Overall and Final Verdict

Well, I have to admit, the VPR100 surprised me a little after I started our testing. I knew it what it was rated to do, but if I’m being honest my experience with Viper drives is that they normally perform well, but not completely at the top of the market. Making up the difference with their pricing and features like the heatsink on the VPN100 that I previously reviewed. In a lot of the tests, I ran the VPR100 was fast, very fast, outperforming even the SN750 at times and the PCIe 4.0 based MP600 in a few tests as well. I also really do like the looks of the drive with the RGB lighting on. The software was simple and to the point as well, although I think integration with software like Asus’s Aura lighting control is even more important if you are trying to get consistent lighting from your SSD, motherboard, video card, and even fans and case lighting.

There were still a few downsides to the VPR100 that I ran into. A small detail but one that I think they should be considering with drives like this is the PCB color. Going with a blue PCB works well with the WD Blue drive because blue is the goal, but with the VPR100 they were going with a blacked-out heatsink. Having the blue peek through, even just a little seems like an afterthought. That heatsink is also not going to fit in some situations. This is on top of the issues that having a heatsink at all will cause you, eliminating laptops and not being able to use it on the back of motherboards that have M.2s on the back. But the width of the heatsink was wider than the M.2 drive and even when not using the built-in heatsink in our Crosshair motherboard it was too tight on the bottom slot forcing me to swap things around.

The biggest issue, however, is that when running the RGB lighting, the performance does drop. They say you can expect 20% to 30% less in performance and at least in my testing, it was inconsistent with when it might drop. Given that the RGB lighting is the main feature, it is a bummer to see some of that performance cut right off the top, especially with how fast the drive is without the lighting. Of course, because of that, it is still fast enough for most people with the lighting on.

Of course, the pricing makes a big difference in SSD’s and I will say that the VPR100 coming in at $189.99 initially seemed like a great deal. When looking more into other prices, I did find a comparable RGB SSD with the ADATA XPG S40G which can be picked up in the 1TB capacity for $150. The WD Black SN750 without heatsink is also available at 1TB for around $150 as well making the VPR100 a touch high in its pricing but less than drives like the Samsung 970 EVO. So hopefully we see the pricing come down slightly to match the competition. Because otherwise, the VPR100 is right there. The XPG version even has similar performance issues in conjunction with the lighting

fv5.recommended

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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