CONCLUSION

   What stands out in today’s review is without doubt the performance gap between the UD90 line of DRAM-less M.2 NVMe SSDs by Silicon Power and both the FX900 and ATOM 50 models by HP and XPG respectively. This of course is due to the different controller used (Phison PS5021-E21 for the UD90 and Innogrit IG5220 for the ATOM 50 and FX900) so Phison clearly has the lead here (at least in most of my benchmarks) even though reported durability is slightly inferior between models (600TBW / 650TBW). Unfortunately, Silicon Power has once again focused their resources in covering the largest percentage of the market so the UD90 line is only available in 256GB/512GB/1TB capacities (meaning those that sell more). Also, I have to point out that the UD90 1TB variant surpassed even 6500MB/s in reads (in some of my tests) so its actual performance is clearly above what Silicon Power reports.

   Silicon Power officially released the UD90 a few weeks back so availability is still currently very low. So, for now at least I only have the recommended price tags for both UD90 models which should be set at around USD65/75Euros for the 500GB variant and USD95/120Euros for the 1TB variant. Silicon Power hasn’t always had the best pricing available for their products but if these prices do make it to retail the UD90 should become quite the hit among consumers. With that out of the way I really have no complaints from the UD90 models, the Phison E21 controller does a great job (for a DRAM-less model) and durability/endurance numbers although not great should be more than enough for regular use which is why I strongly recommend giving these a chance, they’ll probably impress you with their performance.

PROS

- Very Good Performance (Up to 4800MB/s Read & 4200MB/s Write)
- 5 Year Limited Warranty
- Price (MSRP)

CONS

- Thermal Throttling (During SNIA Tests)
- Current Availability