Crucial is unveiling the latest addition to its Gen5 consumer NVMe SSD lineup today - the T705 PCIe 5.0 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. It takes over flagship duties from the Crucial T700 released last year. The company has been putting focus on the high-end consumer SSD segment in the last few quarters. The T700 was one of the first to offer more than 12 GBps read speeds, and the T705 being launched today is one of the first drives available for purchase in the 14+ GBps read speeds category.

The Crucial T705 utilizes the same platform as the T700 from last year - Phison's E26 controller with Micron's B58R 232L 3D TLC NAND. The key difference is the B58R NAND operating at 2400 MT/s in the new T705 (compared to the 2000 MT/s in the T700). Micron's 232L NAND process has now matured enough for the company to put out 2400 MT/s versions with enough margins. Similar to the T700, this drive is targeted towards gamers, content creators, and professional users as well as data-heavy AI use-cases.

The move to 2400 MT/s NAND has allowed Crucial to claim an increase in the performance of the drive in all four corners - up to 20% faster random writes, and 18% higher sequential reads. Additionally, Crucial also claims more bandwidth in a similar power window for the new drive.

The T705 is launching in three capacities - 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. Both heatsink and non-heatsink versions are available. Crucial is also offering a white heatsink limited edition for the 2TB version. This caters to users with white-themed motherboards that are increasingly gaining market presence.

Phison has been pushing DirectStorage optimizations in its high-end controllers, and it is no surprise that the T705 advertises the use of Phison's 'I/O+ Technology' to appeal to gamers. Given its high-performance nature, it is no surprise that the E26 controller needs to be equipped with DRAM for managing the flash translation layer (FTL). Crucial is using Micron LPDDR4 DRAM (1GB / TB of flash) in the T705 for this purpose.

Crucial T705 Gen5 NVMe SSD Specifications
Capacity 1 TB 2 TB 4 TB
Model Numbers CT1000T705SSD3 (Non-Heatsink)
CT1000T705SSD5 (Heatsink)
CT2000T705SSD3 (Non-Heatsink)
CT2000T705SSD5 (Black Heatsink)
CT2000T705SSD5A (White Heatsink)
CT4000T705SSD3 (Non-Heatsink)
CT4000T705SSD5 (Heatsink)
Controller Phison PS5026-E26
NAND Flash Micron B58R 232L 3D TLC NAND at 2400 MT/s
Form-Factor, Interface Double-Sided M.2-2280, PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe 2.0
Sequential Read 13600 MB/s 14500 MB/s 14100 MB/s
Sequential Write 10200 MB/s 12700 MB/s 12600 MB/s
Random Read IOPS 1.4 M 1.55 M 1.5 M
Random Write IOPS 1.75 M 1.8 M 1.8 M
SLC Caching Dynamic (up to 11% of user capacity)
TCG Opal Encryption Yes
Warranty 5 years
Write Endurance 600 TBW
0.33 DWPD
1200 TBW
0.33 DWPD
2400 TBW
0.33 DWPD
MSRP $240 (24¢/GB) (Non- Heatsink)
$260 (26¢/GB) (Heatsink)
$400 (20¢/GB) (Non- Heatsink)
$440 (22¢/GB) (Black Heatsink)
$484 (24.2¢/GB) (White Heatsink)
$714 (17.85¢/GB) (Non- Heatsink)
$730 (18.25¢/GB) (Heatsink)

Crucial is confident that the supplied passive heatsink is enough to keep the T705 from heavy throttling under extended use. The firmware throttling kicks in at 81C and protective shutdown at 90C. Flash pricing is not quite as low as it was last year, and the 2400 MT/s flash allows Micron / Crucial to place a premium on the product. At the 4TB capacity point, the drive can be purchased for as low as 18¢/GB, but the traditional 1TB and 2TB ones go for 20 - 26 ¢/GB depending on the heatsink option.

There are a number of Gen5 consumer SSDs slated to appear in the market over the next few months using the same 2400 MT/s B58R 3D TLC NAND and Phison's E26 controller (Sabrent's Rocket 5 is one such drive). The Crucial / Micron vertical integration on the NAND front may offer some advantage for the T705 when it comes to the pricing aspect against such SSDs. That said, the Gen5 consumer SSD market is still in its infancy with only one mass market (Phison E26) controller in the picture. The rise in consumer demand for these high-performance SSDs may coincide with other vendors such as Innogrit (with their IG5666) and Silicon Motion (with their SM2508) gaining traction. Currently, Crucial / Micron (with their Phison partnership) is the only Tier-1 vendor with a high-performance consumer Gen5 SSD portfolio, and the T705 cements their leadership position in the category further.

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  • Marlin1975 - Wednesday, February 21, 2024 - link

    Seq write/has gotten so fast that most desktop users will never know the difference.

    Need to list the random speed ratings as that has more affect on day to day performance for most.
  • meacupla - Wednesday, February 21, 2024 - link

    the random read is good, but not optane good.
  • AgentAnon - Thursday, February 22, 2024 - link

    You sound like one of those boomers saying you will never need more than 640KB of RAM, and don't realize how wrong you are.

    Seq read/write speeds are what are important, because the size of data in general balloons as computing progresses. A mediocre/decent quality 4K movie (in terms of compression) is ~40GB, a remux is 60-80GB, a TV series in good quality is 100-200GB, AAA games are 100-200GB nowadays, etc.

    If anything random speeds have gotten so fast that most desktop users will never know the difference.
  • Katana1074@hotmail.com - Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - link

    Its a good point though, for an os drive choose optane for movies or game choose the drive with the fastest sequential speed
  • ballsystemlord - Wednesday, February 21, 2024 - link

    I wouldn't call this drive "targeted towards gamers, content creators, and professional users as well as data-heavy AI use-cases," considering it has less than 1/2 the endurance of previous gen drives.

    Take, for example, Corsair's MP510, a PCIe 3.0 drive. Their ~1TB model is rated for 1700TBW and Crucial's is 600TBW. Their ~2TB model is rated at 3120TBW and Crucial's is 1200TBW.
  • isocuda - Saturday, February 24, 2024 - link

    When have you ever exceeded this within the warranty period or product cycle????
  • ballsystemlord - Saturday, February 24, 2024 - link

    I would not. But a creator, professional user, and certainly "data heavy AI" would.
  • web2dot0 - Thursday, February 22, 2024 - link

    Useless tech if it can't be used on a laptop. The power consumption is through the roof.
  • meacupla - Thursday, February 22, 2024 - link

    Oh no, a high end desktop part can't be used in a laptop! The calamity!
    I guess all these 7800X3D, and RTX4090 are useless too.
  • PeachNCream - Thursday, February 22, 2024 - link

    In fairness, there are not many desktop PCs still left in the world so targeting a saturated, shrinking market with storage products that cannot be used in laptops is something that imperils sales. The good news is that the laptop storage market is well-served with existing solutions so its only a problem for the companies selling such limited use case hardware to an ever shrinking market of boomer and aging gen X types that are uncomfortable with a computer you can carry and use on the go. When their eyesight goes and their reflexes fail them, its likely we'll see a very limited desktop market that supports workplace computing. Phones are already most peoples' only computer anyhow.

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