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Kingston's latest SSD is the heatsink-equipped version of the Fury Renegade Gen 4 SSD. The drive uses the well-proven combination of 176-layer TLC NAND and a Phison E18 controller. On sale around the £230 mark, is this 2TB drive worth buying?
The Fury Renegade product range consists of four drives; a 500GB entry model, 1TB, 2TB (the drive we are reviewing) and a flagship 4TB drive. This version of the drive comes with a full-length aluminium heat sink which adds 7mm in height and around 25g to the standard 2TB Fury Renegade drive.
Kingston rates the Sequential read performance for the whole range as up to 7,300MB/s. Sequential writes for the drives are stated as up to 3,900MB/s for the 500GB drive, and 6,000MB/s for the 1TB while the 2TB and 4TB models have the same up to 7,000MB/s rating.
Random 4K performance is quoted as up to 450,000 IOPS for reads and 900,000 IOPS for writes for the 500GB model, the 1TB model is rated up to 900,000/1,000,000 IOPS for read and writes respectively. The 2TB and 4TB drives get the same up to 1,000,000/1,000,000 IOPS read/write figure.
Power consumption figures for the 2TB drive are; 5mW idle, 0.36W average, 2.8W read (maximum) & 9.9W write (maximum). Endurance is quoted as 2.0PBW and Kingston back the drive with a 5-year warranty.
Physical Specifications:
- Usable Capacities: 2TB.
- NAND Components: 176-layer 3D TLC NAND.
- NAND Controller: Phison PS5018-E18.
- Cache: 2GB DDR4-2666.
- Interface: PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe.
- Form Factor: 2280 M.2.
- Dimensions: 80 x 23.67 x 10.5mm.
- Drive Weight: 34.9g.
Firmware Version: EIFK31.6.
The front of the box has a large clear image of the drive on it. Above the image is a line of text displaying that the drive is a PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 design. At the top of the box is a label which shows the drive's capacity and its maximum Sequential read speed.
On the back we find another image of the drive and a small window to show the drive in the box. The rest of the rear panel is covered in multilingual marketing notes.
The heatsink that the Fury Renegade uses is a two-part aluminium design, neatly finished in matt back, that uses four tiny screws to hold it all together. The drive itself is sandwiched between two full-length thermal pads.
The 2TB Fury Renegade is a two-sided design. At the heart of the Fury Renegade is a Phison PS5018-E18 controller which sits on one side of the PCB along with four of the eight Micron 176-layer 3D TLC NAND B47R NAND (Kingston branded) packages that the drive uses along with one of the two 1GB DDR4-2666 DRAM chips used to store mapping tables. The other side of the PCB holds the remaining four NAND packages and the second DRAM IC.
Kingston’s SSD management software utility is simply called SSD Manager. With it, you can monitor the health of the drive and how it’s being used, check the drive’s SMART data (including reliability tracking, usage statistics, life remaining, wear levelling and temperature) and update the firmware.
For testing, the drives are all wiped and reset to factory settings by HDDerase V4. We try to use free or readily available programs and some real-world testing so you can compare our findings against your own system.
This is a good way to measure potential upgrade benefits.
Main system:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, 16GB DDR4-2400, Sapphire R9 390 Nitro and an MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge Wifi motherboard
Other 2TB class drives tested.
Corsair MP600 PRO 2TB
Corsair MP600 PRO XT 2TB
Gigabyte AORUS 7000e 2TB
HP FX900 Pro 2TB
Kingston KC3000 2TB
Kioxia Exceria Pro 2TB
Lexar Professional NM800PRO Heatsink 2TB
MSI Spatium M480 2TB
Patriot Viper VP4300 2TB
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB
Samsung SSD990 PRO 2TB
Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB
WD Black SN850X Heatsink 2TB
Software:
Atto Disk Benchmark 4.
CrystalMark 8.0.0.
AS SSD 2.0.
IOMeter.
UL Solutions PC Mark 10.
UL Solutions 3DMark Storage Benchmark.
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark.
All our results were achieved by running each test five times with every configuration this ensures that any glitches are removed from the results. Trim is confirmed as running by typing fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify into the command line. A response of disabledeletenotify =0 confirms TRIM is active.
CrystalDiskMark is a useful benchmark to measure the theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSDs. We are using v8.0.
Using the CrystalDiskMark 8 4K QD1 single thread test, the drive scores of 83.25MB/s (reads) and 251.61MB/s (writes) are good enough to put the drive into the top five in our results chart.
The CrystalDiskMark default set of tests confirms the official maximum Sequential read speed of 7,300MB/s with a test result of 7,385MB/s (7,448MB/s using the 0 fill tests) however, the write result of 6,907MB/s is a wee bit shy of the official 7,000MB/s.
Officially the 4K read/write performance of the 2TB version of the Fury Renegade is rated as up to 1,000,000 IOPS for both. As you can see from the benchmark result screens of CrystalDiskMark 8's Performance Profile test we couldn't get close to that figure with best result figures of 667,476 IOPS and 545,103 IOPS for reads and writes respectively.
The CrystalDiskMark results may be way short of the official maximums but the read result of 667,476 IOPS is the third fastest we've seen from a 2TB consumer Gen 4 drive.
Using the default Real World profile set of tests the drive produced a read score of 4,648MB/s with writes at 5,824MB/s.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturer's RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
We are using version 4.1 for our NVMe disk tests.
Using the ATTO benchmark we couldn't quite hit the official maximum Sequential read/write figures of 7,300MB/s and 7,000MB/s respectively with test results of 6,880MB/s for reads and 6,470MB/s for writes.
AS SSD is a great free tool designed just for benching Solid State Drives. It performs an array of sequential read-and-write tests, as well as random read-and-write tests with sequential access times over a portion of the drive. It uses incompressible data samples which many drives struggle with, so results can be viewed as the worst case scenarios.
AS SSD includes a sub suite of benchmarks with various file pattern algorithms but this is difficult in trying to judge accurate performance figures.
The AS SSD read score of 2963 for the 2TB Fury Renegade Heatsink is the fastest we've seen to date for a 2TB class consumer Gen 4 drive. The write score of 2944 isn't quite as strong.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the Sequential read and write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
128KB Sequential Read / Write.
Transfer Request Size: 128KB, Thread(s): 1, Outstanding I/O: 1-32
With our own Sequential tests, we could confirm the official read figure with a test result of 7,430MB/s, however, writes fell a little short of the official maximum at 6,888MB/s.
128KB Sequential Read v QD compared.
At lower queue depths; QD1 & 2, the drive sits in mid-table but at QD4 and QD32 it has moved up into the top 5.
128KB Sequential Write v QD compared.
As with Sequential reads when it comes to the write performance the drive sits in a mid-table position but as the queue depth deepens the drive moves up the table, so at QD4 and QD32 the drive sits just behind Kingston's KC3000 drive at the top of the chart.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the 4K random read performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
In the 4K random read test the drive's performance climbs steadily until it reaches QD16 where it peaks at 409,265 IOPS, it then begins to plateau out finishing the test run at QD32 with 408,124. Both of these figures are nowhere close to the official maximum of 1,000,000 IOPS.
4K Random Read v QD compared.
In comparison to the drives around it, the Kingston Fury Renegade seems to handle the 4K read tests better at lower queue depths.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8‘s custom settings to test the 4K random write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths. The setup for the tests is listed below.
Transfer Request Size: 4KB, Outstanding I/O: 1-32.
From QD4 up to QD32 the performance of the drive levels out, with a peak of 328,531 IOPS at QD16 before dropping back a little to finish the test run at 326,497 IOPS. As with the random read results, these are nowhere near the official 1,000,000 IOPS maximum write figure.
4K Random Write v QD compared.
The drive performs best, in terms of our results charts at QD1 where it sits in fifth place. At QD2 the drive is very nearly sitting in last place but stages a recovery in QD's 4 and 32.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8’s custom settings to test the 4K 70/30 mixed read/write performance of the drive through a range of queue depths using a single thread and four threads.
In our 4K 70/30 read/write tests, the 2TB Kingston Fury Rampage Heatsink performance climbs smoothly through the tested queue depths until QD16 where the performance seems to plateau out to the end of the test run at QD32. This happens when tested with both a single thread and four threads.
We used CrystalDiskMark 8 to test the random performance of the drive at lower queue depths (QD1 – QD8 where most of the everyday workloads occur) using 1 to 4 threads.
Random Read
In the 4K Random Read QD1 – QD8 series of tests, the performance of the 2TB version of Kingston's Fury Renegade Heatsink climbs smoothly through the queue depths with all the tested threads.
Using a single thread the performance ranges from 20,395 IOPS (83MB/s) at QD1 up to 121,624 IOPS (498MB/s) at QD8. Using four threads the QD1 performance climbs to 79,811 IOPS (326MB/s) while the QD8 performance climbs to 364,141 IOPS (1,491MB/s)
Random Write
After the initial rise in performance between QDs 1 and 2, the write performance of the 2TB Fury Renegade Heatsink appears to plateau out when using a single thread. The same seems to happen when using four threads although the peak happens at QD4. Using two and three threads there is no levelling out of the performance.
In our read throughput test, the Kingston Fury Renegade Heatsink peaks at the end of the test run with 5,717MB/s, which is way short of the official maximum of 7,300MB/s. However, it may not reach the official maximum, but it is the fastest 2TB class consumer drive we've seen to date in our read-throughput test.
As with the read throughput test, the drive peaks at the end of the write throughput test with a score of 6,086MB/s, again some way off the official maximum speed of 7,000MB/s.
The PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the fastest modern drives. The benchmark is designed to measure the performance of fast system drives using the SATA bus at the low end and devices connected via PCI Express at the high end.
The goal of the benchmark is to show meaningful real-world performance differences between fast storage technologies such as SATA, NVMe, and Intel’s Optane. The Full System Drive Benchmark uses 23 traces, running 3 passes with each trace. It typically takes an hour to run.
Traces used:
Booting Windows 10.
Adobe Acrobat – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Illustrator – starting the application until usable Adobe Premiere Pro – starting the application until usable.
Adobe Photoshop – starting the application until usable.
Battlefield V – starting the game until the main menu.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4 – starting the game until the main menu.
Overwatch – starting the game until the main menu.
Using Adobe After Effects.
Using Microsoft Excel.
Using Adobe Illustrator.
Using Adobe InDesign.
Using Microsoft PowerPoint.
Using Adobe Photoshop (heavy use).
Using Adobe Photoshop (light use).
cp1 Copying 4 ISO image files, 20 GB in total, from a secondary drive to the target drive (write test).
cp2 Making a copy of the ISO files (read-write test).
cp3 Copying the ISO to a secondary drive (read test).
cps1Copying 339 JPEG files, 2.37 GB in total, to the target drive (write test).
cps2 Making a copy of the JPEG files (read-write test).
cps3 Copying the JPEG files to another drive (read test).
The Kingston Fury Renegade Heatsink handled the rigours of the PCMark 10's Full System Drive Benchmark without any problems. It averaged 217MB/s for the six Adobe start-up test traces, with the Acrobat setup trace fastest at 281MB/s. The average for the five usage traces was 474MB/s, thanks mainly to the 1,086MB/s result for the Adobe Photoshop heavy usage trace.
It's also pretty consistent in the file transfer test producing figures of 4,078MB/s for the read test, 4,061MB/s for the write test and 3,937MB/s for the read-write one.
The overall score of 3131, access time of 54µs and overall bandwidth figure of 505.14MB/s are good enough to put the drive into third spot on all three results charts.
The 3DMark Storage Benchmark uses traces recorded from popular games and gaming-related activities to measure real-world gaming performance.
Traces used –
Battlefield V
Loading Battlefield™ V from launch to the main menu.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4
Loading Call of Duty®: Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
Overwatch
Loading Overwatch® from launch to the main menu.
Game Move
Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike®: Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.
Game Recording
Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch®.
Installing Game
Installing The Outer Worlds® from the Epic Games Launcher.
Game Saving
Saving progress in The Outer Worlds game.
In 3DMark’s Storage Test, the 2TB Fury Renegade Heatsink sits in second spot behind WD's Black SN850X Heatsink for total average access time and average bandwidth for the test run. The average game loading bandwidth for the three games (Battlefield V, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Overwatch) the benchmark uses is 800.77MB/s with an average access time of 68µs.
The Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Official Benchmark uses actual maps and playable characters to assign a score to your PC and rate its performance including scene loading times.
The benchmark gives an overall load time as well as loading times by scene.
The Kingston Fury Renegade Heatsink total load time of 9.448 seconds is the fourth fastest we've seen to date for this test for a 2TB class drive.
We took note of the drive’s temperature during some of our benchmarking runs. The heatsink that this version of the Fury Renegade uses seems to work well. The hottest the drive got while being pushed hard during testing was 47°C, which is comfortably short of the official maximum operating temperature of 70°C.
To test real life performance of a drive we use a mix of folder/file types and by using the FastCopy utility (which gives a time as well as MB/s result) we record the performance of drive reading from & writing to a 256GB Samsung SSD850 PRO.
We use the following folder/file types:
100GB data file.
60GB iso image.
60GB Steam folder – 29,521 files.
50GB File folder – 28,523 files.
21GB 8K Movie demos.
12GB Movie folder – 24 files (mix of Blu-ray and 4K files).
11GB 4K Raw Movie Clips (8 MP4V files).
10GB Photo folder – 621 files (mix of png, raw and jpeg images).
10GB Audio folder – 1,483 files (mix of mp3 and .flac files).
5GB (1.5bn pixel) photo.
Blu-ray movie.
The drive was very consistent when dealing with the six larger file transfers in our real-life file transfer tests averaging 543MB/s when writing to the drive and 447MB/s when reading them back.
To get a measure of how much faster PCIe NVMe drives are than standard SATA SSD's we use the same files but transfer to and from a 2TB Kioxia Exceria Plus drive:
Reading and writing to another NVMe drive saw, as you might expect, transfer speeds to rocket upwards with an average write speed for the same six transfers as before up to 3,060MB/s (the fastest transfer being for the 60GB iso file). The average read speed for the same transfers was 2,454MB/s, the fastest transfer being the 12GB Movie folder.
The original version of Kingston's Fury Renegade came with a low-profile graphene aluminium heat spreader. Now Kingston has launched a version of the drive with a fully-fledged heatsink which makes the drive compatible with the PS5. The two-part aluminium heatsink, in the case of our 2TB review sample, adds 7mm to the height of the drive and 25g to its weight. Inside the heatsink are two full-length thermal pads that sandwich the drive.
The Heatsink version of the drive has the same capacity lineup as the original drive; 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and a flagship 4TB model. The Fury Renegade uses the well-tried and tested combination of a Phison PS5018-E18 controller and 176-layer 3D TLC NAND.
All four drives in the range are rated up to 7,300MB/s for Sequential reads with Sequential writes varying with capacity so the 500GB drive is rated up to 3,900MB/s, the 1TB drive up to 6,000MB/s while the 2TB and 4TB models get the same up to 7,000MB/s rating.
As for 4K random read performance, the 500GB drive is rated as up to 450,000 IOPS and the 1TB drive up to 900,000 IOPS. The 2TB and 4TB drives are both rated up to 1,000,000 IOPS. Random write performance is quoted as up to 900,000 IOPS for the 500GB drive and up to 1,000,000 IOPS for the remaining three models.
The best Sequential read test score we saw was the 7,430MB/s when using our custom 128KB settings for CrystalDiskMark 8, which not only confirmed the official figure of 7,300MB/s, it bettered it too. When it came to Sequential write performance the nearest we could get to the maximum official figure of 7,000MB/s was the 6,921MB/s obtained from using the Peak Performance profile in CrystalDiskMark8 with the 0 fill option.
With our 4-threaded testing, we couldn't get close to the official 1,000,000 IOPS for both random reads and writes. The best random read figure we saw was 409,265 IOPS (QD16) while the best write figure was 328,531 IOPS. Using CrystalDiskMark's default Peak Performance profile we got a test result of 667,476.81 IOPS with the best write figure, 545,735.35 IOPS coming from using the 0 fill option of the Peak Performance profile.
The combination of an aluminium heatsink and a pair of thermal pads works reasonably well at keeping the drive cool. The hottest the drive got when being pushed hard during benchmarking runs was 47°C, 23°C below the maximum operating temperature.
Kingston’s SSD management utility, SSD Manager, may not be as feature-rich as some of its competitors but without all the bells and whistles and funky GUIs, it will automatically detect any firmware updates as well as display drive status, temperatures and SMART information.
We found the 2TB Fury Renegade Heatsink on Kingston's site for £229.25 HERE.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
Pros
- Overall performance.
- Endurance.
- Well-designed heatsink.
- 5-year warranty.
Cons
- Couldn't confirm the maximum official 4K figures under testing.
- No AES hardware encryption.
KitGuru says: Kingston's Fury Renegade Heatsink is a fast-performing drive that makes use of the tried and tested Phison E18 and 176-layer 3D TLC NAND combination. The heatsink adds around a tenner to the price of the standard Fury Renegade which these days seems pretty reasonable. Having said that the pricing could just do with a small tweak to make it really competitive.
