Overall and Final Verdict

Lexar isn’t aiming for the top of the stack with the NM620 and that is completely fine. Bringing out new models for PCIe Gen 3 might seem crazy with Gen 4 finally starting to get some traction. But the reality is that even with the latest Intel and AMD chipsets finally supporting Gen 4, it will still be a while before a majority of systems support it. Most people shopping for SSDs right now need a Gen 3 drive and getting solid performance is all they need and the NM620 did that in most of our tests. In a lot of the synthetic benchmarks, it comes in at the middle of the pack, running with most of the other DRAMless drives. But it does excel in our real-world file transfers, PCMark 10 which tests using real-world situations, and in the file transfer tests in AS SSD. In other words, in real-world situations, it did well.

It has its downsides of course. As I mentioned before it is DRAMless which can lead to more wear on the drive and sometimes means slower write speeds. It is also running TLC NAND which is known to have less life than other NAND types. The 512GB NM620 that I tested here for example has a TBW of 250TB which is low, the SN550 of a similar capacity has 500TB for its TBW. Lexar does have a solid 5-year warranty, but I would keep the NM620 in a situation that doesn’t get large amounts written and deleted all of the time, in other words as an OS drive or game drive it should be fine but I wouldn’t use it as a scratch drive for video of large photo editing. This also means no Chia mining as well.

Right now on Amazon the NM620 is on sale as well which puts the drive at $65.99. This prices it right where it should be as far as the competition. The normal MSRP of $89.99 on the other hand I would say is too high. That will get you one of the high-end PCIe Gen 3 drives right now. So if you are looking to get an NM620, now is the time!

fv5

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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