Kitguru(and others) push out a 240gb AMD SSD review (updated)

[Brainless906]

SOURCE

 

The first review I've seen is out!

 

TL;DR - Its pretty fast, faster then the 840 for the most part, but its a little spendy(~49.95USD or 30EU more)

 

""AMD's first SSD product, the Radeon R7 SSD is built in conjunction with OCZ. AMD more or less slapped their sticker on a OCZ Vector 150, that's downclocked and using slightly newer flash chips.This doesn't have to be a bad thing" - Techpowerup

 

 

 

"The biggest challenge for AMD will be taking market share from leading drives in the enthusiast sector. There is no doubt the R7 Series 240GB is faster than the ever popular Samsung 840 EVO 250GB, but it is going to ship with a price premium.

At time of publication the Samsung 840 EVO 250GB is available on Amazon for £83.99($139.77) inc vat, after dropping from an original retail price of £145($241.44) inc vat. AMD told us the R7 Series 240GB model will ship at £97.46($162.11) pre VAT, so we would expect to see this drive for sale between £115($191.37) and £120($199.81) in the UK. So around £30($49.95) more than the Samsung 840 EVO 250GB.

 

The 480GB version of the AMD R7 Series drive will be released for £177.68($295.99) pre vat, or around £213($354.30) inc vat when it hits UK stores. The Samsung 840 EVO 500GB has dropped in price recently to £159.99($266.24) inc vat. AMD’s larger R7 SSD is therefore around £53($88.20) more expensive.

I feel the AMD R7 Series 240GB SSD deserves to sell well, but the pricing may be an issue for the company, especially as the enthusiast user is determined to get the best possible price for a fast, large capacity drive."

 

 

So that's a thing i guess...still wish the money would have gone to a new CPU or Socket development...

 

EDIT: Cleaned up the post, added more graphs, added spoilers so not to spam, converted to USD for us lazy folk in the colonies

EDIT 2: Added conclusions from other reviews as i find them, sorry about all the edits! Just trying to make an informative post

 

Full Review)  Guru3d Conclusion- "Now this is an OCZ product with an AMD sticker on it, period. However AMD made a very smart move to partner up with OCZ Storage Solutions. See, OCZ anno 2014 delivers incredibly fast and reliable SSDs and I consider OCZ to be a Tier1 high quality SSD manufacturer these days. Especially now that they are owned by Toshiba it really makes all the difference. OCZ will also bring in the entire experience, from durability, endurance, encryption compatibility, blazing fast performance and of course reliability. The Radeon R7 SSD series is testimony of that as it is among the fastest and most sweet SATA3 SSDs we have tested to date. No compromises are made with this Radeon R7 series, it is all about endurance, reliability and super fast performance. You also receive the entire fun bundle, including a 3.5" bracket and great Acronis Clone backup software so that you can clone your HDD in your laptop or PC and install your complete OS on the SSD. AMD will give you four years warranty with these SSDs rated at 30GB writes per day 365 days a year. That's close to 44 TB written. Make no mistake as that's not an EOL value, I mean this SSD will probably pass 15 years of usage with these writes. Pricing wise the product is competitive though it could to be a tiny notch better. AMD will release three models with the following prices:

(

• 74.99 EURO for the 120GB
• 122.06 EURO for the 240GB
• 195.75 EURO for the 480GB

These MSRP prices are ex VAT though. 

The Radeon R7 series SSDs are being placed into a highly competitive and saturated market, and that is not making your purchasing choices any less difficult. IMHO I find this model to be good to almost exceptional. Both read and write performance at all fronts are incredible and that certainly does warrant a price that is a tiny hint higher. But consumers show no remorse, they do seek the lowest price per GB and care less about quality and endurance. So let me reiterate that on the long term this SSD will retain its very fast performance where cheaper models and brands will spiral downwards over time. You also receive Acronis Disk Clone backup software included which is 40 bucks extra value. Last words, the AMD Radeon R7 SSD series is very fast, has a greatly refined Barefoot controller with accompanying firmware and Toshiba's latest A19nm NAND flash memory. It is a product you'll like and use for a long time. I also dare to state that it is one of the most reliable product on the market anno 2014, combined with the excellent new ShieldPlus warranty this is a pure win in our book, and as such it comes very much recommended by Guru3D.com

 

(Full Review) Techpowerups Conclusion - (8.0/10) "AMD's first SSD product, the Radeon R7 SSD is built in conjunction with OCZ. AMD more or less slapped their sticker on a OCZ Vector 150, that's downclocked and using slightly newer flash chips. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. AMD has no knowledge about SSDs, while OCZ has been at it for many years. With the acquisition of OCZ by Toshiba, the company has gained access to new knowledge and the ability to source NAND flash chips from their own mother company. AMD on the other hand, with their vast customer network can bring OCZ's products into new markets and approach new customers, like big system integrators. Also AMD fanboys will rejoice at the ability to now purchase storage from their favourite company.

Our synthetic testing shows good results for the Radeon R7 SSD, ending up right where AMD wants it positioned, between OCZ Vertex 460 and Vector 150, sometimes exceeding the latter. However, when we look at our extensive real-life testing, the picture changes. The drive is still close in performance to Vertex and Vector, but usually a tiny little bit slower (2% on average). I have no idea why that is, I've rerun the tests several times with unchanged results, maybe the firmware has been optimized a bit too much in the wrong direction. Considering AMD's "R7" branding, which sits below the highest class "R9", the drive is in a position where I would have expected it. Slightly above Sandforce drives, right in the bulk of competing SSDs, 5-6% behind the top-end drives from Crucial, Samsung and Toshiba.
AMD has set the MSRP of their Radeon R7 SSD at $164, which seems a bit high, considering you can find plenty of drives on the market that are both faster and cheaper. The use of additional 16 GB of overprovisioning might help steady state performance but hurts the GB per Dollar metric. On the other hand, AMD's four-year warranty (handled through OCZ) is better than what we find on the cheap budget drives."

 

(Full Review)  Gizmodos conclusion - "

The drives’ designs are nice, the in-box inclusions are good, and performance is up to expectations. AMD’s warranty advantage is a great differentiator in the competitive space in which the R7 SSD competes — it’s not something that most people would think to look at, but when you’re picking an SSD its reliability should be at the forefront of your mind; that’s why AMD’s four-year warranty is appreciated. Whether you’re an AMD fan or an Intel junkie, you won’t find too much to dislike about the R7."

 

(Full Review) Tweaktowns Final thoughts - "Performance wise, the new A19 flash paired with the Indilinx Barefoot 3 M00 controller is an excellent package. When it comes to core performance, sequential and random reads and writes, as well as performance under heavy loads, the architecture is solid. The Radeon R7 also has very low latency, and for gamers, this should matter more than any other metric. The sequential reads are also high, so your game loading levels will fly by in record time.

 

The Barefoot 3 controller is showing its age though, there are some areas where OCZ as a whole needs to make improvements. AMD doesn't have DEVSLP in the company's chipsets, but it's not like SATA is a proprietary interconnect that only AMD has access to. DEVSLP is a non issue for desktop users, and if you are gaming on a notebook, you don't expect long battery life while gaming anyhow, but it would have still been a nice feature to have. The feature has become standard and Haswell based notebooks with DEVSLP have become popular.

 

From a strictly gaming perspective though, the Radeon R7 has what you need where you need it"

 

(FULL REVIEW) Bit-Tech Final thoughts - "The gaming-focussed marketing is a bit misleading (as it often is), as it won't make your games run or load faster than the MX100 or SSD 840 Evo (in fact, they might even load a touch slower as the PCMark 7 results suggests). That said, if you're likely to be running the SSD close to full capacity and often like to record footage while playing with services like Raptr or Nvidia's ShadowPlay, then the steady state and mixed workload performance will both be of benefit. The slightly longer warranty and higher endurance compared to entry level drives also can't hurt, but we do feel that for this price users are being left a little short changed with the exclusion of power loss protection and especially hardware level encryption, as these are features found in significantly cheaper drives."

 

(Full review) The SSD Reviews final thoughts - "

As much as we like this controller, however, there were a few minor observations that we noticed, the most obvious being the low write 4K speed we observed in ATTO and we might liked to have seen the PCMark Vantage Total score just a bit higher.  Then again, these are individual benchmarks and there is good reason why we include a battery of tests rather than just relying on one or two.  Overall, performance of the AMD Radeon R7 was definitely right up there with specifications and features such as 256-bit AES encryption, endurance of 30GB per day in drive writes, along with the 4 year warranty, make this an SSD to definitely have a close look at."

AMD’s Radeon R7 SSDs are, all told, a pretty appealing piece of technology. They’re not especially expensive, but they offer performance that should be more than good enough for the vast majority of system builders and PC enthusiasts — and, of course, they’re worlds faster than even the best spinning disk hard drives. As with every other SSD I’ve seen, I’m inclined to recommend the mid-weight 240GB version purely because of its compromise between price and spec, although the 480GB would be tempting if you don’t have additional storage elsewhere in your system.

[Askew]

So it's just an OCZ drive with an AMD sticker?

 

Your link is the last page btw

[Sidiox]

I bit more expensive then I expected. Still just a top end SSD, of which we already have so many. I don't really think there was any need on the market for this. But hey it is great for an all AMD system, now we just need MOBO's

[ShadowCaptain]

so...

 

its an ssd

[vern021]

I bit more expensive then I expected. Still just a top end SSD, of which we already have so many. I don't really think there was any need on the market for this. But hey it is great for an all AMD system, now we just need MOBO's

MOBO, fans, cpu cooler and case to be exact

[Brainless906]

so...

 

its an ssd

 

no...its an AMD ssd...so we can make fun of it and say it can make toast or something...

 

 

but yah...its just an ssd....

[Eniqmatic]

Just curious, am I missing something that it's not being compared to the Samsung 850 evo?

[Brainless906]

MOBO, fans, cpu cooler and case to be exact

 

XFX is an AMD only GPU brand so closeenough.jpg?

 

Also if we count stock coolers....

[Epis]

I'm kinda impressed actually. I thought it was going to be a disappointing, slow cheapo drive. I want to see what the R9 SSDs will bring to the table, if they decide to make them.

[Brainless906]

Just curious, am I missing something that it's not being compared to the Samsung 850 evo?

Beats the 840 in the AS SSD test. Gets beaten by the 840 in the ATTO Disk Benchmarks

[Brainless906]

I'm kinda impressed actually. I thought it was going to be a disappointing, slow cheapo drive. I want to see what the R9 SSDs will bring to the table, if they decide to make them.

 

Yah but if its just competing with the 840 do you really think they have the tech to overthrow it? something makes me have my doubts that amd will come out with a faster SSD before Samsung, but i guess magic has happened before

[Sidiox]

MOBO, fans, cpu cooler and case to be exact

Well I was talking more about core components, which I don't consider case and fans to be, and doesn't AMD have a stock CPU cooler? (idk)

[Misanthrope]

so...

its an ssd

For some reason, those are my exact thoughts as well lol

[ShadowCaptain]

For some reason, those are my exact thoughts as well lol

 

I mean if they brought out some kickass PCI SSD that blew everyone away I might care

 

But its just like any other normal SSD but has AMD written on it

[Misanthrope]

I mean if they brought out some kickass PCI SSD that blew everyone away I might care

But its just like any other normal SSD but has AMD written on it

Aye I'd like that or m.2 but it wouldn't go well with the outdated amd mobos I guess.

Still if they are on sale I'd get one, but I suspect bigger guys like adata will have better sales anyway

[Eniqmatic]

But the 850 pro is faster than the 840 however only a few £ more expensive. Why don't they compare it to that?

[Brainless906]

But the 850 pro is faster than the 840 however only a few £ more expensive. Why don't they compare it to that?

"The R7 is going to draw in the mass market of mid-range gamers who want faster League Of Legends and Dota 2 load times, but it’s not going to draw away the Sandisk Extreme Pro and Samsung 850 pro buyers."

 

from Gizmodos review, they are the only ones to mention the 850 so far....

[Victorious Secret]

This is a AMD lovers wet dream. AMD everything system.

 

Holy crap. 

 

You could melt the polar ice caps with such a creation. 

 

Does the SSD come with a head spreader and a AIO cooler? 

[Eniqmatic]

"The R7 is going to draw in the mass market of mid-range gamers who want faster League Of Legends and Dota 2 load times, but it’s not going to draw away the Sandisk Extreme Pro and Samsung 850 pro buyers."

 

from Gizmodos review, they are the only ones to mention the 850 so far....

Ahh OK!

[Eniqmatic]

This is a AMD lovers wet dream. AMD everything system.

 

Holy crap. 

 

You could melt the polar ice caps with such a creation. 

 

Does the SSD come with a head spreader and a AIO cooler? 

Lulz

[Brainless906]

This is a AMD lovers wet dream. AMD everything system.

 

Holy crap. 

 

You could melt the polar ice caps with such a creation. 

 

Does the SSD come with a head spreader and a AIO cooler? 

 

 

Dont be dumb, It comes with venting to tie straight into your central air heat ducts obviously....

[Brainless906]

Tweaktown just threw into the pile of reviews (which i've linked to in the original post) and they seem to think the pricing is actually ok for the most part, kinda going against most of the other reviews saying its a bit high

 

"AMD's pricing scheme for launch is solid, as long as the lower capacity size models go down a bit after a few weeks. In this review, we mentioned the SanDisk Extreme II and it's current price, but that drive is EOL, and should be all sold out soon. Once E II is out of the way, the Radeon R7 240GB that we tested today will look even better at $163.99. Maybe by that time the R7 will drop a bit more in price, making it one of the best value drives on the market. Looking at the prices, the Radeon R7 480GB is already a good buy at $289.99. Again, there are a lot of drives in that capacity size, but only three or four drives are faster, and they all cost significantly more for a modest performance increase."

 

They do seem to think it could come down a little bit but are one of the first kind of defend its price positioning

[Humbug]

so it's a Good performer, that's great. But Why did they have to use their GPU branding on this? It's not like the R7 name is some famous brand which is going to help push SSDs off the shelves Either.. so I'm not sure What they were thinking. Does it mean there is another high end R9 model coming to compete with the 850 pro?

[bbqsauce]

so it's a Good performer, that's great. But Why did they have to use their GPU branding on this? It's not like the R7 name is some famous brand which is going to help push SSDs off the shelves Either.. so I'm not sure What they were thinking. Does it mean there is another high end R9 model coming to compete with the 850 pro?

it's the radeon branding, same with their ram, so i guess it somewhat makes sense?

[Brainless906]

it's the radeon branding, same with their ram, so i guess it somewhat makes sense?

 

Honestly fanboys will fanboy and i can easily list 3 or 4 people i personally know that would buy this even if it was a little more just because of the AMD/Radeon branding. That in combo with the fact that its literally just an OZC drive with a sticker on it makes me think the deal didnt cost a whole lot and is just seen as a potential way to make a bit of money. AMD gets money for lending out branding and may also gain if its a success and OZC gets an big gaming brand behind the drive that my push more drive sales then if it wasnt there.

 

Worst case scenario they dont make a ton. Best case people love it and they come out with an R9 series to reap in more profit.