Kingston FURY Renegade G5 review: fast and high quality at a premium
Table of Contents
With storage speeds rapidly increasing, another manufacturer is joining the fray with the latest and fastest interface available to it. This time it’s Kingston, bringing its Fury range up to the latest standard with the release of the G5, which vows to become one of the best NVMe SSDs available right now.
The PCIe Gen 5 SSD is another fast option that can be an upgrade to an older, slower drive, but is unlikely to see much benefit directly from a Gen 4 drive. However, on its own, the Kingston Fury offers great performance with some strong thermal performance while doing so. That privilege does cost a bit more than the competition out there, though.
So, with that in mind, I checked out what it has to offer, going over its design and specifications, along with putting its performance to the test.
- Capacity: 1/2/4TB
- Interface: PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe
- Sequential Read Speed: 14,200/14,700/14,800MB/s
- Sequential Write Speed: 11,000/14,000/14,000MB/s
- Random Read Speed: 2,200,000IOPS
- Random Write Speed: 2,150,000/2,200,000/2,200,000IOPS
- Endurance: 1/2/4PB
- Controller: SM2508
- NAND: 3D TLC
- MTBF: 2,000,000 hours
Kingston’s Fury Renegade G5 upgrades the NVMe’s hardware for an impressive amount of speed. Providing the full extent of PCIe Gen 5 capabilities, it provides some of the best long-term options for keeping systems and applications running fast. Just the price might be a bit too out of reach for some, as it goes above some of the top choices in the market. The tests show why it might be the case as it jumps ahead even in both random and sequential scenarios.
- Fast performance overall
- Strong thermals
- Long warranty and support
- Random speeds not quite up to spec
- Price above the competition
Specs and design
| Form factor | M.2 2280 |
| Interface | PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe |
| Capacities | 1024GB, 2048GB, 4096GB |
| Controller | SM2508 |
| NAND | 3D TLC |
| DRAM cache | Yes |
| DirectStorage supported | Yes |
| Sequential read/write | 1024GB – up to 14,200/11,000MB/s 2048GB – up to 14,700/14,000MB/s 4096GB – up to 14,800/14,000MB/s |
| Random 4K read/write | 1024GB – up to 2,200,000/2,150,000 IOPS 2048GB – 4096GB – up to 2,200,000/2,200,000 IOPS |
| Endurance (total bytes written) | 1024GB – 1.0PB 2048GB – 2.0PB 4096GB – 4.0PB |
| Storage temperature | -40°C~85°C |
| Operating temperature | 0°C~70°C |
| Dimensions | 80mm x 22mm x 2.3mm |
| Weight | 1024GB – 7.3g 2048GB – 4096GB – 7.7g |
| Vibration operating | 2.17G peak (7-800Hz) |
| Vibration non-operating | 20G peak (20 – 1,000Hz) |
| MTBF | 2,000,000 hours |
| Warranty/Support | Limited 5-year warranty with free technical support |
The Fury Renegade G5 comes in four capacities: one, two, and four terabyte models. A decent range of options to pick from while cutting back on the 500GB version, which was available in the PCIe Gen 4 range. Quite likely due to it not being a popular size, as even looking at prebuilt gaming PCs, you can see most carrying a 1TB model at least.
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 box, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 back, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 front, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 in box, Image by PC Guide
For the controller, the G5 opts for the SM2508 for the Gen 5 capability as well as combining that with a 3D TLC NAND flash and a 2GB DDR4 DRAM cache to make it a rapid-fire storage. Utilizing that sort of buffer allows it to run optimally for big transfers and ensures optimal performance in the long run.
Combined, the hardware provides a range of promised read and write speeds depending on the capacity. In the case of the 2TB model I was testing, that came to around 14,700 and 14,000MB/s sequential read and write speeds, while the random 4K reaches 2.2 million IOPS.
Each drive is rated with an endurance of up to a thousand times its capacity, so two petabytes for the two terabyte drive with a mean time before failure of 2 million hours.
The physical dimensions stay relatively standard for an M.2 drive, specifically being 80mm x 22mm x 2.3mm and weighing in at 7.7 grams. It doesn’t offer a heatsink either, just a simple sticker on top, so it’s probably best to use it with a motherboard that has some integrated into the slot.
Kingston FURY Renegade G5, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 installed, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 in motherboard, Image by PC Guide
Software
Kingston does offer up some free software for its storage, with the SSD manager being a rather basic programme, really. It, in fact, looks like something from 20 years ago, but it at least has the essentials, with the option to check on the drive’s health and temperature. With the ability to update your firmware and check the events of the SSD.
There is also Acronis True Image that is offered with the SSD manager, which brings about some more value for it. As it offers back-ups for your disk drivers, partition, cloning, and a decent amount of control for your drive and data.
Price
The pricing of the Rengade G5 is rather steep, even for the PCIe Gen 5 drive, compared to the competition. The 2TB option costs $329.99 on Amazon or £299.99 on Overclockers. While a top pick, such as the Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB, is available for $299.99 or £245.99.
That does make the G5 a more expensive option, and a tougher sell for a better value. It comes down to the performance and how much it can provide for the price, so maybe it is worth the extra tens of dollars on top. Or you can always look out for a deal on it to make it even more worth it.
Tests
Lastly, I put the NVMe to the test, using various abilities of the drive to check out its actual speed and benchmark what it’s capable of. At the same time, I tested out Corsair’s MP600 Pro XT, which uses a PCIe Gen 4 interface as a comparison to see the improvements of the new generation.
My test bench for these consists of:
- Motherboard: ASUS Prime X870-P WiFi
- CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- RAM: Corsair Dominator Titanium RGB (64GB, 6600MT/s, CL32)
- CPU Cooler: ROG RYUJIN III 360
- PSU: 1000W Phanteks
CrystalDiskMark
I benchmarked both of the NVMe drives by setting up CrystalDiskMark in NVMe mode and then running five tests at 1 GiB sizing. Below are the results of these tests, which show the kind of difference you can have from the PCIe Gen 5 drive.
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 CrystalDiskMark default, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 CrystalDiskMark real world, Image by PC Guide
When it comes to sequential read and write speeds, with queues of eight and 32 and threads of one each, the difference between the drives really shows. The Fury Rengade doubled the speeds over the MP600, achieving speeds around 14,000 MB/s compared to the 7,000 MB/s of the Corsair drive.
In random 4K tests, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, as loading up a queue of 32 with 16 threads, the G5 achieves nearly 8,000 MB/s in reads with a 6,600 MB/s in writes. That doubles up the Corsairs at 3,500 in both. It’s in the queue thread of one that punishes the two, as the read speed drops below 100MB/s and the writes hover around 300, meaning neither is exactly great, but still the best out of the lot.
Changing up the CrystalDiskMark to a real-world performance profile changes the results quite significantly. Now the sequential reads and writes for the Renegade drop to 8,700 and 10,400 MB/s for a queue of eight. Meanwhile, the queue of 32 cuts that down to 94 and 317MB/s of reads and writes. That leads to the Corsair catching up in the queue of 32, where it’s just around 20 MB/s slower, while the queue of eight does still give the Fury double the speed.
As for the random speeds, the Fury doesn’t quite reach the levels the spec sheet suggests. Instead, it gets to 23,000 reads and 77,400 IOPS reads and writes at a queue of 32 and thread of 16, while the MP600 achieves 17,500 and 71,300, respectively.
3DMark storage
Another test I used was 3DMark’s storage test to compare the two. It runs a lineup of loading tests in various games to test their bandwidth and times to provide a final score, which is also used to compare the various drives.
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 3DMark storage avg access time, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 3DMark storage total score, Image by PC Guide
Kingston FURY Renegade G5 3DMark storage avg bandwidth, Image by PC Guide
Running through the relatively long benchmark netted the Renegade a score of around 4,500, while the MP600 Pro XT got to around 3,000. This gave the Kingston drive a 1.5x lead over the Corsair, but basic scores don’t really tell us any information other than a comparison.
Instead, the end stats show off some more useful stats overall. The first of which is the average bandwidth across the tests, where the Kingston achieves a speed of around 760MB/s, while the Corsair gets an average of around 500MB/s instead.
There are also access time stats for the same games. In that the G5 takes an average of 39μs, as the MP600 takes 61μs. Even though that might sound quick, those are equivalent to 0.000039 and 0.000061s, so it’s highly unlikely you would notice any real difference between the two.
Thermals
To end off the testing, I also stress-tested the SSD by using IOMeter to run a continuous 15-minute load. Split across reads and writes, it should load up the drive to increase its temperature.
Through that, you can see the G5 slowly increasing its temperature from around 43°C to getting up to 60°C over the load getting there after around 10 minutes. It’s only after stopping the drive that it jumps up to 68°C before slowly decreasing back down to ambient.
That does keep it just below the operating temperature of 70°C, which is ideal in prolonging its lifespan. You can also probably improve on this, as PCIe Gen 5 drives can get quite hot, and the heatsink on my Prime motherboard isn’t exactly the biggest solution, and it was relatively warm in the office.
- Capacity: 1/2/4TB
- Interface: PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe
- Sequential Read Speed: 14,200/14,700/14,800MB/s
- Sequential Write Speed: 11,000/14,000/14,000MB/s
- Random Read Speed: 2,200,000IOPS
- Random Write Speed: 2,150,000/2,200,000/2,200,000IOPS
- Endurance: 1/2/4PB
- Controller: SM2508
- NAND: 3D TLC
- MTBF: 2,000,000 hours
Conclusion
Overall, the Kingston Fury Renegade G5 lives up to the PCIe Gen 5 NVMe standard, ensuring the best performance out of the box. The sequential tests show that off, but as expected, the random performance is a lot tougher and slower, yet still improved over the PCIe Gen 4 option.
Its pricing also doesn’t make it the most appealing choice, as it goes above the top of the market Samsung drive. But with a strong selection of capacities and ranges, it might be one for down the road, and one that will last you for a while, with a strong build quality and top components used.
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