In my quest to find the best possible SSD for my PS5, next up on the list is Kingston’s FURY Renegade. How does it compare when stacked up to Samsung’s 990? Let’s find out.
Kingston FURY Renegate 2TB SSD
Manufacturer: Kingston
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC
Price: $221.99 USD
Kingston’s drive comes with a pre-applied heatsink, similar to what Samsung offers, in a stylish black with bright white lettering so it’ll look great if you have it installed in a case that doesn’t force you to cover it with another heatsink or cover slot. While it is probably the most visually appealing SSD I’ve reviewed, since I’m putting these in the PS5, not only is it under a small metal heat shield, but it’s also under the plastic console covering so it’s doubly hidden.
But hey, it does look pretty sweet sitting in there:
Installation for the FURY is no different than any other m.2 2280 drive, you just plug it in and screw in the placement piece to hold it in the proper slot, and then you can cover the entire socket back up with the included metal plate. In case you need a reminder of how to do this, we’ve got a video of how to install an SSD over on our YouTube page.
The packaging says that the drive can reach speeds of up to 7,300MB, but unfortunately the limited read speed on the PlayStation 5 only allowed this beast to hit around 6,500MB.
While Kingston’s drive isn’t the fastest drive I tested, what did surprise me is how well it fit between Samsung’s 980 and 990 releases, making it an attractive alternative to buying the most expensive product on the market while delivering an almost identical experience – Samsung’s 990 pro reads at 6,558MB while FURY reads at 6,502MB. Where I did notice a bit of a performance difference in comparison to Samsung’s 980 or 990, the FURY seemed to have less issues with games crashing while they were being played. At the time of writing this, I was playing Steelrising, which was still in pre-release build and the game consistently performed better while installed and running on Kingston’s FURY drive than it did on either Samsung drive, or my Sabrent Rocket drive.
Kingston might not be at the forefront of people’s thoughts for quality hard drives while making terrific USB drives (though I think we’d all agree that people think of Memory when they think of Kingston.) Currently, the Kingston FURY Renegade drive is available on Amazon for $209 $189.52 (update: 4/3/23). This is a terrific price and low enough that it’s a great impulse purchase for all your immediate storage needs.
The Kingston FURY Renegade SSD is available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB variations, available at Amazon, Tiger Direct, and other retailers. The 2TB version used in our review was provided by Kingston. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here.
