Kingston KC3000 SSD Review: A PCIe Gen 4 Speed Demon
Kingston KC3000 Review: Additional Benchmark And Our Conclusion
HDTune v5.75 Benchmarks
The Kingston KC3000 performed exceptionally well with HD Tune's workloads. The KC3000 offered the best sequential performance, highest burst speeds, and lowest write latency of the bunch.
CrystalDiskMark x64 Benchmarks
CrystalDiskMark is a synthetic benchmark that tests both sequential and random small and mid-sized file transfers using incompressible data. It provides a quick look at best and worst case scenarios with regard to SSD performance, best case being larger sequential transfers and worse case being small, random transfers.
The Kingston KC3000 also performed well across all of the CrystalDiskMark tests. The drive offered excellent sequential reads and writes and some of the best random 4K performance of the bunch, regardless of queue depth.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Game Level Load Times
We also tested game level load times using the Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker benchmark. This tool loads an array of different game levels during its graphics benchmark and outputs the average result when complete.
The Kingston KC3000 trailed all of the other drives we tested here, save for the Phison E18 B47R reference drive. That said, we're only talking about a fraction of a second difference, averaged out over all of the game levels tested.
Futuremark's PCMark 10 Storage Test
We like PCMark 10's new quick storage benchmark module for its real-world application measurement approach to testing. PCMark offers a trace-based measurement of system response times and bandwidth under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system use cases.
In the trace-based PCMark tests, the Innogrit-based ADATA SSDs clearly led the pack and offered the highest scores and measured bandwidth, with the lowest latency. The KC3000 outran Samsung SSD 980 Pro, however.
Our Verdict: Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4 SSD
There has been a consistent influx of high-end SSDs lately, especially after Sony’s recent update to the PS5 which enabled the use of M.2 drives on the console. We’ve looked at some killer drives too, and compared the Kingston KC3000 to some of the best performers we’ve come across. In light of some of the best performing PCIe Gen 4 drives currently on the market, the Kingston KC3000 doesn’t lead the pack across the board, but the drive does offer excellent performance nonetheless. The KC300’s sequential performance is especially strong, as is its consistently low latency, and excellent random 4K reads and writes (at a variety of queue depths).
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