Final Words & Conclusion
Final Words & Conclusion
As you will have noticed, the performance of the GALAX HOF Pro SSD matches the recently tested Z440. Well, it seems that the ODM pretty much is the same. None the less, OMG what a nice SSD this is. Strictly speaking from noting down the highest values, this was among the fastest SSD we have ever tested. But if you look at it relatively towards other SSDs, it's simply put an enthusiast-class performing TLC M.2 SSD. Admittedly we did not stumble into TLC write holes as much as I expected, so that is good.
TLC (and QLC NAND) are a weak spot for super fast and many writes. So the trace tests you have seen from the PCMark 8 suite for example completely load and stress up the SSD, and it is here where the GALAX HOF Pro has a harder time to deliver in the performance bracket where it needs to be. And I do deem the PCMark 8 trace tests to be among the best benchmark series in our test suite. Now we also need to place it all in a relative matter, this SSD does reach 4.5 GB/sec given the right workload and Crystaldiskmark and ATTO indeed hits 5 GB/s. Copying many many gigabytes of movies and ISOs for example, well this SSD laughs at it, and while copying I actually laughed a bit nervously. I mean our 110 GB test file I had to copy towards this SSD from a Gigabit NAS, that took 18 minutes. Then copying the same file from an a Z440 from TeamGroup towards the GALAX HOF Pro... far less than a minute. So the results are a bit all over the place really, but it's also priced fairly competitive. I mean this super fast performing M.2. unit costs ~27 cents per GB in retail right now for the 1GB model. The unit reveals speeds at 2GB/ to 4.5 GB/s reads sometimes, in writes things are varying more. IOPS performance is great as well, but it does need massive queues and preferably threads for it to be able to show.
Concluding
The GALAX HOF Pro shatters records given the right conditions, but on some other workloads, you are down to high-end class TLC NVMe performance. And there is an abundance of choices available these days. What this product really does is pioneering, it is among the first PCIe Gen 4.0 compatible NVMe 1.3 compatible SSD. The cost of ownership does require a Ryzen series 3000 and X570/TRX40 motherboard though, but that's AMD for you as they wanted to offer you a technology advantage over team blue. of course, in the future Intel will get up-to-snuff as well. We'll be handing out the GALAX HOF Pro a recommended award just for the kicks of it and the sheer peak performance. But prices will need to get down though as here in the EU it is priced rather high. The Z440 units will be available at €269,- and €479,- respectively. Prices in USD are $189 and $379 respectively for the 1TB and 2 TB models. The warranty is three years, it would be nice to have seen that at 5 years though. The 1800 TBW value for the 1 TB model is terrific.
I like to close with this line, while top sequential and sustained benchmark figures are incredibly fun to look at and nearly eye-popping with this SSD, it's the overall real-world performance that I care about. And in that respect, we expected to see a bit more perf overall in our trace tests and that is the honest truth. It, however, is amazing to see where prices and performance are now compared to what you got in performance and money a few years ago. Remember that included heatsink works well, but you do not have to install it, as many of you will tuck the SSD away under a motherboard heatsink. What an impressive M2 NVME SSD.
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