Test Setup

The motherboard in our SSD test system is the Asus ROG Maximus X Hero. As well as a slew of full-speed SATA 6Gbps ports, this motherboard supports full-length (22110) PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA M.2 SSDs, as well as, of course, drives that connect directly to PCIe expansion slots. U.2 drives can also be tested using an M.2 adaptor. This means we can test all manner of PCIe storage devices without bandwidth restrictions.

The CPU is overclocked to 5GHz (50 x 100MHz) with a vcore of 1.3V, and it's paired with 32GB (4 x 8GB) of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4 clocked at 3,200MHz. All CPU power saving features are disabled, and the system is ran in the High Performance power mode, ensuring that storage devices are always operating at peak performance.

Test System

• CPU Intel Core i7-8700K at 5GHz (50 x 100MHz)
  
• Motherboard Asus ROG Maximus X Hero
  
• Memory 4 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance RGB 3,200MHz DDR4
  
• PSU Corsair AX1500i
  
• SSD OCZ Vector 180 960GB
  
• Case Corsair Carbide Series Air 740
  
• CPU cooler Corsair Hydro Series H100i V2
  
• Operating system Windows 10 64-bit