Lexar NM710 review: A budget workhorse
Dexerto The Lexar NM710 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD promises good performance at an affordable price. But, with NVMe SSD prices crashing, is it still worth the compromise?
Getting an NVMe SSD for your PC or Laptop is getting a whole lot easier. There are more options than ever on the market right now, and you can get high-capacity drives for cheaper than ever before. We’ve previously looked at their higher-end efforts, but their lower-end NM710 also boasts quick speeds, but does it still match up to other drives you can pick up at around the same price point?
- Capacity: 2TB
- Form factor: M.2 2280
- Max sequential read: 4850 MB/s
- Max sequential write: 4500 MB/s
- Warranty: 5 years
- Price: £79.99
Design
Dexerto The Lexar NM710 comes in a standard 2280 format, meaning that you will be able to slot it into just about anything that receives a longer SSD. The gum-stick form factor allows you to attach more storage to your PC without the need to hook up any pesky SATA wires. However, the lower Gen4 performance of the drive will not allow you to use the drive on the PlayStation 5, so you should look elsewhere if you want a faster one.
Sporting four 512GB chips covered by a sticker, the NM710 doesn’t do much to stand out visually from the rest of the pack, but those running motherboards with an exposed NVMe slot will be happy to know that the PCB is also black, meaning it won’t stick out like a sore thumb, unlike some other drives out there on the market.
Performance
The Lexar NM710 isn’t anything too special when it comes to rated speeds, its rated sequential read and write speeds are firmly closer to the bottom of the pack when it comes to PCIe Gen 4 SSDs, and the higher-end NM790 will be able to net you much better performance. But, with that in mind, the cheaper NM710 is by no means slow.
You still get a great read and write speed which will blaze through even the biggest of files in a matter of minutes, as we put the drive through the wringer in CrystalDiskMark.
CrystalDiskMark results
- Sequential Read: 4461 MB/s
- Sequential Write: 4345 MB/s
The drive just about falls within the rated speeds advertised on Lexar’s website, for the 2TB model which we received. But, be warned, the 500GB variant of the drive has a much lower sequential read speed. We were happy to see our Baldur’s Gate 3 install move between our internal storage drives in a rapid fashion, especially when compared to older PCIe Gen 3 devices.
The drive does get quite hot under heavier loads, which is potentially why we saw slightly reduced speeds. We observed the drive reaching just above 72 degrees celsius for the duration of our testing, which is well within the safe operational ranges for the device.
Is it good for gaming?
The Lexar NM710 will be perfectly adequate for gaming, with near 5000 MB/s speeds observed in real-life testing scenarios. It’s not the fastest drive on the market, but it’s also incredibly competitive price-wise. So, if budget is a concern for you, it’s more than likely that you won’t be missing out on too much when choosing this drive over a 7000 MB/s drive that is slightly more expensive.
The lack of PlayStation 5 support is disappointing, and it could have been a great budget option. But. it falls just below the required speeds, sadly.
The Verdict: 3/5
If you’re looking for the fastest drive on the market, the Lexar NM710 might not be for you. However, it does offer good performance. But, with the prices of NVMe storage crashing, you could get that extra performance from a rival brand for just $20-30 more. But, if you’re a budget-conscious gamer, it won’t really get better than this. Just remember that you’ll need to pick up an additional heatsink to keep those temperatures under control, too.
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