Today we have another ridiculously fast PCIe Gen 4 SSD powered by the popular Phison E18 controller chip. In fact, the new Kingston Fury Renegade SSD, reviewed here in a 2TB configuration, is nothing special in Kingston's M.2 drive portfolio. The closely related Kingston KC3000 also features an E18 controller.

Other Phison E18-based drives in PC Gamer's lab include the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 Plus, PNY XLR8 CS3140, and Addlink S95. We are all familiar with the allure of the E18 controller.

As previously detailed, Phison's PS5018-E18 is an 8-channel controller manufactured on TSMC's 12nm process. It has a total of five CPU cores, three based on the general-purpose ARM Cortex R5 IP and two of Phison's own design Phison claims that the E18 can deliver 7.4GB/sec read and 7GB/sec write speeds as well as 1 million IOPS. Phison claims that E18 can achieve 7.4GB/s read and 7GB/s write speeds, not to mention 1 million IOPS. We have previously confirmed that the E18 is classified as an NVMe 1.4 chip, but Kingston claims to support NVMe 2.0 with the Fury Renegade.

Kingston cites only 3D TLC NAND as the specification for its chosen NAND memory chip. However, some routine research leads us to believe that Kingston uses the same Micron 176-Layer 3D TLC chips as its KC3000 sibling drives. In other words, it is a thoroughly modernized drive. Clearly, the PCIe 5.0 standard is becoming a conceptual reality with the advent of Intel's Alder Lake CPUs. However, it will be some time before PCIe 5.0 drives and platforms become mainstream and compatible drives are available in large numbers.

For details, this 2TB drive is claimed to have 7,300 MB/s sequential read, 7,000 MB/s write, and 1,000,000 IOPS random access performance in both directions. Meaty numbers, to be sure.

Physically, this M.2 2280 format drive features a thin aluminum heatspreader reinforced with a thin graphene layer for optimal thermal conductivity. Detailed differences are discussed in how this Fury Renegade drive differs from its KC3000 sibling; the Fury Renegade is slightly faster and the KC3000 model has slightly more usable space in any given capacity.

However, the smaller capacities allow for more redundancy in the Fury and improved write endurance: the 2TB KC3000 has a write endurance of 1,600TB while the 2TB Fury Renegade has 2,000TB. In reality, few users would challenge 1,600 TB writes, let alone 2,000 TB.

In any case, when we tested the Kingston Fury Renegade in person, we found that "during the warm-up phase before we began our formal testing, this SSD made a very strong impression. Internal file copy speeds crept along at 1.8GB/s and maintained that performance up to 700GB before dropping to about 1GB/s for the remaining fills.

By comparison, the PNY XLR8 is slightly slower at a peak of 1.7GB/s, maintains that performance only for 300GB, and then drops sharply to a range between 400MB/s and 800MB/s. Incidentally, the 2TB Sabrent rocket 4 Plus has similar sustained performance as the Fury Renegade.

Diving into the formal benchmark suite, it is no easy task to separate this Phison E18-based protagonist from similarly equipped competitors. The ATTO, for example, has outstanding sequential peak speeds when compared to benchmarks of comparable 2TB models, and the Kingston Fury Renegade has carved out a bit of a niche in CrystalDiskMark. But can you really tell the difference between 7,000 MB/s and 7,300 MB/s in the real world? [In our 4K random access test across multiple applications, the Fury tends to read slightly more on reads and write slightly more on writes. A particularly high score against Phison's competitors was achieved in PCMark's full drive test, where it scored 3,177 points compared to 2,500 points for its competitors. It is worth remembering, though, that the WD Black SN850, which is not in the Phison camp, scored nearly 3,500 points.

Additionally, like all Phison drives, this drive operates at low temperatures. With a peak temperature of 44°C, one should not have to worry about heat-induced performance degradation or long-term reliability issues.

Overall, this is a really fast drive. In terms of subjective computing experience, you won't be able to choose this drive over other high-performance PCIe Gen 4 products. That said, the broader package and price are key differentiators. The long-term reliability of this drive is well within our grasp, thanks to its cool operating temperatures and excellent write endurance ratings.

The cost-performance proposition is less appealing. This is one of the most expensive PCIe Gen 4 drives available today, at $425 at the time of our review; the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, WD Black SN850, and Samsung 980 Pro can all be had for considerably less. Therefore, it is somewhat difficult to justify the Kingston Fury Renegade at this higher price point.