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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LB-ID - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
It would be amusing if consumers weren't being harmed by this. OCZ has such a deservedly poor reputation that they're turning to rebranding to try to foist their crap on an unsuspecting audience. No way, and I'll warn anyone who will listen about this. Shame on AMD for partnering with such an unscrupulous vendor.errorr - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
Well considering most of there less than scrupulous employees are not part of a completely new subsidiary of Toshiba...kyuu - Tuesday, September 2, 2014 - link
OCZ is now owned by Toshiba, and their current drives work well. Continuing to harp on the old OCZ and their bad line of drives is silly. There's nothing "unscrupulous' about OCZ nowadays.ronnyzigzag - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to screen resolution specs,but I will tell you that whenI first saw homepage and when I watched my first video on Netflix,I was very satisfied with hat I saw.It looked great.Since watching a ten inch screen from only a couple of feet away,makes the screen size seem to appear the same sizeas if you were in a real movie theater ,it didn't seem to matter to me.And one more thing ,it looks and feels great so go and get one for yourselves and enjoy!pt2501 - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
Bought a vertex 3 during Thanksgiving 2011, I knew it was risky but the performance could not be beat at the time. It is still my primary boot drive and going strong 3 years later. I really can't complain and in my book OCZ is still okay.LiviuTM - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
No doubt OCZ is a top SSD manufacturer, now that it has full access to Toshiba resources and NAND.The main problem of this drive is pricing, as Kristian said. :)lilmoe - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
"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"Actually, if I had to say, I think this title goes to Kingston. ADATA and Sandisk have been coming in close second as of late. The average Joe is going to brands they recognize for RAM and flash...
jabber - Friday, August 29, 2014 - link
I would say AMD does not have a large and visible brand in the industry...that counts for anything.Assk 100 random Joes in the street if they know of Intel or AMD and I bet 85 of them will know about Intel "Oh they make computers don't they?" and maybe 5 might actually know what AMD do.
Crdlp - Monday, September 1, 2014 - link
I've never had issues with an ocz product. I've build several computer computers with there ram sticks, power supplies, and old (sanforce) and new ssds. I did have a power supply go out when it got struck by lightning. There old ram and power supplies got the job done on a budgit computer, and now there ssds to me represent a small company competting with much bigger companies, and winning much of the time. The only issues they had was with sanforce controllers, and for some reason, people forget that every sanforce drive (which was most drives then) was having the same issues, but people seem to only like to blame ocz for it. They were one of the only brands that decided to take steps to move away from relying on another company to provide a controller for them, which was expensive. Toshiba did not aquire ocz because they needed a ssd in the market, they already had one. Ocz is a small company, that has a realitivly amazing drive, it was a matter of time before somebody bought them.Clubber Lang - Sunday, September 7, 2014 - link
I have 5 OCZ SSD Primary Boot drives that have been in use since 2009/2010, and not one has failed.Quite frankly I think a lot of people back then were ruining their SSD's by defragging them to death. (Auto defrag used to be on by default)