AMD Radeon R7 SSD (240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on August 28, 2014 6:00 AM ESTFinal Words
To be frank, the R7 does not bring anything new to the table. Performance and feature wise it provides something in between the ARC 100 and Vector 150, but there's nothing earthshaking that would separate it from the masses. Sure, a four-year warranty is unique but with Samsung and SanDisk offering 10-year warranties in their high-end SSDs, the buyers who value a long warranty will likely choose something other than the R7.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (8/24/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | ||
| AMD Radeon R7 | $100 | $160 | $290 | |
| OCZ Vector 150 | $85 | $140 | $280 | |
| OCZ Vertex 460 | $90 | $140 | $245 | |
| OCZ ARC 100 | $75 | $120 | $240 | |
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro | $130 | $200 | $400 | |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $90 | $140 | $250 | |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | - | $200 | $380 | |
| SanDisk Extreme II | $70 | $140 | $295 | |
| Crucial MX100 | $80 | $123 | $220 | |
| Plextor M6S | $80 | $135 | $280 | |
| Intel SSD 730 | - | $190 | $340 | |
| Intel SSD 530 | $90 | $140 | $250 | |
The pricing does not make the R7 any better. Right now it is more expensive than the Vector 150, which provides higher performance and a longer warranty along with a higher endurance rating. The R7 must come down in price to make any sense, although even then the R7 will fall into the infamous middle-class. As I have said before, I only see two segments in the client market: the mainstream/value and the high-end market. In other words, the average Joe should just buy the SSD that provides the best value and frankly the MX100 has been dominating that market for the past couple of months. The high-end market, on the other hand, values absolute performance and features, and the R7 cannot compete with the 850 Pro and Extreme Pro there.
It is quite obvious that AMD is going after novice users with the R7 SSD. For someone with very little or no understanding of computers, the AMD branding can provide a peace of mind since AMD is fairly large and visible brand in the industry, but anyone who understands what they are buying should look elsewhere. To put it simply, there are better SSDs available for less money.
Ultimately AMD's biggest opportunity with the R7 SSD is bundles. I would not mind seeing the R7 as a part of an AMD component bundle because there is nothing wrong with the drive, but the pricing must be much more competitive than what the standalone drive currently is. If the total bundle price can put the cost of the SSD roughly in line with other value drives like the MX100, it provides good performance overall; it's just not worth the current price premium when purchased on its own.
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Death666Angel - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
Agility 1 and Vertex 2 still going strong here!mapesdhs - Saturday, August 30, 2014 - link
The key is fw updates. The old bugs are fixed. Once done, they're fine.People act like OCZ was the only company to have issues, but even Intel and
Samsung screwed up their SSD line at one point or other (FUD posters choose
to forget Intel's 8MB bricked SSD issue).
Ian.
bronan - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
Agreed on that Death666Angel i got 12 of them all running perfect, ofcourse one day they will die :DBut this far super and still good performance for such OLD ssd ;)
On topic i like the way AMD is going open in everything no faking or hiding facts like the competition, i hope AMD keeps up the good work they are doing. Teaming up with other good brands like Toshiba and such only makes both brands better. A shame they do not have a enterprise version else i would have considered them as well
zero2dash - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
I'm sorry, did you just say Vertex/Agility were reliable? Is it opposite day or something?I owned a 30 GB Vertex. It was great for 10 months. Then it started throwing up chkdsk errors. Sanitary Erasing did nothing but "buy some time". I had it replaced several times under warranty. Then they put out a FW update that turned Vertex's into Vertex Pros (probably in an effort to look less terrible with mud on their faces). I flashed mine, sanitary erased it again, and sold it for peanuts (almost literally) and got a Crucial M4 SSD that has been rock solid for several years now.
As far as I'm concerned, OCZ can close their doors for good. Or don't, I could care less because I'm never purchasing another OCZ product ever again.
Homeles - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
Their Octane/Petrol failure rates were close to 50%.ProfSparkles - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
At my company we go through many SSDs per year and by now we lost every single OCZ SSD (mostly Vertex 3) we bought so far and had to replace it, at first we use the warranty and replaced it with yet another OCZ but when those failed aswell we bought new Samsung SSDs (840 EVO) which was less expensive than driving to customers another time and replacing the failed drives. The Samsungs drives already tripled the OCZ drives lifetime.I personally own a first batch Vertex 2 which still works well but since the rev 2 of the Vertex 2 and Vertex 3 they went so far downhill its just ridiculous.
mapesdhs - Saturday, August 30, 2014 - link
Blah blah. Fact is, none of that applies to the non-Sandforce models, and I've had no
issues with the pile of V3 MXIs I bought; guess you were just unlucky.
Ian.
dragonsqrrl - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
... I think he's referring to their SSD's.Guspaz - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
Bought a bunch of OCZ RAM. It failed (or at least some sticks did) and they got out of the RAM business so they invalidated the warranty. Convinced a friend to buy a Vertex 2 before they got their bad rep. It failed. He got a replacement. It failed. He got a replacement. It failed. He bought an Intel. It didn't fail.Sorry, but a company with such unreliable products getting bought out by Toshiba (who lied to me and refused to honour their warranty) just makes them even more of a "not with a ten foot pole" in my books.
Sparrowgryphon - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
I just had this SSD fail last night, it was about 4 months old. put it in a different PC will not show up and even stops the PC from booting.