Review: Teamgroup EX2 Elite SSD – Excellent Choice for Daily Computing

Teamgroup is mostly known for its hardcore gaming products such as their T-Force super-fast SSDs and gaming memory modules however, now Teamgroup is expanding its range of products to everyday use as well. Apart from hardcore gaming products, Teamgroup is now also catering to users to simply require fast drives with decent enough specs that the price does not go too high. Teamgroup’s new EX2 Elite SSD is one such drive that is aimed at a budget build and not particularly at an extreme gaming build. This is our review of the new Teamgroup EX2 Elite SSD and for this review, we have the 512GB version of the SSD.

Technical Specs

On the paper, the Teamgroup EX2 Elite is a 2.5’ SSD that comes with a sequential transfer speed of reading up to 550MB/S and writing up to 520MB/s. According to Teamgroup, the EX2 Elite excels at transferring smaller files at extremely high speeds as well because if you are a traditional user, chances are that your work files are not that big in size as compared to gamers who have to move around massive game files in their drives. Furthermore, it comes with advanced Wear-Leveling technology and EXX function making it a great choice for everyday gaming. The 512GB variant only costs $56.99 while the 1TB version costs $99.99.

What’s in the Box?

Teamgroup EX2 Elite SSD comes in a blue and white packaging that matches the color scheme of the SSD inside it. Inside the box, you will just find the SSD sitting in a plastic container. There is no sticker with this SSD since it’s not a T-Force product. Teamgroup brands the EX2 Elite SSD under the simple Teamgroup name.

Test Bench

The Teamgroup EX2 Elite SSD has been on our test bench for over a month now and is being used daily. We have used it as both a Windows 10 boot drive along as well as a normal drive in our test bench during our testing phase. The test bench specs include:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700x
Motherboard: Auros X570 Elite Wi-Fi
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon 5700 XT
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16
PSU: Cougar 750w

Benchmarks

Now for the main test, just like our previous tests, we tested various aspects of the drive using our normal software which includes ATTO, CrystalDiskMark, HD Tune Pro, and the normal Windows File Transfer. You can see that despite being a budget SSD, it still offers a pretty good transfer rate and rates pretty high in most tests.

ATTO

CrystalDiskMark

HD Tune Pro

Windows File Transfer

For the Windows File Transfer, a single heavy file was transferred for an optimal transfer rate benchmark. Smaller files gave around 10-12MB/S however transferring larger files was pretty fast. In our test bench, the SSD sat around an average temperature of 50 degrees during heavy use which is surprisingly good. For Windows 10 booting, our test bench took around 6 seconds from the bios to a stable Windows 10 desktop which is an extremely impressive boot time.

Final Verdict:

The new Teamgroup EX2 Elite SSD not only performs exceptionally well but also looks pretty good. Its white-on-blue color scheme is surely a unique look and sits well in both black and white casings. Normally, you would expect sub-par performance from an SSD priced in this range however Teamgroup EX2 Elite SSD has been performing exceptionally well for us in our test bench as we’ve used it for booting, gaming as well as general computing such as video rendering and photo editing. Backed with a 3-year warranty, the Teamgroup EX2 Elite SSD is one SSD that should be in your build whether you are a gamer or a general user who is looking for a fast performing and good looking SSD.