Patriot Viper VP4100 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Viper VP4100 1TB3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. ATTO Disk Benchmark6. AS SSD7. IOMETER8. 128KB Sequential Performance9. 4K Random Read v QD Performance10. 4K Random Write v QD Performance11. 4K 70/30 Mixed Performance12. Throughput13. PCMark 8 - Storage Consistency14. PCMark 8 - Individual Test Suites15. PCMark 8 Storage Test - Individual Test Suites16. Performance Stability17. Real Life File Testing18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

Viper is Patriot's gaming arm and joining the ranks of SSDs, memory modules, keyboards, mice, headsets and other accessories is a brand new, state of art SSD in the shape of the VP4100, a M.2 2280 format drive that supports the PCIe Gen4 x4 specifications. The drive makes use of the world's first PCIe Gen4 x4 controller, Phison's PS5016-E16 8-channel IC, combining it with Toshiba's BiCS4 3D TLC NAND.

Official Sequential figures for the 1TB drive are up to an impressive up to 5,000MB/s and 4,400MB/s for read and writes respectively. Using the ATTO benchmark we couldn't quite match these figures with the review drive producing figures of 4,705MB/s for reads and 4,396MB/s for writes. However, with our own Sequential tests we could indeed confirm the official read figure with the drive producing 5,042.11MB/s, though the write score of 4,305.64MB/s was a little behind the official maximum.

In terms of random 4K performance, the official performance figures are up to 800,000 IOPS for both reads and writes. With our 4 threaded tests we couldn't get close to those maximums with the drive producing 339,383 IOPS for reads and 272,358 IOPS at a QD of 32. We then tested the drive, again at a QD of 32 but this time with 8 threads and got a read figure of 577,854 IOPS with writes at 487,766 IOPS, still far short of the official maximum figures.

To prevent the drive from overheating when dealing with heavy workloads it uses a combination of an external thermal sensor and a well-designed aluminium heatsink. Unlike the massive heatsink used on the previous generation Viper VPN100 drive, the one used by the VP4100 is much lower profile, giving the drive an overall height of 7mm, so it shouldn't cause you problems when installing the drive.

So it's a very quick drive that looks the part, but, and it's a very significant but, what about motherboard compatibility? At the time of writing this review the only way you can get the full benefit of the PCIe 4.0 interface is to use the combination of a X570 chipset equipped motherboard and an AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor. Installing it in any other motherboard will see it working at PCIe Gen3 x4.

We found the Viper VP4100 to order on Amazon UK for £349.99 HERE.

Pros

• PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD.
• Sequential performance.
• Heatsink.

Cons

• Needs a X570/Ryzen 3000 combination to get the full benefit of the technology.
• Tested 4K performance couldn't match the official figures.

KitGuru says: Patriot's new Viper VP4100 drive offers, thanks to its PCIe Gen4.0 x4 interface, blistering Sequential read/write speeds – significantly bettering the previous PCIe Gen3 x4 Viper VPN100 model, but it does need the latest AMD hardware to do it.

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