Plextor M.2 M8Pe NVMe SSD

PCI-Express SSDs are still quite expensive, but they also perform significantly better than SATA600 SSDs. A few years ago the additional price you paid for a high-end SSD barely gave you better performance due to the SATA600-bottleneck, but now the...

By now, I've spent a lot of time with the Plextor M8Pe and, despite some of the issues I've had, I can't help but to like the drive. This gamer-oriented, PCIe SSD offers good performance, a bold, eye catching design and a massive heatsink to keep it...

The Plextor M8Pe M.2 NVMe is a speedy yet affordable internal solid-state drive—but it's not competitive at its current...

The comparison against more mainstream SATA SSDs like the 850 EVO is not as easy. At about 33¢/GB, the 850 EVO is just over half the price and the M8Pe can't always deliver twice the performance. It's even less often that the performance of the M8Pe would feel twice as fast, since it's hard to improve on something that already feels instantaneous. Ultimately, the SSD market has broadened to the point that there's nothing close to a one size fits all recommendation, but for now the Plextor M8Pe is one of several reasonable high-end options.

The Plextor M8Pe cannot keep up with Samsung's 960 Pro, but otherwise it is a solid contender in the PCIe SSD space. Its overall performance is near the Samsung 960 EVO and the Toshiba OCZ RD400. All of them offer better real-world performance than...

The M8Pe is a worthy competitor to OCZ's RD400, and quite a bit cheaper than the Intel 750—a very good product, in other words. And it's the sexiest-looking PCIe card SSD out there, if that means anything to you.Join the Good Gear Guide newsletter!If...