 in the US. Both SSDs can hit over 7,000MB/sec read speed, require a PCIe 4.0 M.2 interface on your motherboard and are about as fast as you’ll get without stepping up to a PCIe 5.0 SSD such as Crucial’s T700 Pro or Corsair’s MP700.
It comes with a two-year warranty that covers 700 terabytes written to the SSD for the 2TB version we’re looking at here. That’s a fair bit less than the 1,200 TBW rating for the WDSN850X or Solidigm P44 Pro, but both those SSDs cost more. It uses an InnoGrit Rainier IG5236 controller, which differs from the usual Phison controllers seen in most other PCIe 4.0 SSDs, it uses TLC NAND memory and the DDR4 cache is rated at 1GB and 2GB respectively for the 1TB and 2TB models.
It sits just under 10mm in height for those looking to squeeze it into a tight space in a PC or console, but it is marketed as being compatible with the PS5. Thankfully the heatsink kept the temperature below 70°C too so you won’t need to worry about cooling.
Benchmarks
Below we can see benchmark results for CrystalDiskMark and below those in 3DMark’s game storage tests. The CrystalDiskMark results were largely as expected, with the best sequential results we’ve seen with a read speed of 7,477MB/sec and write speed of 6,700MB/sec, which surpass those of the WD Black SN850X. You’d need to step up to a PCIe 5.0 SSD to see better. However, the random speeds were lower than all the other PCIe 4.0 SSDs in both tests.
Below we can see the game tests results in 3DMark and here the Vi7000G wasn’t the best performer. In fact it was significantly slower in loading both Battlefield V and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, while it was closer to the pack in Overwatch. The game access latency was was also poorer than the rest of the SSDs in the same areas, with the Overwatch result being about the same.
Conclusions
There are some benefits to the Verbatim Vi7000G in that it keeps up with the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSDs out there for less cash plus it keeps itself cool with an included heatsink too. If you’re looking for the best sequential speeds for the least cash it punches well above its weight.
However, there are situations where it seems to offer much less performance than slightly more expensive competition and this was in the game load and access times, two thirds of which were noticeably slower than the likes of the WD Black SN850X and Solidigm P44 Pro. Combined with lower endurance than those SSDs too, you’d be right to be wary of the savings being a false economy so if you spot the Verbatim Vi700G on sale, make sure it’s significantly cheaper than alternatives before reaching for your wallet.
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