TeamGroup became the latest storage manufacturer to deploy an ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 solid state drive line, the T-Force Cardea A440. chips to nearly saturate the PCIe 4.0 x4 bus. They are also priced higher than PCIe 3.0 models, but at least the A440 has two heat sinks, which adds a bit of value.

In terms of rated performance, the team group states that the A440 SSD can deliver up to 7,000 MB/s on sequential reads and 6,900 MB/s on sequential writes. While some competing SSDs offer even higher read speeds than the A440 is purported to deliver, the A440's write speed is tops. Comparisons with competing products are as follows:

Of course, rated speed does not necessarily equal actual performance. Similarly, sustained performance is also a factor; when the controller hardware heats up, throttling kicks in and read and write speeds drop. [However, one thing that may work in the A440's favor is the inclusion of two heat sinks: one is a thin graphene heat sink that, according to Teamgroup, provides "up to 9% heat dissipation," which Teamgroup says is a "unique heat dissipation design."

The heat sink can reduce temperatures by up to 15% due to its "unique heat dissipation design.

The interchangeable heatsinks on the A440 allow the A440 to fit into virtually any setup, from thin and light laptops and mini-PCs to regular desktop PCs.

"Gamers no longer need to worry about encountering thermal throttling and causing slowdowns when running games at full speed. They can freely enjoy the ultimate gaming experience," states Teamgroup.

Maybe so, maybe not. Either way, there are definitely situations where throttling can occur, such as long file transfers or anything that abuses the SSD for extended periods of time. That's just the way it is. Nevertheless, we will have to wait until we try it out to see how it actually performs in various scenarios.

Teamgroup offers the A440 in two capacities: $229 for 1 TB and $429 for 2 TB. There is a "problem" here when it comes to PCIe 4.0 SSDs. The price is almost double that of the faster PCIe 3.0 models. For example, the 1TB Addlink S70 (one of the best gaming SSDs available) sells for about $133

. To be fair, the second wave of PCIe 4.0 SSDs has only recently begun, with speeds in the neighborhood of 7,000 MB/s (the first wave was around 5,000 MB/s). Expect more models to be released and general prices to come down.