Kingston’s NV3 sits in the value tier of PCIe 4.0 drives. It’s a Gen 4×4 NVMe drive offered in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities. The 1TB model I tested (SNV3S/1000G) is the size most people buy. It’s meant to be a straightforward upgrade for a desktop, laptop or compact system, so the question is whether the speed justifies the price.
Specs
- Interface: PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe
- Form factor: M.2 2280
- Rated speeds: up to 6,000MB/s read and 4,000MB/s write on the 1TB model
- Endurance: 320TB written
- MTBF: 2,000,000 hours
- Warranty: 5 years
- Price: RM790
- Extras: one year of Acronis True Image for Kingston, plus the Kingston SSD Manager app for health monitoring, firmware updates and secure erase
Benchmark results
I used CrystalDiskMark 9.0.3 with 3 passes and a 1GiB test file on a fresh, empty 931GiB volume.
Sequential performance
The headline numbers beat the box. Sequential read reaches 6,127MB/s, slightly above the 6,000MB/s rating. Sequential write is more surprising: 5,571MB/s against a rated 4,000MB/s, about 39% faster than advertised.
That doesn’t mean the drive will write at that speed all day. Budget SSDs like this use a fast SLC cache, a portion of the NAND run in a quicker mode to absorb incoming writes. A 1GiB test file fits inside that cache on an empty drive, which is the best case. Once you copy tens of gigabytes in one go, or the drive fills up, write speeds will fall toward the NAND’s native speed. For typical use (installing games, moving project files, saving photo batches) you’ll mostly see the burst speeds. For sustained jobs like 4K video dumps, plan on slower writes.
The Q1T1 sequential result is also telling. Read drops to 4,119MB/s with a single queued request, while write stays high at 5,379MB/s. That’s normal behaviour: reads need deeper queues to saturate the controller, while writes are absorbed by the cache. Even the lower figure is several times faster than any SATA SSD.
Random performance
Random 4K is where day to day responsiveness comes from. At a queue depth of 32, the NV3 manages 1,135MB/s read and 1,034MB/s write. That’s solid for a drive in this price class and enough for heavy multitasking, big game libraries and application loading.
At Q1T1, the load most desktop use actually produces, read is 90.32MB/s and write is 389.14MB/s. The read figure looks small next to the sequential numbers, but that’s how every NVMe drive behaves at queue depth 1, and it’s a limit of the test, not a flaw. Higher end drives with DRAM and premium controllers can push noticeably further here, which is the main place you pay for a faster SSD. In everyday use, the NV3’s random performance is still a large step up from SATA and from older PCIe 3.0 drives.
Real world fit
The NV3 suits a few jobs well:
- Main or secondary drive in a gaming PC. Load times are fast, and 1TB holds a decent library.
- Upgrading an older laptop or desktop. If you’re coming from a hard drive or SATA SSD, boot, app launch and file copy times will feel transformed.
- Working drive for photo and light video editing. Burst writes are quick enough for most project files.
- Small form factor builds. The single sided M.2 2280 design is easy to fit, and Kingston says it runs with lower power draw and reduced heat than faster drives, which helps in thin or cramped systems.
Anyone with sustained heavy write workloads, such as constant 4K or 8K footage ingest, large database work or repeated multi hundred gigabyte transfers, should look at a drive with DRAM and a bigger or more consistent cache.
Value and warranty
At RM790 for the 1TB, the NV3 works out to roughly RM0.79 per gigabyte. For a drive that hit 6,127MB/s read and over 5,500MB/s write burst in testing, that’s competitive for a Gen 4 SSD from a major brand. The 5 year warranty is a real selling point at this price, and it pairs well with the 320TBW endurance rating, since the warranty covers you for as long as most people will realistically keep the drive. At 50GB of writes per day, 320TB would take over 17 years to reach, so endurance is not a concern for normal users.
TLDR
Pros
- Sequential reads above 6,000MB/s, and writes well above the rated figure in burst
- Strong 4K random performance at high queue depth
- Compact, single sided M.2 2280 design that suits laptops and small builds
- Priced at RM790 for 1TB, good value for Gen 4 performance
- 5 year warranty on top of 320TBW endurance and a 2 million hour MTBF
- Free Acronis software and the Kingston SSD Manager app
Cons
- Write speeds will drop on long sustained transfers once the cache fills
- Q1T1 random read is modest compared with premium drives
- Not aimed at professional, heavy write workloads
Verdict
The Kingston NV3 1TB delivers more than its spec sheet promises in this test. A read speed of 6,127MB/s, a write burst of 5,571MB/s and over 1,000MB/s in high queue random 4K are strong numbers for a value focused Gen 4 SSD. The usual caveat applies: these figures are for a fresh drive and a short test file, so expect lower writes under heavy sustained load.
For gamers, students, everyday users and anyone upgrading from a hard drive or SATA SSD, the NV3 at RM790 with a 5 year warranty is a fast, sensible choice. You get PCIe 4.0 speeds, strong random performance and long term peace of mind without paying the premium for a top tier drive. If your work means constantly writing huge files, spend more on a drive built for it. For everyone else, this is an easy recommendation.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Product Page : https://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/nv3-nvme-pcie-ssd