Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB Unboxing Review / Graphene Aluminum Heatsink, Sequential Read/Write 7000 MB/s

The Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD with thin graphene aluminum heatsink has become a competitive SSD in this year's NVMe SSD price crash, and is often discounted in sales channels, making it a popular choice for installations. It uses PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe controller and 3D TLC NAND chips. Using PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe controllers and 3D TLC NAND chips, the SSDs are available in capacities ranging from 512GB to 4TB, and boast sequential read/write speeds of 7,000 MB/s.

Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB Spec:
Interface: PCI-Express 4.0 x4
NVMe: 1.4
Interface format: M.2 2280
Sequential read speed: 7000 MB/s
Sequential Write Speed: 7000 MB/s
Random read speed: 1,000,000 IOPS
Random Write Speed: 1000000 IOPS
Capacity options: 512GB, 1024GB, 2048GB, 4096GB
Controller: Phison PS5018-E18-41
NAND Flash: 3D TLC NAND Flash
Cache: Kingston Embedded DRAM DDR4 2GB
Size: 80 x 22 x 3.5 mm
Warranty: 5-year limited warranty
Durability: 1.6 PBW

Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB Unboxed

Kingston launched the KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD in mid-2022, which is a step down from the FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD in terms of specifications and price positioning, and the KC3000 belongs to the high-end and mainstream consumer products, but in fact, the KC3000 itself is not a big difference in specifications from the FURY Renegade. Renegade, the KC3000 is a high-end and mainstream consumer product.

The Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD with a capacity of 2TB/2048GB is in this unboxing. Besides 2TB, there are also 512GB, 1TB, and 4TB to choose from, and the specifications will vary depending on the version of the storage capacity, so the author is going to introduce it based on the 2TB capacity that I have in my hands today.

The Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB boasts sequential read and write performance of up to 7000 MB/s using the M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x4 NNME interface. The warranty consists of a five-year limited warranty and a total number of 1.6 PBW of data written to the SSD. According to the math, users need to write more than 876 GB per day for five years to exceed the 1.6 PBW of data written in five years.

∆ Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB SSD.

∆ The one-time package includes a free key for Acronis True Image, a disk backup software, which can be used.

In order to facilitate the expansion of PCs, laptops, and small-sized SFF systems while maintaining a certain degree of heat dissipation to keep the SSDs stable and not overheat, the KC3000 is pre-patched with a thin graphene aluminum alloy heat sink, which allows the SSDs to operate at the safest temperatures during use.

The Thin Graphene Aluminum Alloy Heat Sink can be used directly with other heat sinks, such as motherboards or other unauthorized heat sinks, if the heat sink itself has a heat conductor, it can be used directly with the heat sink, so there is no need to remove the Thin Graphene Aluminum Alloy Heat Sink for actual use.

Removing the thin graphene aluminum heat sink will result in loss of warranty, and may also uproot chips such as storage chips, so gamers can just use it directly.

∆ Thin Graphene Aluminum Heat Sink can be used directly with motherboard heat sink.

∆The bottom label does not need to be removed either; removing it voids the warranty.

The ∆ Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB version is a dual-sided particle setup.

However, as an unboxing editor, I had to remove the heat sinks and show you the SSD's main controller and storage chips, even at the expense of the SSD's warranty! Sorry about the warranty...goodbye forever.

The main controller is a Phison PS5018-E18-41 with Kingston 8Gbit DRAM (D5116AN9CXGRK) underneath. There is also a 8Gbit DRAM on the back side as well as the front side, so there is a total of 2GB of cache, and there are a total of eight 3D TLC cells on the front and back side of the storage cells.

∆ Warranty is renewed.

∆ Phison PS5018-E18-41 main control, 2GB DRAM.

The ∆ KC3000 back configuration is essentially the same as the front.

Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB Performance Testing

The test platform uses an Intel i9 12900K processor with a GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS MASTER motherboard and a Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB installed in the first slot of the motherboard in the M2M_CPU mounting location, with a full PCIe Gen 5 x4 bandwidth provided by the processor's direct channel. x4 bandwidth from the processor's direct channel to conduct the performance test. However, since the Kingston KC3000 is a PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, the motherboard automatically adjusts the bandwidth downward to PCIe Gen 4 x4. In addition, the performance of the test may vary due to the SSD's firmware version, the system's hardware configuration, and other factors, so the results are only provided as a reference.

Testing Platform
Processor: Intel Core i9 12900K
Cooler: darkFlash TWISTER DX 360 Ver2.6
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS MASTER
Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade RGB 6000 MT/s 16GBx2
Graphics: MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GAMING Z TRIO
Operating System: Windows 11 Professional 21H2
Test Drive: Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB (formatted empty)
System Drive: WD BLUE 3D NAND SATA M.2 2280 SSD 500GB
Gaming Disk: Intel 670P 2TB M.2 2280 PCIe SSD (Solidigm)
Power Supply: MONTECH TITAN GOLD 1200W
Case: STREACOM BC1 Benchtable V2
Graphics driver: GeForce Game Ready 532.03

The first step is to use CrystalDiskInfo software to view the basic information of the Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB, which utilizes PCIe 4.0 x4 transfer mode and NVM Express 1.4 standard, with support for features such as S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, and VolatileWriteCache. It supports S.M.A.R.T., TRIM, and VolatileWriteCache, and has a standby temperature of 27°C with the Thermal Guard III SSD heatsink included on the motherboard.

1.86 TB can be used after ∆ formatting.

∆ The standby temperature is 27 °C, but for some reason CrystalDiskInfo still fails to show the transfer mode after updating.

The Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB was tested in an empty disk using CrystalDiskMark software. In the default mode, the test file size was set to 1GiB, and the read/write speeds were 7038.03 MB/s and 6992.23 MB/s. The test file size was set to 1GiB, and the read/write speeds were 7038.03 MB/s and 6992.23 MB/s respectively.

The Q8T1 test result in the first column represents a thread with eight queue depths, which means that there are eight 1MB-sized accesses in the worklist waiting to be accessed. This corresponds to a real situation, such as reading or writing eight 1MB files from or to a hard disk at the same time, which is generally less likely to be done in general.

∆ CrystalDiskMark default mode 1GiB profile test result.

For daily use or for gamers, the QD1 to QD4 range is a good reference. If we switch the CrystalDiskMark profile to real-world performance, the first column will be Q1T1. Although the result will be a bit lower than the Q8T1, it will be more in line with the actual performance of the daily use experience.

The reason for this is that most of the daily operating systems use the Q1T1, which is a queue-depth mode with one thread, so the Q1T1 is more in line with daily use than the Q8T1. The read/write speeds of the test files in the Q1T1 mode are 4214.39 MB/s and 6167.88 MB/s with the file size set to 1GiB.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Real World Mode 1GiB profile test results.

Turning on the CrystalDiskMark Random Access default project, the results of the RND4K Q32T16 project are 517980.71 IOPS and 1533444 IOPS for read/write speeds. The RND4K Q32T16 operates with 16 queue depths out of 32 threads, and the file type is Random Access for 4 KB size files. The file type is a random access 4 KB size file written to or read from the SSD.

∆ CrystalDiskMark RND4K Q32T16 test results.

ATTO Disk Benchmark was then used to test the sequential read/write performance and stability of different file sizes, with maximum values of 6.36 GB/s for writing and 6.58 GB/s for reading.

∆ ATTO Disk Benchmark.

The performance of writing and reading professional video multimedia files was tested using the AJA System Test to simulate the scenarios. The settings were set to 5120×2700 5K RED format 64GB and 1GB files, and the final scores were 5960 MB/s writing and 6066 MB/s reading for 1GB, and 5768 MB/s writing and 6033 MB/s reading for the 64GB mode. The 64GB mode was 5768 MB/s written and 6033 MB/s read.

∆ AJA System Test 1GB.

∆ AJA System Test 64GB.

TxBENCH is now tested in the default test file 512MB mode, and the results are 6764.359 MB/s for Read and 6979.937 MB/s for Write.

∆ TxBENCH Default test file 512MB mode results.

The 3DMark Storage Benchmark test uses game startup loading, game file copying, game archiving, game installation, and OBS game recording for testing. The scenarios mainly use a number of games to conduct actual tests, so that gamers can clearly refer to the performance of the hard disk in terms of gaming usage. The higher the storage benchmark score, the better.

∆ 3DMark Storage Benchmark Test.

PCMARK 10 was used to test the performance of both types of storage. The Full System Drive Benchmark uses a range of everyday applications and software to test hard drive performance in real-world usage scenarios, achieving a bandwidth of 581.14 MB/s with an average access time of 48 µs and a total test score of 3563.

The Data Drive Benchmark is a test that focuses on data disks used for storing files, and can also be used to test NAS, USB, and memory card related storage devices. The bandwidth of the test was 877.65 MB/s, with an average access time of 27 µs, and a total score of 5838 points. The final total test score was 5838.

∆ PCMARK 10 Full System Drive Benchmark.

∆ PCMARK 10 Data Drive Benchmark.

Finally, AIDA64 was used to conduct the Read Test Suite, Linear Read, and Linear Write tests. The Read Test Suite mainly uses Linear Read, Random Read, and Buffered Read to test the read performance of the hard disk through these three read methods.

∆ AIDA64 Read Test Suite reads the performance combination test.

AIDA64's Linear Read and Linear Write full disk read/write tests will read/write the hard disk's MAX capacity large files for users to observe its read/write stability. In the Linear Read test, the hard disk maintains an average read speed of about 5320.6 MB/s, while in the Linear Write test, when it reaches the end of the test, the cache is exhausted and the overall write speed drops to a minimum of 917.8 MB/s until the test is almost finished. In the Linear Write test, after exhausting the cache at 39%, the write speed drops to a minimum of 917.8 MB/s until the end of the test, then it rises to around 3600~3700 MB/s, and the overall write speed averages at 3255.1 MB/s, which means that unless the user writes a large file of 780GB or more at one time, he or she will be able to enjoy the high speed of sequential write performance of around 5900 MB/s.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Read.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Write.

During all of the above tests, the author used the HWinfo64 software to record the maximum temperature of the hard disk after passing all of the tests. There are two temperature sensors that can be read in HWinfo64, Drive Temperature (1) is the current hard disk temperature up to 48 °C and Drive Temperature 3 up to 54 °C. The maximum temperature of the hard disk is 48 °C and the maximum temperature is 54 °C. The maximum temperature of the hard disk is 48 °C and the maximum temperature is 54 °C.

∆ HWinfo64 Temperature Sensor View.

Conclusion

The Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD with thin graphene aluminum alloy thermal pads, with storage capacity up to 4TB, is tested to be in line with its mainstream product positioning, and it can almost reach the 7000 MB/s sequential read/write on Z790 and 12900K platforms, and it also performs well with the motherboard's thermal pads. With the motherboard's own heat sink, the temperature performance is also quite good.

The KC3000 comes with a 5-year and 1.6 PBW limited warranty, which means that if you write more than 876 GB per day for five years, you will be able to write more than 1.6 PBW in five years. It is impossible for the average consumer and user to write this amount of data, so gamers can feel confident in using the KC3000. Therefore, gamers can rest assured to use it.