Netac NV7000-t Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD Review

Introduction

The abundance of flash storage and various providers from controllers to NAND flash has spurred the appearance of multiple companies that are looking to grow in this market. Some currently present brands have went with traditional solutions from known players in the industry but there are also those that are operating purely from what they have. One such brand that represents the latter is Netac. Formed in 1999, they’ve have made a decent portfolio providing flash storage solution such as flash drives and memory cards. They operate mainly as an OEM for other entities but their own consumer line-up has since included gaming memory and high-performance storage.

The Shenzhen-based player, recently launched a variation of their top-end NV7000 SSD: the NV7000-t. While the NV7000 was based on a Phison E18 controller and featured YMTC 176-layer NAND, the NV7000-t that we’re reviewing uses Maxio Technology MAP1602A controller and the newer YMTC 232-layer 3D TLC NAND, a combination we’re seeing more brands adopt to offer more affordable performance options.

Read on to find out more about the Netac NV7000-t SSD.

Features & Specification

• Built with the latest 3D NAND flash technology to bring it greater reliability and performance
• It offers incredible speeds which allows for higher performance in file transfers, material loading, and game reading
• The user can easily access Netas’s own SSD Tool Box Software features

Official product page

Closer Look – Netac NV7000-t

Netac packages the NV7000-t in full colored box with a hero shot of the product in the front. Take note of the box image as the NV7000 has a different box art as well model name printed on the front. The capacity is label in the front with the back of the packakging not holding much info aside from stating that this is a PCIe Gen4x4 device.

Inside teh package we have the distinct graphene heatspreader, some mounting screws and documentation alongside the actual SSD.

The Netac NV7000-t is a standard M.2-2280 form factor device which conforms to most devices out right now. As the Netac NV7000-t does not have a metal heatspreader, you can place this underneath a motherboard shroud.

Available in 512GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, the Netac has a maximum TBW of 1200TB for the 2TB capacity, with the 1TB rated for 640TB and the 512GB at 320TB.  Netac does rate teh drive to perform up to 7300MB/s reads and 6700MB/s write which for its price is an excellent deal. As of this writing, the Netac NV7000-t  1TB retails for $60 and the 2TB at just above $100. Netac is distributed in the Philippines by Millenium.

With consumers becoming more aware of part revisions and how they can affect performance down the line, we include the key components in our SSD reviews. Below are the components used by Netac NV7000-t SSD sample as pictured:

• Controller: Maxio Technology MAP1602A
• Flash: YMTC 232-layer 3D TLC
• DRAM: N/A

Performance Testing – Netac NV7000-t

Test Setup

Processor: Intel Core i9-13900K
Motherboard: ROG Maximus Z690 EXTREME
Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5-6400 32GB (2×16)
Storage: Kingston FURY Renegade SSD (OS), tested drive as listed
PSU: FSP Hydro GT Pro 1000W
Cooling: NZXT Kraken X72 RGB
Monitor: ROG PG27UQ
VGA: MSI RTX 3050 Gaming X

Our sample for this test is the NETAC NV7000-t 1TB capacity version

Crystal DiskMark

CrystalDIskMark has been the most actively updated disk benchmark amongst all the ones we use and is effectively the most reliable. Unfortunately, version to version results are not comparable which limits the ability to extrapolate comparative data. Still its a reliable and direct benchmark. Like the previous, it allows control over test data pattern, the test data size, amount of passes and individual benchmark control.

PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 introduces a set of four storage benchmarks that use relevant real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the latest modern drives.

3DMark Storage Benchmark

The 3DMark Storage Benchmark uses traces recorded from popular games and gaming-related activities to measure real-world gaming performance, such as:

• Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Overwatch® from launch to the main menu.
• Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
• Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
• Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
• Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark

Final Fantasy XIV has a standalone benchmark application for PC, always updated to the latest game expansion with the latest Endwalker benchmark delivering some very nice graphical updates. A long-standing feature of the Final Fantasy XIV standalone benchmark is the loading data is captures which is a summary of all the load times between scenes in the benchmark.

Playstation 5 Testing

The Sony Playstation 5 supports storage expansion thru M.2 devices and many SSD makers are advertising their drives as supporting the Playstation 5. That said, we’ve included PS5 bandwidth testing in our reviews. We use the Playstation 5’s internal read speed test for the primary initialization. Due to how Sony designed this benchmark, our testing averages at least 5 reads with the drive formatted after a rest period for best thermal results.

Conclusion

With Netac pushing for their brand more in recent times as many of our colleagues here in Asia have also received this unit for review, the company is seemingly poised to lift themselves from regional obscurity. While they have had success in the west via Amazon and Aliexpress, growing adoption is the next challenge.

And what more to prove your worth to a market than a competitivley-priced, high-performance SSD like the NV7000-t. Don’t get me wrong, this is as fast as fast can be for Gen4 but it is worth saying this is a DRAM-less SSD and it is no slouch regardless of how you feel about that. DRAM-less SSDs have moved away from their earlier days of choking thru a large copy session and are now a feasible solution for those that require more reads than writes. What this means is that gamers who just need a game and OS drive can take-advantage of the bursty speeds of the Netac NV7000-t and enjoy it for a very decent price compared to the likes of Samsung or many Taiwanese brands.

The NV7000-t does hit a wall when running mixed loads as shown in our 3DMark gaming storage test where it stalls in some of the workloads causing it to the lowest M.2 spot with a total task bandwidth average of 341MB/s. We can see this reflected in our linear write as the drive hits SATA speeds after 300GB of writes with a small recovery period but eventually drops to 650MB/s.

Under normal circumstances, downloading even the entire drive capacity in games would still require a connection that can match the drive’s write buffer and for daily use, the Netac NV7000-t would fare quite better.

Ultimately, the price is where its at for this drive and while you can pick it up now from Amazon or Aliexpress, it should eventually make landfall in more parts of Southeast Asia. If you’re looking for a budget gaming SSD, the Netac NV7000-t is an excellent drive for both your gaming PC, laptop or even a PlayStation 5.

The Netac NV7000-t is available now and comes with a 5-year manufacturer’s warranty. I give it my B2G Value Award.

Netac NV7000-t Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD Review

Final Thoughts

If you're looking for a budget gaming SSD, the Netac NV7000-t is an excellent drive for both your gaming PC, laptop or even a PlayStation 5.

Performance

9

Build Quality

8.5

Functionality

9

Value

9.6

Pros

Excellent price:performance ratio

Decent write consistency

Highly compatible

Graphene heatspreader included

5-year warranty

Cons

DRAM-less

Low TBW

Regional availability limited

9

Rating