We test out our first SSD using the Innogrit IG5220 controller, and which also brings in some RGB lighting.
Product on Review: VIPER VPR400 SSDManufacturer: Patriot VIPER
Street Price: 1TB Model – $125 USD
Over the last year we’ve had the pleasure of taking a look at more and more PCIe 4×4 SSDs as brands flood the market with their offerings. Some come with heatsinks, others do not. However, few, if any, come accompanied with RGB lighting… until now.
Today we’ll be taking a look at the VIPER VPR400 – a PCIe 4×4 SSD equipped with a stylish heatsink and RGB lighting to boot. While the promised transfer rates may not ascend to the upper echelons of the PCIe 4×4 performance league, we can still tap into an acceptable 4600MB/s.
VIPER on their VPR400
Viper Gaming is proud to feature the world’s first Gen 4×4 RGB M.2 SSD, built for high performance, unbelievable speed, and intense power. With 4600 MB/s read speeds, 4400 MB/s write speeds, powered by the latest Innogrit IG5220 Gen4x4 controller and up to 1TB capacity, this is a must for any gaming, video, or creative PC enthusiasts. The VPR400 is complete with advanced temperature control function and design, unique low-profile HS design, and Viper RGB 3.0 synchronization software for customization. The VPR400 is an SSD built simply for the best, by the best.
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications surrounding the VPR400:
Capacity
512GB-1TB
Form Factor
M.2 2280
Interface
PCIe Gen4x4
Speed
Sequential Read – Up to 4600MB/s
Sequential Write – Up to 4400MB/s
NAND flash
176-Layer 3D TLC NAND Flash
Controller
Innogrit IG5220
Operating Temperature
0° to 70° C
MTBF
1,600,000 Hours
Warranty
5 Years
512GB-1TB
Form Factor
M.2 2280
Interface
PCIe Gen4x4
Speed
Sequential Read – Up to 4600MB/s
Sequential Write – Up to 4400MB/s
NAND flash
176-Layer 3D TLC NAND Flash
Controller
Innogrit IG5220
Operating Temperature
0° to 70° C
MTBF
1,600,000 Hours
Warranty
5 Years
Closer Look
VIPER has gone to extra lengths with the packaging for VPR400 and we are treated to a nice little box which has a folding flap to reveal the drive within. As you would expect, there are no other accessories accompanying the SSD, aside from documentation.
VPR400 conforms to the M.2 form factor and more specifically the 2280 size, it comes with an integrated heatsink which also lends itself to featuring RGB lighting.
This RGB lighting can be managed using in-house software and is compatible with all of the motherboard vendor RGB technologies.
VPR400 uses the Innogrit IG5220 controller which is DRAM-less. This drive also lends itself to using 176-layer TLC 3D Flash.
Over the next pages we’ll be putting the VPR400 under examination to see what you can expect in terms of performance.
Test Setup & Methodology
Our test system is formatted and a fresh version of Windows is installed with just drives in place – no additional applications. Windows is then updated to the latest release and the drivers are installed.
Included in the list of benchmarks are the following applications:
BENCHMARKS
Anvil Pro
AS SSD
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
AIDA64
AS SSD
ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.46
AIDA64
TEST CONFIG
CPU Intel Core i9-12900K
Motherboard MSI Z690 UNIFY
Graphics GIGABYTE RTX 3060
Memory 64GB CORSAIR Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5
Storage VIPER VPR400 1TB
PSU Corsair HX1050 Gold
OS Microsoft Windows 11 Professional 64-Bit
Motherboard MSI Z690 UNIFY
Graphics GIGABYTE RTX 3060
Memory 64GB CORSAIR Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5
Storage VIPER VPR400 1TB
PSU Corsair HX1050 Gold
OS Microsoft Windows 11 Professional 64-Bit
Benchmarks: Anvil Pro
Anvil Pro from Anvil Storage utilities is one of the most popular storage benchmarking utilities today thanks to the large suit of tests available. You can test pretty much anything from Read/write Speed to IOPs with many variables to tweak allowing you to get either a single or host of results to compare with other likeminded enthusiasts. In our test we ran the standard suite 5 times, subtracting both the highest and lowest scores and determined the final result from the average of the remaining three results.
Benchmarks: AS SSD
AS SSD Benchmark is a straightforward tool for measuring the speed of your SSD drive.
Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).
Simply launch the program, choose your drive, click Start, and it’ll test your SSD’s read and write speed in a variety of ways, delivering a score for each when it’s done. And if that’s not enough, there are also additional file copy and compression-related benchmarks available from the Tools menu. (The author’s support page is German only, but if you need further English explanations then there’s a thread on the program at the OCZ Technology forum.).
Benchmarks: ATTO
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
Benchmarks: AIDA64
AIDA64 Product PageThis simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core-based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark
CrystalDiskMark is an open-source disk drive benchmark tool for Microsoft Windows. Based on Microsoft’s MIT-licensed Diskspd tool, this graphical benchmark is commonly used for testing the performance of solid-state storage. It works by reading and writing through the filesystem in a volume-dependent way. It generates read/write speeds in sequential and random positions with varying numbers of queues and threads.
Conclusion
The VPR400 is an excellent PCIe 4×4 SSD which brings in the added bonus of being “the World’s first RGB Gen4x4 SSD”. Although it may trail behind some of the other PCIe 4×4 drives we have previously tested, it still manages to deliver pleasing results.
To be able to use such a drive may require an upgrade for some who are still using older AMD and Intel platforms, but if PCIe 4.0 is supported, super-fast transfer rates will be achievable. This in turn will give a nice performance uplift in the OS, applications and of course gaming.
The 1TB model of VPR400 which we’ve been checking out is priced at $125 USD. This is slightly more than other PCIe 4×4 drives of the same capacity, however if you are a lover of RGB then it may be worth the extra. We also get a generous 5-year warranty with this drive.
VPR400 offers great performance, comes with a lengthy 5 year warranty and adds in RGB lighting!
Pros
+ Excellent performance on offer
+ Low profile heatsink
+ RGB lighting is available
+ 5 Years Warranty
Cons
– None apparent
+ Excellent performance on offer
+ Low profile heatsink
+ RGB lighting is available
+ 5 Years Warranty
Cons
– None apparent
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