TeamGroup T-Force Delta RGB 250GB SSD review - Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

TeamGroup offers a great 2.5" SATA3 SSD. Whether or not you find the RGB functionality important or not, I'll leave for you to decide. From an SSD point of view, it, however, ticks the right boxes. A really fast Silicon Motion SM2258 4-channel controller paired with advanced SLC Caching algorithms and a chunk of DDR3 DRAM for caches paired with Micron TLC written NAND, really makes this a proper performing 2.5" SATA3 SSD. Pretty much the Delta RGB can chew anything you throw at it while remaining close to advertised write performance, so TeamGroup did cover their bases alright. The one thing lacking is information on TBW values. Considering it's using Micron NAND, I am not worried here. The use of the dual-cache is sweet, they add a 512MB  DRAM cache alongside an SLC written cache buffer. For the 500GB and 1TB models that's 512MB as well as an SLC write cache. The ever so important factor, of course, is pricing, you'll be able to spot this unit at roughly 40 cents per GB for our tested 250 GB model, however, the 1TB model is well under 30 Cents per GB making this unit among the cheaper ones to get on the market. With TLC, it'll remain to be a mid-range priced SSD, with a solid performance point of view. Mid-range these days is last year's high-end performance. And with this kind of performance, you overall remain in the high-end segment on SATA3. 

Performance

This SSD writes and reads serious amounts of tiny files in a fast enough fashion. You can notice a drop-off point once the caches really run out of stamina, but you will need to have written many GBs before that happens, and even then you are still looking at a "slow" 450 MB/sec. IOPS is not something you as a consumer should worry about too much unless you are doing a lot of database related work or create similar workloads on your PC, but this SSD certainly ranks high within this aspect. Trace testing is a test series where we emulate what you guys do on your PC but then multiply it by a factor of 100, this test puts more focus on read performance as opposed to writing though. The outcome of the results with the Crucial MX500; sustained read/write performance, again fine. Zoom in at both IOPS and trace performance and you'll notice that the SSD can manage serious workloads without breaking so much as a drop of sweat. So whether you write lots of small files, copy MKV movies or do it all together, the SSD remains a solid performer on all fronts.

Overall

Right, an or any SSD in the year 2018 is enjoyable. Very much so. If you put a drive like this into your SATA 3 compatible laptop or SATA 3 compatible PC, you'll have no idea what is about to hit you when comparing with an HDD. We very much enjoy the grand sustained performance of this SSD series. Make no mistake, replacing an HDD with an SSD in your desktop PC or laptop eliminates the random access lag of the HDD head, it is no longer mechanical. That, combined with the maxed out performance SATA 3 offers these days, is simply a massive difference and probably the best upgrade you can make to your computer this day and age.

Your SATA controller

Some overall recommendations then. Should you be in the market for a SATA 3 SSD then we have a couple of hints. First and foremost if you have a SATA 2 controller only on your motherboard, then you'll be limited at roughly 270 MB/sec read and writes. SATA 3 (6Gbps) will free you up from that allowing the SSD to perform in the 500 MB/sec range. It is, however, important that you connect your SSD to the proper controller. Internal chipset-based integrated SATA 6G controllers are the best, thus say the Z270 / Z370 / X299 Intel SATA3 interface or the AMD X370 / X470 / X399 internal chipset interface. If you run the SSD from a 3^rd party controller like, say, a Marvell / ASMedia 6G controller, you will often see lower performance. The new AMD chipsets offer fantastic performance btw. The more recent Asmedia controllers we spotted lately on motherboards also offer good performance, albeit still 20% ~ 25% slower than Intel's controllers. Also, make sure you run your drive in AHCI mode, it does make such a difference in performance, a big difference.

Concluding

We really can't complain as to what TeamGroup offers here, I guess you just really need to be into that RGB trend. The Delta RGB performs as advertised, and does that well. Personally, I like the RGB implementation, but dislike that there are three different models all each with their proprietary RGB connector solution. Please be aware of what form factor RGB your motherboard supports, and base your purchasing choice on that. Also remember, there is one more extra wire leasing through your system, just for RGB. Also if you have 5V 3 pin connector and later on move onwards to a motherboard with a 12V 4-pin connector, you'll have lost your compatibility. It's these small things and quirks that I don't like. However, admitted, once activated .. it works well and looks terrific. We tried it on an ASUS motherboard and if RGB is your thing, this can be dazzling and mesmerizing. For the 90% of other users out there, yes there is an obvious price premium for the RGB implementation. For the RGB haters, for you, you'd perhaps be better off with something like the Crucial MX500? Speaking of the MX500, the Delta RGB SSD is close to similar in configuration to that SSD series, the same controller, the same SLC caches, the same amount of DRAM cache. Other than using slightly older revision NAND, this SSD is close to that one, and you know how we feel about the Crucial MX500. The Delta RGB offers solid performance in the 450/500MB write ranges as well and comes with 3-years warranty, that I would have liked to be 5 years. It neither does seem to suffer from the TLC write hole (slowing down once caches run out). Performance wise it's mostly, all the same, these days, ergo the biggest move in the storage industry right now is the quest for more capacity and proper endurance with SATA 6 Gbit/s storage units. We need multiple Terabyte SSDs as most people will want to ditch the traditional mechanical head based HDDs with their rotating platters, But I guess that way will be paved once QLC NAND reaches the masses. As mentioned, the T-Force Delta RGB series comes with a three years warranty, I would have liked 5 years here really as that is what most popular brands are now offering. I am still waiting for TBW values and will add them to this article as soon as I hear back on that. If RGB is your thing, hey, it's a nice and proper SSD. In the end, pricing will remain the defining factor for the success of this SSD series. But from a hardware and performance point of view, we see merely positives, recommended if you need a little more disco.

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