TeamGroup CARDEA A440 1 TB Gen 4 & CARDEA IOPS 1 TB Gen 3 M.2 SSDs Review

TeamGroup is the creator of some of the most high-quality memory products for the PC industry. They have come a long way since their inception in 1997 and went on to become one of the fastest growing product manufacturers and a leading brand around the globe.

Since the arrival of DDR4 memory in the mainstream market, Teamgroup started a separate line of DIMM kits under their new T-Force brand. The T-Force brand is the more enthusiast and gamer aimed memory series with a sheer focus on quality and performance.

The company later expanded the T-Force brand into their entire gaming portfolio which includes SSDs, gaming peripherals and more.

T-FORCE is TEAM force. The red "T" on the logo of "TF" represents TEAMGROUP's passion for the storage products. The black "F" represents TEAMGROUP's over 18 years of promotion of storage products. The visual design of the perfect combination elegantly symbolizes a pair of flying wings. They represent that the high quality and extreme performance gaming products from TEAMGROUP are capable of allowing all gamers to break the speed limit and enjoy the ever-changing world of gaming.

Today, I will be testing the T-Force CARDEA A440 & CARDEA IOPS 1 TB SSDs from Teamgroup which comes at a cost of just $299.99 & $149.99 US.rspectively, which seem good for a high-end and high-capacity storage device. The A440 is based on Gen 4 while the IOPS is based on a Gen 3 protocol & which gives us a good point in checking out the performance differentiation between the two storage products.

Teamgroup's T-Force CAREDEA A440 SSDs are part of the latest CARDEA family and hence, they come with a new design language that features a bunded heatsink module along with the IHS spreader based on a copper film.

The SSDs are based on the NVMe SSD form factor and features a 96-layer TLC-based 3D NAND flash which offers larger capacities, better performance, and slightly lower power input when compared to Teamgroup's previous offerings. TeamGroup is using the high-end Phison PS5018-E18 controller.

Furthermore, these SSDs are priced slightly above the premium offerings with a cost of $299.99 US for the 1 TB variant but in return, you get some stellar speeds. In terms of performance, the T-Force CARDEA A440 1 TB has sequential read speeds of 7000 MB/s and write speeds of 5000 MB/s. The Random read speeds of these drives are up to 650K IOPS and the write is 700K IOPS. The SSDs are powered through the NVMe slot with a 3.3V DC supply.

The endurance of the lineup is rated at 700 TBW or 3,000,000 hours which should last a good amount of time with these drives. You are also looking at a 5-year limited warranty through the entire lineup.

Teamgroup's T-Force CAREDEA IOPS SSDs are part of the latest CARDEA family and hence, they come with a new design language that features a bunded heatsink module along with the IHS spreader based on a copper film.

The SSDs are based on the NVMe SSD form factor and features a 96-layer TLC-based 3D NAND flash which offers larger capacities, better performance, and slightly lower power input when compared to Teamgroup's previous offerings. TeamGroup is using the Phison PS5012-E12S controller.

Furthermore, these SSDs are priced slightly above the premium offerings with a cost of $149.99 US for the 1 TB variant but in return, you get some stellar speeds. In terms of performance, the T-Force CARDEA IOPS 1 TB has sequential read speeds of 3400 MB/s and write speeds of 3000 MB/s. The Random read speeds of these drives are up to 650K IOPS and the write is 700K IOPS. The SSDs are powered through the NVMe slot with a 3.3V DC supply.

The endurance of the lineup is rated at 1665 TBW or 1,500,000 hours which should last a good amount of time with these drives. You are also looking at a 5-year limited warranty through the entire lineup.

TeamGroup T-Force CARDEA A440 & IOPS SSDs – Unboxing and Closer Look

Both drives come in a small package. The front of the package is very colorful with large pictures of the SSD featured on it. There are many logos on the front starting with the T-Force logo on the top left corner and followed by CARDEA logos on the top right corners. Some of the most prominent features include the 1+1 heatsink, Graphene Aluminum pads, and NVMe PCIe Gen 4.0/3.0 support.

The back of the package lists down some specifications of the SSD and some performance figures which we will get to in a bit.

The package includes three items, one is the warranty booklet, the heatsink along with the graphene pads, and the other is the drive itself. There's also a T-Force case sticker inside the package which is a nice addition.

Out of the package, both drives come in the standard M.2 2280 form factor with the A440 having a black-colored PCB while the IOPS features a blue-colored PCB.

The front of the drives includes a specifications sticker and you can place the graphene pads on the exposed side of the PCB. The heatsink installation is pretty simple and requires you to slot the SSD into the bottom support which sets in place quite nicely.

The CARDEA A440 holds four NAND Flash chips (96L) and a Phison E18 controller while the IOPS features the Phison E12S controller and 256 MB DDR3 memory. The drive also features 2 GB of DDR4 DRAM.

Our test platform for this review consisted of an Intel Core i9-11900K  processor which ran at stock clocks on the MSI Z590 ACE motherboard. The platform was coupled with 32 GB of DDR4 memory from G.Skill (Trident Z RGB / 8 GB x 4) and the ASUS ROG Thor 1200W PSU. For graphics, I used the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X. This rounds up as a high-end platform for tests with modern-day SSDs.

First up, we have the official performance stats for these drives as listed by their manufacturers. The T-Force Delta R RGB 500 GB SSD is rated at 500 MB/s Sequential Write and 560 MB/s Sequential Read speeds while the Random 4KB IOPS are rated at 80,000 (Write) and 90,000 (Read). You can compare these stats with the rest of the drives I tested in the following chart:

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 measure sequential reads/writes speed,measure random 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (Queue Depth=32) reads/writes speed,select 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 TeamGroup CARDEA lineup delivers exceptional results across the board. The A440 is not even the fastest in the lineup as that hallmark belongs to the latest Z440 series but it still managed to deliver exceptional results as did the rest of the drives. There's one for every type of consumer.

For enthusiasts who want the best performance and are willing to pay the premium, the A440 delivers great results at around $220 US which is an attractive price too given the Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB costs around $250 US. The IOPs and C440 1 TB for $130 and $185, respectively, are also great options for mainstream users who want to retain similar performance.

Also looking at the temperatures above, you can see that the included heatsink really does make a huge difference. If users are already running motherboards with M.2 heatsinks installed, then it is better to go with the graphene pad which provides decent results but you are getting a premium option that you don't get with most high-end SSDs, even Samsung's Pro lineup so that's a plus. I will definitely recommend the CARDEA A440 1 TB for users who want blazing fast performance while those on a budget should eye the C440 and IOPs drives. The IOPS and A440 are also PCIe Gen 4 compliant which makes them the perfect combo with existing and next-generation Intel/AMD CPU platforms.

Note: The CARDEA A440 has received an 'Editor's Choice' award whereas the C440 gets the 'Great Value' award by Wccftech.

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