It is no wonder that experienced buyers view marketing hype and press releases with a jaundiced eye. Take the latest and greatest Crucial T705 series for instance. On paper it sounds amazing. Thanks to Micron finally having their B58R line meet their stringent QA/QC standards the world finally gets to see what this R.G. TLC NAND can do when running at its full, and whopping, 2400MT/s speeds. Put simply, on paper the T705 promises insane speeds and noticeable improvements over the competition killer T700 series it supersedes. However. There is a catch. That catch is all those wunderbar specifications only apply to the 2TB version. With the 4TB capacity option being slightly slower, and the more reasonably price T705 1TB having noticeably lower specifications than the limelight stealing 2TB capacity model.
Make no mistake the new $195 (USD) T705 1TB is no slouch. It still will smoke any last generation PCIe 4.0 drive. It even promises to blow past last year’s enthusiast PCIe 5.0 1TB capacity models. It is just that while the reads are a nice boost over the T700 (13.6GB/s vs. 11.7GB/s), the write is a more of a lackluster boost to 10.2GB/s from 9.5GB/s. The same is true of the endurance setting for the ’05 generation. Just like the T700 before it, the T705 1TB offers a ho-hum 600TB endurance rating. Not 700TB like some other E26+B58R drives offer (for example MSI’s M570 Pro).
This does pose an interesting question. No we do not mean the one about the OEM heatsink vs. aftermarket choice. Instead, the real question is simple. Is the T705 1TB even worth looking at, or should every enthusiast worthy of the name do what they usually do and skip right to the sweet spot capacity version… which is once again 2TB? Without giving too much away there is indeed a method to the seeming madness of Micron. In fact, there is a downright genius, mic drop worthy, kill shot aimed directly at the competition hidden in the T705 1TB. One that will – once again – remake the enthusiast marketplace, and leave the competition scrambling to compete not just on performance but on value.
