PNY XLR8 CS3140 1TB SSD Review

Rating: 8.0.

The CS3140 is PNY's latest flagship model in the company's XLR8 gaming line-up of high-performance SSDs. The new NVMe Gen4 x4 drive is rated for up to 7,500MB/s and 6,850MB/s sequential read and writes, respectively. We put it through its paces to see how it stacks up to the competition.

Those headline speeds refer to the 2TB drive with the only other drive in the range, the 1TB model (the one we are reviewing here) having the same 7,500MB/s sequential read speed but a lower write speed – 5,650MB/s. Somewhat surprisingly there are no 4K random performance figures given on the specification sheet for the drive.

The drive uses a combination of a Phison PS5018-E18 controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND and is offered in two versions. One has a chunky extruded aluminium heatsink aimed at desktop use while the other has just a product label making it ideal for use in notebooks, very compact PCs or if you want to use the integrated M.2 cooling features of a motherboard.

As with the random performance figures, there are no details of the drive's endurance on the specification sheet for the drive, but PNY backs the drive with a 5-year warranty.

Physical Specifications:

• Usable Capacities: 1TB.
• NAND Components: 96-layer 3D TLC NAND.
• NAND Controller: Phison PS5018-E18-41.
• Cache: 1GB DDR4-2666.
• Interface: PCIe Gen4 x4. NVMe 1.4
• Form Factor: M.2, 2280.
• Dimensions: 80 x 22 x 20mm.
• Drive Weight: 47g

Firmware Version: CS314210.

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