Corsair's new Neutron GTX performs quite well in our testing. We see real-life performance that's almost on par with SandForce drives, and a few percent behind the Corsair Performance Pro, which is the fastest drive we ever tested. Our colleagues who use synthetic benchmarks see much higher performance from the Neutron GTX, especially with high queue depth. Unfortunately, our real-life testing does not reflect this, but I have to admit it is very consumer focused - for you! With this review, we introduced an enterprise-oriented database benchmark which simulates typical operations in a company with multiple warehouses, but here we don't see any revelations from the Neutron GTX either.
Overall, the Neutron GTX is still a great SSD and I have to compliment Corsair for trying something new, beyond the usual SandForce and Marvell stuff that we see in most drives. I can also report that there were no bluescreen issues or similar problems with the drive, which will be good news for users who got burnt by SandForce. Corsair's five-year warranty also underlines their trust in the new product.
Corsair was kind enough to send us a second drive for RAID-0 testing. Here, we see huge gains in sequential tests like ISO file copy, but more random access patterns don't benefit as much.
Price-wise, Corsair is asking $250 for their Neutron GTX 240 GB, which does not seem unreasonable if you only consider synthetic benchmarks. With our real-life testing in mind, I am having a hard time justifying the extra cost though. If Corsair can get the price of their drive down to around $200, where most other SSDs sit in that category, then the drive will certainly take some market share away from the "big" names.