Lexar NQ780

The Lexar NQ780 has outstanding random performance at the 91st percentile, but almost no features and average endurance. It's a specialist drive for random I/O heavy workloads. Most people should look elsewhere.

Sequential speeds are solid, 6500 MB/s read and 7400 MB/s write put it at the 82nd percentile overall. That's well above average but not chart-topping. The random performance is where this thing shines, 1000K read IOPS and 900K write IOPS land it in the 91st percentile. That's one of the best random performers we've tracked. Endurance sits at the 56th percentile, so it's average there. Nothing to brag about, nothing to panic over. The feature score of 15th percentile is the real weak spot. No fancy extras, just raw storage.

Against the Samsung 990 Pro and WD Black SN850X, the NQ780 holds its own on random performance but falls behind on features and endurance. The 990 Pro brings better software, better endurance, and a proven track record. The SN850X is a better all-rounder for gaming. The Micron T710 and Seagate FireCuda 530R both offer more balanced specs. The Kingston Fury Renegade 4TB doubles the capacity if you need space. The NQ780 wins on raw random I/O, but that's a narrow victory.

Pricing is weird here. The US listing shows $426, while Canadian listings run CAD 380-400. That US price feels steep for a drive with no features and average endurance. You're paying for the random performance, which is legitimately great, but most people don't need 1000K IOPS. If you're just gaming or doing everyday tasks, you can get 90% of the real-world experience for way less money. This is a specialist's drive at a generalist's price.

The Lexar NQ780 is a 2TB PCIe 4.0 drive with some seriously lopsided specs. It reads at 6500 MB/s but writes at 7400 MB/s, which is backwards from what we usually see. Most drives read faster than they write, so Lexar flipped the script here. The random performance is the real story though, sitting at the 91st percentile in our database. That's genuinely top-tier territory for a drive in this class.

But there's a catch. The feature set is nearly nonexistent at the 15th percentile, and endurance is just middle of the pack. This is a barebones performer that does one thing well: random I/O. If that's your workload, keep reading. If you want encryption, heatsinks, or fancy software, this isn't your drive.

Skip this if you're a gamer, a laptop user, or anyone who wants a well-rounded drive. The gaming score of 70.5 and laptop score of 74.7 are fine but not special. If you need portability, run away, the 18.3 portable score is one of the worst we've seen. And if you want features like hardware encryption or bundled software, this drive has basically none.

Buy this if you're running workloads that hammer random reads and writes constantly. Database work, heavy virtualization, that kind of thing. The 91st percentile random performance is real and it's the only reason to pick this over the competition. For everyone else, there are better-rounded drives at similar or lower prices.