Teamgroup Cardea A440 Pro SSD: Scintillating PCIe 4.0 performance

This top performer comes with a massive heat sink and a somewhat steep price tag.

- JON L. JACOBI

I’ll just cut to the chase: The Teamgroup Cardea A440 Pro (TM8FPR002) ripped though our test suite in fine fashion, besting such fast drives as Seagate’s FireCuda 530 (fave.co/3vs8HYl) and SK Hynix’s Platinum P41 (fave.co/3ObU9EO)—our current pick for best NVMe PCIe 4.0. Let’s take a look at how it compares in all other respects.

PRICE, DESIGN, SPECS

There are two choices in heat dissipation available for the A440 Pro: the thin graphene type shown in the images, and a rather large aluminum heatsink. Most users will be fine with the graphene, and it’s obviously the choice for laptop upgrades, but gamers or pros putting continuous stress on the drive can keep the temps down and avoid thermal throttling by using the larger heatsink.

The 1TB flavor of the A440 Pro costs $136—not bad for an SSD this fast. The 2TB is $280, and the 4TB is $790—again, not bad for a pro-level SSD, but quite a bit more than the entry-level competition. Adding the aluminum heatsink at purchase costs only $5 to $10, a bargain when it comes to such extras.