Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD Unboxing Review

The Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD is finally here! The Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD utilizes the SMI SM2508 controller chip, paired with Micron's 2GB of physical DRAM cache and Toshiba's 218L 3D TLC chips to effectively reduce heat and power consumption. The 218L 3D TLC chipset reduces heat and power consumption, and is available in 1TB / 2TB / 4TB capacities with up to 14,800MB/s read and 14,000MB/s write speeds, and comes with a five-year warranty and 2 petabytes (2,048 terabytes) of total bits written (TBW).

Kingston FURY Renegade G5 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB Specifications:

Interface: PCI-Express 5.0 x4
NVMe: 2.0
Interface format: M.2 2280
Continuous read speed: 14700 MB/s
Continuous Write Speed: 14000 MB/s
Capacity options: 1TB / 2TB / 4TB
Controller: SMI SM2508
NAND Flash: Toshiba Toshiba 218L 3D TLC chips
DRAM Cache: Micron LPDDR4 SDRAM-2133 MHz (4266 Mb/s) 2GB (16Gb)
Dimensions: 80 x 22 x 2.3 mm
Warranty: 5-year limited warranty
TBW Durability: 2 PB (2048 TB)

Temperatures can be kept down with a motherboard heatsink! Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB SSD Unboxing

After a long time since the introduction of PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs, Kingston has finally mass-produced and sold its first PCIe Gen5 x4 SSD in Q2 this year! Early on, the author unboxed the PCIe Gen4 x4 FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB、KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs、Kingston NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD 2TB At the time of COMPUTEX 2024, I have been asking Kingston when they will release PCIe Gen5 x4 SSDs. However, at COMPUTEX 2024, there was only the Qunlian E26 solution, and Kingston thought that the heat generated by the host controller was too high, so they didn't rush to release PCIe Gen5 x4 SSDs.

At COMPUTEX 2025, Wisepac's Silicon Motion SM2508 solution products, which utilize the advanced 6nm process, have been popping up in mass production and sale by various storage brands, including Kingston.

Kingston's first PCIe Gen5 x4 SSD for consumer products, the FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, uses the Huyong SMI SM2508 Solution paired with Toshiba 218L 3D TLC chips. The author asked Kingston PM at the booth this year, “Will the FURY Renegade G5 be as popular as the FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB Is there an aluminum alloy heatsink version to choose from? The answer is: "No, because this model will be mainly used with the motherboard's own heatsink, which is more in line with the current market habits.

According to the facts, Kingston has made the right choice. The Phison PS5026-E26-52 and InnoGrit IG5666 Solutions launched by various brands in the early stage were not well received by the market, while the SMI SM2508 Solution, which has a better continuous read/write performance with a lower heat output, attracts more attention from gamers now. Consumers are more likely to use the motherboard's own heatsink than the SSD's own heatsink, simply because of the PC's overall installation.

∆ Kingston Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Solid State Drive.

 

The Kingston FURY Renegade G5 uses the PCI-Express 5.0 x4 bandwidth interface, which is also known as PCIe Gen5 x4, and comes in 1TB / 2TB / 4TB capacities. Each capacity has different sequential read/write performance: 4TB (14,800 sequential reads / 14,000MB/s sequential writes), 2TB (14,700 sequential reads / 14,000MB/s sequential writes), and 1TB (14,200 sequential reads / 11,000MB/s sequential writes).

The capacity version has a single-sided particle layout and appears to use a plain sticker on the front, with no mention of a thin graphene aluminum heat sink patch on the official website as before, and a black and white sticker on the back with the usual relevant information.

Front view of the ∆ Kingston FURY Renegade G5.

∆Black and white sticker on the back.

 

It is powered by TSMC's 6nm Wisepac - Silicon Motion (SMI) SM2508 controller chip. The 2TB capacity in this unboxing is in a single-sided die layout, with the SM2508G AC controller chip on the front, Micron Micron Technology Inc.'s LPDDR4 SDRAM - 2133 MHz (4266 Mb/s) 2GB (16Gb) DRAM Cache chip, two Toshiba 218L 3D TLC cells, and a single DRAM Cache chip of 16Gb. 2133 MHz (4266 Mb/s) 2GB (16Gb) DRAM cache chips, two Toshiba 218L 3D TLC chips, and a single 16Gb (Gigabit) DRAM cache chip, which translates to 2GB (Gigabyte).

The Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD comes with a five-year warranty and a Tera Bytes Written (TBW) of 2 PB (2048 TB), with DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day) using 1.86 TB=1904 GB. Using 1.86 TB=1904 GB, this translates to 1095.89 GB or 57.5% of hard disk capacity being written to the SSD every day for five years to exceed the nominal TBW value.

∆Silicon Motion's (SMI) SM2508 main controller chip utilizes a single-sided die layout.

The ∆ Entity DRAM Cache is Micron Micron's 4ZB75 D8CSC (MT53E512M32D1ZW-046 WT:B) with LPDDR4 SDRAM-2133 MHz (4266 Mb/s) 2GB (16Gb) specification.

∆ FP01T08UCT1-65 S2610-4177387 152891GS-AS-1G for TLC pellets.

∆The Toshiba Toshiba 218L(218-layer) 3D TLC chips can be seen through the SSD utils software.

∆ When you look at the side, the height of the TLC particles will be a little higher than the SMI main control.

 

Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Performance Tests

Testing Platform Usage AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D The processor is paired with a GIGABYTE B650I AORUS ULTRA motherboard and the Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD is installed in the first slot of the motherboard, M2B_CPU, which is provided with full PCIE Gen5 x4 bandwidth by the processor's direct channel for performance testing. The performance of the SSDs may vary depending on the firmware version of the SSDs, system hardware configuration, and other factors, so these results are for reference only.

Testing Platform

Processor:AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (PBO AUTO)
Radiator:LIAN LI GA II LITE 360 RGB(full speed)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE B650I AORUS ULTRA (BIOS version: F35)
Memory: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5 6000 MT/s 32GB (2x 16GB) CL 26-36-36-96 1.45V
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition 8GB
Operating System: Windows 11 Professional 24H2
System Drive: Kingston A2000 NVMe PCIe SSD 500GB
Test Drive: Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (formatted empty)
Power supply:LIAN LI SP850
Chassis:Streacom BC1 Mini V1 ITX Open Benchtable

 

The first step is to use CrystalDiskInfo software to view the basic information of the M.2 SSD, which uses PCIe 5.0 x4 transfer mode and NVM Express 2.0 standard, and supports features such as S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology), TRIM, and VolatileWriteCache, and the firmware version tested by the author is SGW00110. The firmware version tested by the author is SGW00110.

∆ formatted and converted to different bit system units can use 1.86 TB.

∆ CrystalDiskInfo software view information.

 

Use with empty disk CrystalDiskMark The software was used to test the read/write performance of the M.2 SSD. The test file size was set to 1GiB in NVMe SSD configuration mode, and the sequential read/write speeds measured in the default profile were 14781 MB/s and 13282 MB/s. The software was used to test the read/write performance of the M.2 SSD, with the file size set to 1GiB in NVMe SSD configuration mode.

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.

The random read/write performance of the RND4K Q32T16 project is 3074 MB/s and 2473 MB/s.

The RND4K Q32T16 operates with 16 queue depths out of 32 threads, and the file types are random access 4 KB size files written or read into the SSD.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, Sequential Read/Write and Random Read/Write test scores.

 

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 suitable for daily use than the Q8T1. The read/write speeds of the Q1T1 in Q1T1 mode with the test file size set to 1GiB are 9374 MB/s and 9418 MB/s, respectively.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Real World Mode 1GiB profile test results.

 

follow ATTO Disk Benchmark To test the continuous read/write performance and stability of different file sizes, the maximum values are 12.41 GB/s for writing and 13.92 GB/s for reading.

∆ ATTO Disk Benchmark.

 

Professional video multimedia file write and read performance testing using the AJA System Test To simulate the scenario test, the test settings were set at 5120×2700 5K RED format for 64GB and 1GB files, and the Codec Type was 10bit YUV by default. The final results were 11062 MB/s write and 10528 MB/s read for 1GB mode, and 3194 MB/s write and 10952 MB/s read for 64GB mode. In 64GB mode, it was 3194 MB/s written and 10952 MB/s read.

∆ AJA System Test 1GB.

∆ AJA System Test 64GB.

 

Next, through TxBENCH The test was conducted in the default test file 512MB mode and achieved 13904 MB/s for Read and 14138 MB/s for Write.

∆ TxBENCH Default test file 512MB mode results.

 

3DMark Storage BenchmarkingTested with game startup loading, copying game files, game archiving, installing games, and OBS game recording, the scenario mainly uses a number of games for actual testing, so that gamers can clearly refer to the performance of the hard disk in the use of the game, the above test process is recorded in units of time, but the final results are calculated using the bandwidth and the average access time, and the higher the final storage benchmark test score, the better.

∆ 3DMark Storage Benchmark Test.

 

3DMark DirectStorage Feature TestIt can help gamers understand the performance enhancement of PC game loading with Microsoft's DirectStorage technology, a technology introduced by Microsoft for Windows PCs equipped with PCIe SSDs, which reduces the amount of resources consumed when loading game data.

DirectStorage can bring more benefits through BypassIO, which reduces the CPU utilization of the game by minimizing the CPU load when transferring data. When DirectStorage is used in conjunction with GDeflate data compression technology, it can further reduce the game loading time, and GDeflate eventually decompresses game data to VRAM through the GPU, resulting in more transfer bandwidth for better game data transfer efficiency. GDeflate ultimately decompresses game data to VRAM through the GPU, bringing more bandwidth for better game data transfer efficiency.

At the end of the test, three scores are generated. The first is the performance difference between DirectStorage on and off, which is expressed as a percentage. Next is the average bandwidth of game data transfer from SSD to GPU memory (VRAM) with DirectStorage enabled, and finally the average bandwidth of game data transfer from SSD to GPU memory (VRAM) with DirectStorage disabled. The Disabled item score also represents the average bandwidth of standard Windows APIs in transferring game data. The deactivation score also represents the average bandwidth of the standard Windows API for transferring game data.

∆ 3DMark DirectStorage feature test on and off scores improved.

The ∆ 3DMark DirectStorage feature tests the average bandwidth comparison between on and off.

 

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 SSD mostly read around 9201 MB/s on average until the end of the test, which is not bad.

In the Linear Write test, the write speed started to drop when it reached about 41 %, but it would keep trying to recover during the process, with a minimum of about 1144 MB/s, and an average of 9107 MB/s for the overall write, which means that unless the user writes a large file of more than 780 GB at one time, he or she can enjoy the performance of sequential write at about 10,000 MB/s or more. This means that unless the user writes a large file of 780GB or more at one time, they can enjoy a high-speed write performance of more than 10000 MB/s.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Read.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Write.

 

Kingston FURY Renegade G5 SSD Temperature Testing

The next part of the test was the cooling performance, where the platform was mounted on a bare bracket, so the actual cooling effect would be a bit better than in a closed chassis. During the test, all the slots were set to run at full speed in the motherboard's BIOS, and the test scenario was a closed room at 27°C. This is just for reference, as it is difficult to control the ambient temperature in a normal room.

M.2 SSDs were tested with the motherboard's native third-generation thermal armor and active cooling fans, with no additional fans blowing directly on the motherboard for cooling.

The test software still uses CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, but manually adjust the number of times to 9; test file size setting to 64 GiB, some foreign media will set their own scripts to stress test, but the author personally think that Taiwanese gamers are more commonly used. CrystalDiskMark The M.2 SSD software is used to test your own M.2 SSDs, so it would be better to continue using the same software to reproduce the test on your own, in the same way as in the previous M.2 SSDs.Pressurize with All-in-One Water Cooling! What kind of cooler do I need for M.2 PCIE Gen5 SSDs?The article is the same, so you can check it out.

Temperature logging is done by using HWinfo64 software to record the maximum temperature of the hard disk, and manually adjusting the polling cycle in the HWinfo64 software to record the temperature of the M.2 SSD itself in a more real-time manner by adjusting the following settings. Why don't we use CrystalDiskInfo software to record the temperature? Because when there are multiple temperature sensors on an M.2 SSD, CrystalDiskInfo only displays the first sensor in order; sometimes the drive manufacturer will adjust the sensor temperature order so that the master chip is not always first, resulting in viewing temperatures from other locations. Furthermore, CrystalDiskInfo is very slow in updating the temperature sensors, and the difference between the displayed temperature and the actual temperature can be as much as 5~10 °C due to the lack of real-time updating of the temperature sensors.

• Global:20 ms
• Disk SMART every 1 cycle
• Embedded Controller every 1 cycle

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, but manually adjusted the number of tests to 9; the test file size setting was changed to 64 GiB, and the maximum temperature is 52 °C.

 

Conclusion

This time, we tested the Kingston FURY Renegade G5 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, which is the first mass-produced PCIe Gen5 x4 SSD under Kingston, and paired it with GIGABYTE's B650I motherboard to conduct real-world testing in CrystalDiskMark, and the continuous read speed was in line with the official website's specification; The continuous write speed is a bit different, while the opposite is true in the TxBENCH test, but the maximum difference from the labeled specification is less than 800 MB/s, making it a top-tier choice in terms of performance specifications in the current market.

Temperature is the biggest reason why Kingston chose the Huilon SMI SM2508 Solution. The highest temperature was only 52°C when tested with the motherboard's own thermal armor, and no speed degradation was caused by overheating during the test, which is already in line with most people's expectations of PCIe Gen5 x4 SSDs, which is "just install it with the motherboard heatsink and don't overheat it". It meets one of the expectations that most people have for PCIe Gen5 x4 SSDs, which is to "install it with a motherboard heatsink and don't overheat.

 

However, during the AJA System Test 64GB and the thermal performance test arranged by the author, the author found that when the test file size set by the software is larger, the Write performance will be poorer. In CrystalDiskMark Setting:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, the test file is 64 GiB, and the Write performance is about 3000 MB/s for the ninth time. SEQ1M Q8T1 Write speed is around 3000 MB/s. After checking, I confirmed that it is not an overheating problem, so I can only deduce that it is a shortcoming in the operation mechanism.

The DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day) uses 1.86 TB=1904 GB to calculate the amount of data written to the SSD, which means that the SSD will need to write 1095.89 GB or 57.5% of data to exceed the nominal TBW value for every day for five years. GB or 57.5% of the hard disk capacity to exceed the nominal TBW value, basically, it is impossible to exceed it within the scope of normal use, so there is no need to worry.