Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD Review Rating
Summary
Much like the KC3000, the Kingston FURY Renegade NVMe has incredible performance making it one of the fastest NVMe drives on the market. This benefits from a built-in heatsink which will help avoid thermal throttling, and it is compatible with the PS5.
Pros
- Built-in heat sink that is compatible with the PS5
- Higher endurance than KC3000
Cons
- Nothing in particular, but the price is a factor vs competing brands dependent on current discounts
The Kingston FURY Renegade NVMe was announced at around the same time as the KC3000. They are both very similar drives with barely any difference in specification, but the FURY is targeted towards gamers, while the KC3000 is ambiguously targeting desktops and laptops.
Both drives meet the specifications required for the PS5. However, with the FURY Renegade, you have an option for a heat sink model, and this is designed to fit within the PS5.
Kingston FURY NVME vs KC3000 Specification
The specification indicates that there is barely any difference. The FURY is fractionally faster with its read speeds by 4.2% then the durability is 25% higher with the TBW rating. These small differences should help gamers as I assume there will be a higher level of writes due to downloading games etc.
Sony PlayStation 5 Compatibility & Installation
Most PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives are compatible with the PS5. The PS5 uses PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 NVMe, and the only performance requirement is 5,500 MB/s or faster for sequential read speed.
However, with the PS5, you need effective heat dissipation with a cooling structure, such as a heatsink. The total size needs to fall within the limits of 110mm (L) x 25mm (W) x 11.25mm (H), and this is why you see a lot of drives advertising as compatible with PS5. You can install your own PS5 NVMe heat sink, but you will need to make sure the overall dimensions fall within those limits.
Installing the drive in a PS5 is quite simple, and Kingston has a useful installation video showing you how to install the drive on the FURY Renegade product page.
Design
I asked to be sent the heat sink model of this drive just because it is a bit different from the KC3000 I previously reviewed.
Benchmarks
I have compared my benchmarks against the KC3000, which is the only other PCIe 4.0 drive I have tested. The differences in results are so small it is hardly worth worrying about. Either drive is a superb choice. The KC2500 is a PCIe 3.0 drive and, therefore, understandably quite a bit slower.
When I initially reviewed the KC3000, I tested it without the heatsink from my motherboard applied. It then underperformed due to thermal throttling. Once I applied the heatsink, the performance improved. With the FURY Renegade, it performed as expected out of the box thanks to the built-in heat sink.
Crystal Disk Mark
Crystal Disk Mark shows incredible performance, with the sequential read speeds exceeding the question speeds for the product specification. For read speeds, it is slightly faster than the KC3000, but the KC3000 significantly outperformed the product specification, which gives a hint that these are likely the same underlying hardware.
The FURY Renegade does have significantly better performance for random writes and sequential 128K Q32T1. I suspect it is the heatsink of the drive allow it to sustain these higher write speeds vs my motherboard heatsink on the KC3000.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
For both the read and write results, the FURY Renegade has slightly faster speeds for the smaller files, but things level off the larger the files become.
Anvil Storage Utilities
In Anvil Storage Utilities, the FURY Renegade is almost identical. The main difference is the 2% higher score with the write tests.
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Benchmark
With this being a gaming focused drive, the Final Fantasy XIV gives a good indication of how a fast drive can improve game the gaming experience with load times.
Kingston FURY Renegade
As you’d expect, there is not a massive difference in performance between this drive and the KC3000, but this drive does still load scenes a touch faster. There is quite a big difference between this and the older generation PCIe 3.0 KC2500.
Loading Times by Scene
- Scene #1: 1.627 sec
- Scene #2: 2.123 sec
- Scene #3: 2.947 sec
- Scene #4: 1.09 sec
- Scene #5: 0.572 sec
- Total Loading Time: 8.359 sec
Kingston KC3000
Loading Times by Scene
- Scene #1: 1.736 sec
- Scene #2: 2.063 sec
- Scene #3: 3.258 sec
- Scene #4: 1.301 sec
- Scene #5: 0.612 sec
- Total Loading Time: 8.97 sec
Kingston KC2500 NVMe
Loading Times by Scene
- Scene #1: 2.146 sec
- Scene #2: 3.509 sec
- Scene #3: 4.172 sec
- Scene #4: 2.887 sec
- Scene #5: 1.509 sec
- Total Loading Time: 14.223 sec
3DMark Storage Benchmark
As you’d expect, the result of the FURY Renegade is almost identical to the KC3000, with just a 2.27% difference.
Price and Alternative Options
The Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe comes two variants, one with a heatsink and alone with a thin heat spreader.
Many mid to high-end motherboards have integrated heatsinks, so PC users, you are probably best off with the heat spreader option.
There appears to be roughly a £30 premium for the heatsink. If you are buying this for a PS5, you could save some money getting the heat spreader option and then using your own PS5 NVMe heatsink, but it doesn’t really seem worth the effort to save £20-ish.
The Kingston KC3000 I previously reviewed is actually a touch more expensive on Amazon at £191 vs £190 for the FURY Renegade without a heat sink.
On Amazon, at the time of writing, pricing is as follows:
- SFYRSK/500G: £96.95
- SFYRSK/1000G: £135.81
- SFYRDK/2000G: £237.01
- SFYRDK/4000G: £630.18
It looks like the prices are a little higher on Amazon because they are all marketplace listings. The lower-priced Amazon products are currently out of stock.
On Ebuyer, it is quite a bit cheaper and makes it very competitive vs other popular PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives by different brands:
- SFYRSK/1000G: £108.99
- SFYRDK/2000G: £196.98
For the WD_BLACK SN850 pricing is:
- 1TB: £143.99
- 2TB: £249.99
Corsair MP600 PRO
- 1TB: £99.98
- 2TB: £193.49
The Corsair has only recently dropped in price since the new year, it was £115/£220.
Overall
Kingston churns out consistently good products, so it is no surprise that the FURY Renegade NVMe is superb.
This drive has fractionally better performance than the desktop/laptop focused Kingston KC3000, but it is close enough that I wouldn’t be too bothered about the differences. The main benefit of this drive is that you can get the heatsink built-in, making it more appealing for PS5 owners.
In general, most brand-name PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives are all going to be excellent, the main difference is the price. Most brands are competitive with each other it just depends on the particular discounts at the time.
The FURY Renegade NVMe has only been out a couple of months, but if you shop around, you can find it for a highly competitive price, and it should therefore be one of your top choices if you want the fastest PCIe 4.0 NVMe possible.
Last update on 2023-01-18 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API