MSI SPATIUM M570 PRO FROZR 2 TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD Review – Massive & Passive Frozr Cooling

Earlier this year, we got our first taste of the latest PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSDs, offering up to 10,000 MB/s read and write capabilities. These drives were first but we knew that faster drives would be entering the market sooner or later as the technology matured. Furthermore, Gen5 platforms are more accessible to a wider range of audiences with the introduction of mainstream AMD & Intel motherboards.

While offering 10 GB/s speeds as a start, SSD manufacturers have quickly started rolling out faster drives by optimizing thermal designs and utilizing enhanced NAND solutions. MSI started off its 5.0 journey in a similar fashion with the first-gen products offering 10 GB/s speeds in M570 flavors. The company is now offering an upgraded "PRO" version of the SSD known as the Spatium M570 PRO & that takes things up a notch.

For today's review, we will be taking a look at the MSI Spatium M570 PRO FROZR 2 TB SSD which is equipped with Phison's E26 controller and is aiming at the high-end storage segment. This SSD comes at a retail price of $299.99 US which makes it very competitive against similar Gen5 offerings.

The MSI Spatium M570 PRO Frozr is part of the Spatium Gen5 lineup. The Spatium family has been around for a few years now and includes Gen3, Gen4, and Gen5 products. The MSI Spatium M570 Pro Frozr SSDs are based on the NVMe SSD form factor and feature the latest Micron 232-layer TLC NAND flash which offers larger capacities of up to 4 TB, twice the performance of Gen4 drives, & full compliance with Microsoft's DirectStorage API. The Spatium M570 & M570 PRO series SSDs are based on the high-end Phison E26 SSD controller which is in use by some of the fastest Gen5 drives at the moment.

MSI has pushed the NAND speeds from 1600 MT/s to 2000 MT/s, allowing for higher read and write capabilities. We can expect further optimizations to these speeds in future Gen5 drives from MSI.

As for the specs, the MSI Spatium M570 Pro FROZR SSD comes with the standard NVMe 2.0 PCIe Gen 5 x4 interface in the M.2 2280 form factor. It will feature 1 TB, 2 TB, and up to 4 TB capacities with a rated speed of 12.4 GB/s (Sequential Read) and 11.8 GB/s (Sequential Write). The majority of Gen 5 drives available right now peak out at 10 GB/s Read and 9.5 GB/s Write speeds. One of the major features of this SSD is the use of a large Frozr heatsink which is said to reduce temperatures by up to 20C.

Note - The 2 TB model that we tested had a peak sequential read speed of 12,400 & a write speed of 11,800 MB/s. The Random Reads and Writes IOPS were rated at 1500K/1500K IOPS & endurance was rated at 1400 TBW.

The MSI Spatium M570 PRO FROZR 2 TB comes in a small package. The package is colored black and features large pictures of the SSD featured on it.

The front also lists down some features such as capacities, maximum read speeds, PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 form factor, and mentions the Eco-friendly packaging used by the package. The back of the package lists some specifications of the SSD and some performance figures which we will get to in a bit.

The MSI Spatium M570 PRO FROZR package includes a warranty booklet and a EU Regulatory Notice.

The SSD comes pre-attached to the massive FROZR heatsink and is well-packaged within the box.

The FROZR series is known for offering great cooling performance as we have seen on MSI's GPU and motherboards so we can expect similar cooling from this massive SSD heatsink which makes use of large aluminum fins and heat pipes.

The massive heatsink makes use of at least 36 aluminum fins which form the cooling block. These are elevated fins that not only allow more heat dissipation area but also let airflow pass through more easily.

The heatsink also includes three ideally positioned heat pipes, two passing through the middle stack of the aluminum fins and the other passing through the top. This is said to efficiently transfer heat from the SSD to the heatsink.

The bottom of the heatsink is a cover with the standard labels on it. The small M.2 connector can be seen coming out of the heatsink assembly and is easy to connect with the motherboard. That's about it as far as the outside is concerned.

On the inside, we can note that three large heatpipes are connected directly to the SSD.

These triple heatpipes are known as "Core Pipes" and use a flattened surface to ensure proper contact with the SSD controller and the NAND Flash. Both sides of the SSD cover make use of thermal pads.

The Frozr heatsink and the whole SSD measures 94.80 (L) x 24.00 (W) x 71.65 (H) mm. MSI has made the heatsink in a manner that makes compatibility easier with all high-end motherboards and also ensures that there's enough clearance between the GPU backplate and the SSD itself. A recommended installation space of 22x110mm is advised when using the Spatium M570 Pro Frozr.

On the back of the SSD, you can also note two Micron LPDDR5 modules, each packing 2 GB of DRAM capacities for a total of 4 GB cache.

The whole SSD is easy to remove from the heatsink solution by unscrewing four screws. Also, reaching the SSD mounting screw is easy since there's enough space between the heatsinks to insert a screwdriver. Overall, the Spatium FROZR heatsink looks very impressive so let's get on with the testing.

Our test platform for this review consisted of an Intel Core i9-13900K processor which ran at stock clocks on the MSI Z790 ACE motherboard. The platform was coupled with 32 GB of DDR5 memory from G.Skill (Trident Z5/ 16 GB x 2) and the MSI MEG Ai1300P PSU. For graphics, I used the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X. This rounds up as a high-end platform for tests with modern-day SSDs. The MSI Z790 ACE specifically houses a single Gen 5.0 x4 NVMe slot that sources its lanes from the Raptor Lake CPU.

First up, we have the official performance stats for these drives as listed by their manufacturers. You can compare these stats with the rest of the drives I tested in the following chart:

AS SSD Benchmark download is a Windows 10 utility software program that tests the performance of solid-state drives. With its help, you can find out the speed of all installed SSDs and take care of any issues that the tests may reveal. The free app performs three separate tests to provide you with conclusive evidence of your driver's general behavior while it copies, reads, and writes data.  The app determines the access time of an SSD, along with its speed and performance capabilities

As the industry’s leading provider of high-performance storage & network connectivity products, ATTO has created a widely-accepted Disk Benchmark freeware software to help measure storage system performance. As one of the top tools utilized in the industry, Disk Benchmark identifies performance in hard drives, solid-state drives, RAID arrays as well as the host connection to attached storage. Top drive manufacturers, like Hitachi, build and test every drive using the ATTO Disk Benchmark.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturer's RAID controllers, storage controllers, host bus adapters (HBAs), hard drives, and SSD drives, and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

CrystalDiskMark is a disk benchmark software. It measures sequential reads/writes speed, random 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (Queue Depth=32) reads/writes speed, selects test data (Random, 0Fill, 1Fill),

To test the maximum average transfer speeds of the drives, I used a 100 GB file to test the limits.

The PCMark 10 Storage benchmark is designed to test the performance of SSDs, HDDs, and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, and a selection of popular games. You can test the system drive or any other recognized storage device, including local external drives. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 10 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices.

The whole Gen5 SSD ecosystem is relatively new and we are seeing gradual improvements coming with each new product release. So far, most companies have settled down at 12.4 GB/s which is a big improvement over what Gen4 SSDs offer and a 28% improvement over the first iteration of the Gen5 products. Pushing for high-speeds results in the E26 controller and NAND getting a bit toasty and that's why all manufacturers have put their engineering expertise in heatsink solutions which are some of the biggest we have seen for SSDs yet. Some of these cooling solutions even rival the entry-level CPU heatsinks as demonstrated in reviews by our CPU cooling reviewer & good friend, Albert Thomas.

There are currently three Gen5 solutions you can select from. There are the standard non-heatsink SSDs that come with Graphene pads, there are the pre-installed heatsink variants and then there are heatsink solutions that you can purchase separately. MSI's solution for its high-performance Spatium M570 PRO drives comes in the form of an FROZR pre-installed heatsink. This massive SSD cooling design is a work of art from a technical perspective. It's huge and it's designed in a way to be compatible with many motherboards without worrying about clearance issues. The heatsink is slimmed out to make sure that it doesn't interfere with the GPU backplate which is an issue that you can encounter when using Gen5 drives with super large heatsinks.

In terms of performance, the MSI Spatium M570 PRO Frozr outperformed all other Gen5 SSDs. The upgraded NAND Flash running at 2000 MT/s, a large 4 GB LPDDR4 cache, and proper cooling drive some insane sequential reads and writes speeds out of the box. Furthermore, the heatsink ensures temperatures of around 50-52C while power peaked out at 9.5W and averaged around 5.3W during our testing.

Coming to the price point, the MSI Spatium M570 PRO FROZR 2 TB SSD has retail pricing of $299 US while Crucial's T700 2 TB with the heatsink is priced at $289 US and AORUS's 12000 Gen5 2 TB is priced at $269.99 US. The pricing is definitely on the high side but we have tested the Crucial T700 & AORUS 10000 before. The AORUS 10000 and 12000 feature a very similar heatsink so in terms of temps, MSI has a slight edge with its FROZR heatsink and right now, the Spatium M570 PRO FROZR sits ahead of the T700. The difference is small but it's there. The issue is that there aren't a lot of use cases for such high-performance NVMe speeds at the moment. The technology is there but the software needs work. There have been a few cases where Gen5 SSDs are starting to showcase their prowess but besides some DirectStorage games, there isn't a whole lot.

Overall, the MSI Spatium M570 PRO Frozr series are some of the best Gen5 SSDs on the market that you can get right now. It has great cooling, exceptional performance, and a design that would fit well in PCs without worrying about compatibility. If you are looking for high-end Gen5 storage, then MSI's Frozr is definitely an option worth considering.

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