Crucial MX300 750GB SSD Review

Overview

 

Ahh SSDs what a great invention they have been and we are at last beginning to see the demise of the ageing HDD and about time too (sorry HDD!). SSD technology has also been a little stagnant of late with general Read/Write speeds (over SATA) remaining somewhat static over the last year or so. Therefore it’s now all about price and capacity for us Gamers and the competition for your hard earned pennies is fierce. It’s now even more fierce (or should be) as Crucial now have their latest SSD equipped with 3D NAND, but what is this 3D NAND and how does it relate to us Gamers!?

3D NAND (that’s memory chips stacked vertically in an aide to increase capacity), originally developed by Samsung, has now made its way aboard Crucial’s latest SSD courtesy of Micron. The Crucial SSD we have here today in Limited Edition form of 750GB, this is the Crucial MX300 750GB. The drive itself boasts a Read speed of 530MB/s and a Write speed of 510GB/s as well as 92K Random Read IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) and 83K Random Write IOPS.

 

 

 

The Crucial MX300 750GB SSD arrived at pcG in a regular sized, grey/white box with an image of the drive on the front. In addition to this we see the Crucial by Micron brand name as well as the product name and capacity, note that this (750GB model) is the Limited Edition. Other capacities, both lower and higher are to follow after the launch of this the 750GB Limited Edition.

The back of the box provides little else other than details on the box contents (2.5 inch 7mm SSD SATA 6Gb/s, 7mm to 9.5mm spacer & Data migration software key) and an indication as to the drive’s three year limited warranty.

 

 

As we can see from the image above the Crucial MX300 comes more than adequately packaged for an SSD, being house in a plastic tray and sealed in an anti-static bag.

 

 

There’s very little in the box (although what did you expect!), we have the main SSD itself as well as a 7mm to 9.5mm spacer. In addition to this there’s also a licence key for Acronis True Image HD to help you migrate your data to your new Crucial SSD!

 

At the time of writing the Crucial MX300 750GB (CT750MX300SSD1) is retailing for approximately £164 on Amazon and comes with a three year limited warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Crucial

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

The Crucial MX300 750GB SSD may well feature 3D NAND but from the outside it just looks like a regular SSD and to be fair (to you and I) it is. 😉

 

 

There’s also not much to see on the back of the MX300; here all we have is a specifications sticker containing information on model number, part number, serial number etc.

Connection wise everything is as per normal with the drive requiring a single SATA power connector and a single SATA connector. Of course to get the most out of this drive it should be connected to an SATA3 6GB/s port.

 

Overall a regular looking SSD then, sporting regular SATA based SSD speeds of 530MB/s Read and 510MB/s Write. Let’s put it through some Game related testing to see if that 3D NAND actually makes a difference…

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

Our new Skylake Test Rig for this review (shown below) was treated to a fresh install of Windows 10 Home 64Bit with all associated Drivers installed. I also ensured that AHCI was set in the UEFI (although this is now the default settings for most modern Motherboards). The drive was connected to the Intel SATA3 (6GBs) port (SATA3_0) of the ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6 motherboard. No special or other BIOS/UEFI options are required…

Test Rig Setup

Case	Cooler Master HAF XB	Power Supply	Corsair AX760i 760W
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 GAMING K6	CPU	Intel Core i5 6600K
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-U12S	RAM	G Skill Ripjaws 4 16GB
Graphics Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti Classified	SSD	Crucial MX300 750GB

 

Hardware Performance

 

We use PCMark 8 to help ascertain Gaming performance. The test used measures the performance of the drive while loading real game data for both World of Warcraft and Battlefield 3. In addition to this we will also use ATTO Disk Benchmark to confirm the drives claimed performance levels.

 

• ATTO Disk Benchmark

 

As we can see the Crucial MX300 750GB SSD surpasses its claimed performance speeds of (530MB/s Read & 510MB/s Write) with a measured maximum Read speed of 535MB/s and a maximum Write speed of 515MB/s. It is also quite consistent across the board especially at 64KB and above. But it still lags behind some of the best drives we’ve tested, but it’s worth remembering that this is a mainstream drive and one that has both performance and value in its DNA. With that in mind let’s have a look at how it fares in our Game Loading benchmarks, courtesy of PCMark 8.

 

• PCMark 8 Storage Test

 

 

 

We use the PCMark 8 benchmark to test real world loading times for both World of Warcraft and Battlefield 3. As you can see from the results grid above the Crucial MX300 750GB drive performs well and is closer to the top of that chart than the bottom. But when you look closely at the data you’ll begin to appreciate just how close everything is with only the latter SSHDs and HDDs showing high levels of performance degradation in comparison to the SSDs.

When looking at SSDs for Gaming and when concentrating on modern SATA based SSDs most of them have similar (500MB/s+) Read/Write speeds that result in very similar performance when looking at Game load times. The bottom line is that many of these drives are really just as good as one another and the important factor begins to become price per GB. So in our Final Thoughts we’ll take a look at what just might be the most important factor; how much does the 750GB drive from Crucial cost and how does that compare to the competition.

 

Final Thoughts

 

The Crucial MX300 750GB (Limited Edition) SSD may well be equipped with 3D NAND and that may well be the latest technology, but in the real world and in Gaming you’d be had pushed to know. The bottom line is that the MX300 is simply a decent SSD at a decent price with an unusual capacity.

There’s not much to physically look at when it comes to SSDs and the Crucial MX300 750GB is really no exception. In the box there’s very little save for a spacer and a product key for Acronis True image HD. The MX300 pretty much looks like all of the other SSDs out there too! But we don’t buy SSDs for their looks or for what comes in the box, what really matters is its performance and (probably more importantly) its capacity.

The performance of SSDs that communicate over a SATA channel has somewhat stagnated in recent years and in Game most SSDs will perform the same as the others. This latest Crucial drive (with its 3D NAND) does very little to buck that trend. What we have here is a good SSD with good read and write speeds of 530MB/s and 510MB/s respectively that have been proven to be better in real world testing at 535MB/s and 515MB/s! And, as you can see the MX300 may well be close to the top of our charts, but on closer inspection you’ll see that little separates the top drives anyway.

This means that the only aspect for us to really worry about is how much capacity can we get and how much is it going to cost? Well this Crucial MX packs a heavyweight 750GB and will costs around £164 at the time of review, meaning that its cost is around 22p per GB. Now if we were to take a look at our top performing drive in its closest capacity we find that the Crucial MX200 500GB also offers up 22p per GB! So there you have it, there’s really nothing in it…

The bottom line therefore is if you want a decent SSD and you want more than 500GB then the latest Crucial MX300 750GB will undoubtedly serve you well.

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to Crucial for providing this sample for review