Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink Review: Built Tough

Kingston Technology is synonymous with memory and storage solutions for consumers and businesses. The company sent the Wccftech Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 solid-state drive, but this one was more unique as it includes a heat sink on this model, the 2 TB version. The manufacturer promises "blazing speeds of up to 7,300/7,000 MB/s read/write and up to 1,000,000 IOPS." The company is also advertising (rather heavily, I might add) the PS5 compatibility of this solid-state drive. Without having the coveted console, let's see how it stacks up against other SSDs we've reviewed on the site.

Let's get started.

The Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD comes in an M.2 2280 form factor. The capacities of the SSD come in 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB, and all of these come with or without heatsinks. The controller is Phison E18 with a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe interface and 3D TLC NAND. The company boasts sequential read speeds for each capacity of 7,300 MB/s.

The sequential write speeds vary, with the 500GB version only offering 3900MB/s, the 1TB at 6000MB/s and the 2 and 4TB versions at 7000MB/s. 4K random read speeds for Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSDs + Heatsink offer 450,000 IOPS for 500 GB, 900,000 IOPS for 1 TB and 1,000,000 SSDs and 4 TB 2IOSDs. The random 4K write speeds are similar, with 900.00 IOPS for 500GB and the rest offering 1,000,000 IOPS with random 4K write speed.

Operating temperatures range from zero degrees Celsius to 70°C, but the SSD never peaked above 42°C in my testing. It usually ran with an average temperature in the low 30°C range. The heat spreader is made of graphene aluminium, which the company has optimized for high use. That's why the company feels comfortable recommending it for PS5 as a superior SSD option for users.

The Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD + Heatsink measures 80mm x 22mm x 2.21mm for the 500GB and 1TB options and 80mm x 22mm x 3.5mm for the 2TB and 4TB options. It's heftier in weight than SSDs that don't offer heatsinks, weighing in at 34.86g.

The box offers quite a bit of style while keeping it simple. It's hard to miss the amount of storage and expected speeds of up to 7,300 MB/s, which is faster than the 7,000 MB/s of the SK hynix Platinum P41 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that we tested alongside this drive.

On the back, it shows that you can get free technical support, all the tiny legalese and a striking image of the drive next to a fan.

After opening the package, we can see the top of the drive, where the heatsink covers the SSD, and after removing the cardboard holder, we can take a closer look at the drive.

Since this has the heatsink built on top of it, I decided to mount the drive under the graphics card in my HYTE Y60 chassis, mainly so it would have plenty of room to ventilate adequately.

The test PC we use today is the same one I use for most components and peripherals:

Installation was once again effortless. Just place it in the right place, add the secure positioning screw so it doesn't move around, and you're good to go. Kingston offers cloning software through Acronis True Image OEM, which "is an integrated software package that allows you to back up your entire disk drive or selected partitions, clone your operating system, restore from previously backed up data, and create bootable media from USB drives or CD/DVD discs." I didn't download the software as I found it unnecessary then, but the process is simple and allows users to turn their primary drive into the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink. Here is the link if you are interested in the software, but remember that you must have the drive and necessary key to activate it.

In this recent Solidigm P41 Plus 2 TB and 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD review, there is a comprehensive list of SSDs tested by Wccftech staff. We will run some of the same benchmarks to track the performance of the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink. Officially announced performance places this drive between the TeamGroup CARDEA A440 1 TB and the Inland Gaming Performance Plus 2 TB. The TeamGroup CARDEA A440 1 TB SSD offers sequential read/write speeds of 7400 MB/s and 7000 MB/s, while the Inland Gaming Performance Plus 2 TB SSD offers 7000 MB/s and 6900 MB/s respectively.

AS SSD Benchmark is a Windows 10 tool that tests the performance of solid-state drives. It will allow users to find the speed of all installed SSDs and help with any issues during testing. The free application performs three tests to provide definitive evidence of the drive's behavior while copying, reading and writing data. In addition, the tool will determine the access time, speed and performance capabilities of the SSD(s).

The score above places the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink between the TeamGroup CARDEA A440 1TB SSD, which scored 11,700 points, and the Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB SSD, which scored 8,600 points. It should be noted that all three drives are PCIe Gen 4 drives.

ATTO is the industry's leading high-performance provider of storage and network connectivity products. The company has created a widely adopted Disk Benchmark software tool, also free, to help measure storage performance. ATTO Disk Benchmark identifies performance in hard drives, SSDs, RAID arrays, and the host connection of attached storage. Leading drive manufacturers such as Hitachi build and test each drive using the ATTO Disk Benchmark. It has Windows and Mac compatibility, allowing users to use the tool to test all manufacturers' RAID controllers, storage controllers, host bus adapters (HBAs), hard drives, and SSD drives.

I was surprised by the sequential read/write of the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink, as it seemed to be slower than advertised. The TeamGroup CARDEA A440 1TB offered speeds of 6.8K and 7.1K, while the Kingston was slower but still outperformed the MSI SPATIUM M470 1TB SSD, which only reached 5.1k and 5.3K sequential read/write speeds (MB/s).

CrystalDiskMark is considered an alternative to ATTO Disk Benchmark. It measures sequential read/write speed, measures random 512KB, 4KB, 4KB (queue depth=32) read/write speed, selects test data (Random, 0Fill, 1Fill) and much more.

I feel the CrystalDiskMark benchmark would have shown better performance for the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink. However, that was not the case. It was still between the offer from TeamGroup and MSI, but was slower than advertised.

Operating temperatures were fantastic. After running some tests, the screenshot above shows that the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink stayed cool during these tests. Even with the minor difference in advertised performance and what I observed, this drive is worth the extra cost, which on Amazon is $168.57. That's still relatively high for a non-heatsink SSD, so the additional price paid for the extra heatsink makes up for it.

Even if you don't want to throw this at a wall or on the ground to test its durability, the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink almost lives up to its advertised speeds. I've looked at several reviews online and while my results may show lower performance, on average the results have been better, which leads me to believe that additional checks in the motherboard's BIOS settings may improve performance slightly.

Is the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink worth the nearly $170 asking price? Looking at the sales figures, WD_Black, Samsung and Crucial seem to be the top sellers in this category (the category of SSDs with included heatsinks), but most consumer reviews use the drive for PS5 and not PC. I like the build quality, the added cloning software option, the consistently cool drive temperatures, and the speed is comparable to most PCIe Gen 4 drives in this price range. Although results may vary, I am satisfied with the Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink.

Products mentioned in this post

The Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD + Heatsink is a monster of an SSD with an additional cooling option, and performs well under stress. User performance will vary, but is close to that advertised by the manufacturer.