The KC2500 1TB is not Kingston's first foray into the NVMe SSD realm, but it's safe to say from the start that it's probably the best product so far. 96-layer 3D TLC NAND The KC2000 and KC2500 use the same Silicon Motion 2262EN controller and the same 96-layer 3D TLC NAND The time difference in the release of the two drives allows Kingston to make various tweaks The time difference between the two drive releases allows Kingston to make a variety of tweaks. The new drive delivers a 300MB/sec read speed improvement and a 700MB/sec write speed improvement.

While the KC2000 was not a bad drive (and the KC2500 is a parallel, not an actual replacement), it was a bit off the pace of the best drives when it was launched. This is because the SSD landscape is constantly changing, and the KC2000 was in danger of being left behind; the speed increase to the KC2500 means that Kingston once again has the right drive in the performance arena, and while not a PCIe 4.0 product, the rated throughput is still a good enough drive for gaming It is on par with the Samsung 970 Evo Plus and WD Black SN750, which are the drives we recommend in our best SSD guide.

The drive itself is fairly simple, shipping in a blister pack with a piece of paper containing the drive and an activation code for Acronis True Image (excellent software for transferring your current Windows installation to the drive). You can also download Kingston SSD Manager to track the drive's fitness, operating temperature, and make sure it is running the latest firmware.

As is quickly becoming the norm, the drive comes with a 5-year warranty, which should give you a fair amount of peace of mind; the endurance rating of 600TBW is also quite decent and should be sufficient for normal use, as it equates to 336GB writes per day.

The Kingston KC2500 comes in four sizes, with the smaller, less expensive drives having more difficulty with write performance (the 250GB model is rated at only 1,200MB/sec sequential writes). Which drive you purchase will probably depend on your budget, but if you can afford it, you can use this 1TB drive as a boot drive while still having plenty of storage for your games.

When it comes to performance, the Kingston KC2500 is a mixed bag. It bounces back and forth between being very good and falling behind in various aspects of the same benchmarks. Write performance, in particular, is far off the pace with the KC2500 at 2,231 MB/sec while most of its competitors are above 3,000 MB/sec.

AS SSDs likewise have uninspiring write performance, but read performance is much healthier when compared to other PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs. The 4K performance numbers in this benchmark show a healthier and more competitive picture, with decent, if not so impressive, write performance for reads.

Transferring 30GB of real files is a good way to sort the wheat from the chaff, and here the Kingston KC2500 did a really good job, taking a few seconds off the competition. Despite the mixed synthetic results, the KC2500 did a decent job of getting the job done. The caveat here is that it is slower than PCIe 4.0 drives, which is almost to be expected.

One thing that stood out during testing is that this drive is a cool running gum. The highest temperature during testing was 51°C, while other drives we have seen recently have been around 60°C, with the Addlink S90 registering 69°C. This was tested with the motherboard's built-in passive cooler on top of the drive.

Pricing is very important in evaluating the latest M.2 SSDs. With so many high quality drives on the market, if NVMe SSDs are going to make an impact, they need to either retain their performance crown, achieve an incredible value for money, or a perfect blend of the two. The Kingston KC2500, by its high price tag simply undermines it, and performance is not sufficient to offset this. The combination of these two factors means that this SSD is just another PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD vying for a middle ground.

You can look for a better price, but as of this writing it is available on Amazon for $225 (£198), which works out to 23 cents per gigabyte. The important thing to remember is that you can't keep up with Samsung drives, and if you are prepared to purchase additional drives for better performance, Samsung drives are a better option. At the time of this writing, the Samsung 970 Evo Plus is available for only $180, making it a much better value.

The elephant in the room is PCIe 4.0. For this kind of money, you can buy a Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe 4.0 or an Addlink S90 1TB. These can achieve 5GB/s read and 4GB/s write and are fast in real-world benchmarks. If you are already going the AMD route or plan to, either of these drives is a much better option.

Overall, the Kingston KC2500 is a reasonable enough drive and offers excellent performance, but the pricing is not right. If significantly cheaper, it would be a better choice than the WD SN750 or the Samsung 970 Evo Plus. As it stands, we recommend waiting to see how Samsung's PCIe 4.0 product shakes up the market. Also, if you need to buy a PCIe 3.0 drive right now, we recommend buying the Addlink S70 or Sabrent Rocket instead.