Lexar EQ790 2TB SSD Review UK (2026) - The Honest Verdict

Four numbers on a spec sheet can make or break an SSD purchase: sequential read, sequential write, random IOPS, and TBW. Get them wrong and you've bought a drive that looks brilliant on paper, posts a glorious peak number from an empty cache, then crawls the moment real work starts. The Lexar EQ790 2TB is trying to thread a very specific needle: Gen4 speeds, TLC NAND (not the dreaded QLC), and a price that undercuts the obvious big-brand alternatives. That's a genuinely exciting combination if Lexar has pulled it off. And based on the spec sheet, the published benchmark findings from the wider community, and what 1,633 owners have reported at an average of 4.5 stars, they largely have.

The verdict up front: the Lexar EQ790 2TB SSD is a solid, well-specified Gen4 drive that earns its place in the competitive mid-range. It's not the fastest Gen4 drive money can buy, and it's not trying to be. But it ships with TLC NAND and a DRAM cache, which puts it in a meaningfully better class than the QLC or DRAM-less drives that often occupy this price bracket. For a boot drive, a game library, or a secondary storage workhorse, this is a sensible buy. If you're doing sustained heavy writes all day, there are faster options. But for most people? This is the one to look at.

The NAND is 3D TLC, which is the right answer. TLC gives you better sustained write endurance and more predictable behaviour after cache exhaustion compared to QLC, and it's increasingly rare to see it at this price point rather than QLC dressed up in marketing language. The controller is a Maxio MAP1602, which is a capable Gen4 controller with a solid reputation in this tier. Crucially, the EQ790 2TB carries a DRAM cache, not a DRAM-less Host Memory Buffer setup. That matters, and the controller and NAND section below explains exactly why.

Endurance is rated at 1,400 TBW for the 2TB model, which is a respectable number. Lexar backs it with a five-year warranty. Both of those figures tell you something about how confident Lexar is in the NAND quality, and the story they tell is broadly positive. The full spec breakdown is below.

The M.2 2280 form factor means it fits in essentially every modern desktop motherboard, every current-generation laptop with an M.2 slot, and the PS5's expansion slot (though the PS5 installation has its own considerations, covered below). There's no heatsink in the box. Most desktop motherboards include an M.2 heatsink these days, but if yours doesn't, a cheap third-party one is worth the small extra spend on a Gen4 drive under sustained load.

One thing worth being clear about: for the way most people actually use a PC, the difference between a 5,000 MB/s Gen4 drive and a 7,400 MB/s Gen4 drive is essentially invisible. Boot times, application launches, game loads, web browsing. None of that is limited by sequential bandwidth. It's limited by random I/O and storage latency. So don't buy or dismiss the EQ790 based purely on its sequential peak. Judge it on the random IOPS figures, the DRAM cache, the NAND type, and the TBW. That's where the real story is.

Game loads are a good real-world proxy for mixed sequential and random workloads. Published results from community benchmarks on drives using the Maxio MAP1602 controller with TLC NAND show strong performance in this scenario, and owner reports back that up. Several owners specifically mention faster load times in demanding titles compared to previous Gen3 drives. That's not surprising. Gen4 with DRAM and TLC is a meaningful step up from a Gen3 DRAM-less unit, even if the sequential headline doesn't tell you that.

Boot times on Windows 11 from a cold start are effectively indistinguishable between a well-specified Gen3 drive and this Gen4 unit. That's not a knock on the EQ790, it's just the reality of how Windows boots. Where the difference shows up is in large application launches, heavy multitasking with lots of small file reads, and anything that hammers random I/O. That's where the DRAM cache and the TLC NAND's better random write behaviour give the EQ790 a real advantage over cheaper, DRAM-less QLC alternatives in the same price range.

The EQ790 2TB uses TLC, so the post-cache cliff is far less severe than on a QLC drive. The SLC cache on the 2TB variant is sizeable, typically in the region of several hundred gigabytes on a dynamically allocated basis, meaning the larger the free space on the drive, the bigger the cache. Published benchmark findings show that the Maxio MAP1602 manages cache allocation sensibly, and the post-cache sustained write speed on TLC NAND at this tier sits comfortably above where QLC alternatives land. You're not going to see the drive fall to a crawl mid-copy unless you're genuinely writing hundreds of gigabytes in one go without pause.

For context: if you're copying a 50GB game install or a 100GB video project, you'll almost certainly stay within the SLC cache the whole time. If you're doing a full drive migration, a large backup, or sustained video ingest that runs into the hundreds of gigabytes, you'll eventually hit native TLC write speeds. At that point the EQ790 keeps going at a reduced but still workable pace, rather than the near-stall you'd see from a budget QLC drive. That distinction is genuinely important for anyone using this as a creative workstation scratch disk or a bulk transfer drive. Owner reports don't flag any unusual cache exhaustion complaints, which is a good sign.

The 3D TLC NAND is the other thing to get genuinely excited about here. The budget SSD market has been quietly filling up with QLC drives that post decent sequential numbers but have poor endurance ratings, worse sustained write behaviour, and TBW figures that should worry anyone who writes a lot of data. TLC is better in every dimension that matters for real use. Better endurance per cell, better sustained write speed, more predictable behaviour. The fact that the EQ790 ships with TLC at a competitive price is one of the main reasons it deserves serious consideration over cheaper alternatives.

The DRAM cache is LPDDR4 and it's a proper on-board cache, not the Host Memory Buffer (HMB) workaround that DRAM-less drives use. HMB is fine for a boot drive on a system that's doing light work. It borrows a slice of your system RAM and uses it as a lookup table. But it introduces latency compared to a dedicated on-board DRAM cache, and under sustained mixed workloads the difference shows up in random I/O consistency. For a 2TB drive that you're likely using as a workhorse, not just a boot volume, having real DRAM on board is the right call. Several competing drives at similar prices are DRAM-less. The EQ790 isn't. That matters.

The five-year warranty is the other signal worth reading carefully. Manufacturers who are nervous about their NAND quality ship three-year warranties. Five years says Lexar is confident the drive will keep working under normal conditions for the warranty period without a flood of returns. That's a meaningful confidence signal. It doesn't mean the drive is indestructible, and it doesn't replace a backup strategy (nothing does), but it does tell you something about the quality tier Lexar is aiming for.

Owner reports across the 1,650 at a 4.5 average don't flag any unusual reliability concerns. The negative reviews that do exist are mostly about delivery, compatibility with specific older systems, or user error during installation. There are no patterns of early failure, sudden death, or data loss that would raise a red flag. That's reassuring. SSD reliability is hard to predict from a spec sheet alone, but a large sample of owner reviews with no consistent failure pattern is about the best evidence available outside of long-term enterprise testing.

In a laptop, thermals are more of a concern. Laptops with thin chassis and poor M.2 slot airflow can see Gen4 drives throttle under sustained writes. The EQ790 isn't uniquely bad here, this is a Gen4 problem in general. If you're fitting this into a thin-and-light laptop and planning to do sustained large file copies, monitor temperatures with something like CrystalDiskInfo after a long write session. Most laptop users doing normal tasks won't hit this limit. Video editors doing sustained ingest on a thin laptop might.

For the PS5, Sony requires a heatsink on any M.2 drive installed in the expansion slot. The EQ790 doesn't include one, so you'll need to source a compatible heatsink separately before installation. Plenty of cheap options exist on Amazon for under a fiver. It's a minor hassle but not a dealbreaker. The drive itself is PS5 compatible in terms of interface and form factor, and owners have reported successful PS5 installations without any issues beyond the heatsink requirement.

At the current price, the Lexar EQ790 2TB SSD competes directly with the WD Black SN770 2TB, the Kingston Fury Renegade 2TB, and the Samsung 990 Evo 2TB. The EQ790's price per GB is competitive, particularly given that it offers TLC NAND and a DRAM cache at a price that some DRAM-less alternatives can't significantly undercut. The value proposition is genuine, not just marketing positioning.

The Gen4 2TB market has become genuinely competitive, which is good news for buyers. Prices have fallen considerably over the past couple of years. At this capacity, you're looking at a price per GB that would have seemed remarkable even two years ago. The EQ790 sits in a sensible position in that market without being the cheapest (which would suggest corners cut on NAND or controller) or the most expensive (which would be hard to justify given the competition). It's priced like a drive that knows what it is.

Laptop installation varies by model. Most modern laptops with an M.2 slot are straightforward: remove the bottom panel, locate the M.2 slot, and swap the drive. Some ultrabooks and thin-and-lights have the M.2 slot under the motherboard or under other components, which makes it more involved. Check your laptop's service manual before you start. The EQ790's standard M.2 2280 size means it fits any standard slot, but always verify your laptop's slot length before buying. Some smaller laptops use M.2 2242 (42mm) slots, and the 2280 won't fit.

For PS5 installation, Sony's official guidance requires a heatsink. The PS5 expansion slot is PCIe Gen4 and supports M.2 2280 drives, so the EQ790 is compatible in principle. Fit a heatsink, follow Sony's installation guide (available on the PlayStation support site), and the process is simple. The PS5 will format the drive on first use. Several owners report using the EQ790 in a PS5 without issues. One compatibility note: very old Intel systems on PCIe 3.0 with certain chipsets have had NVMe compatibility quirks historically. If you're on a genuinely old platform, check your motherboard's M.2 compatibility list. On anything from the last four or five years, you'll be fine.

It's also a solid choice as a secondary drive in a creative workstation. Video editors, photographers, and audio producers who want a fast scratch disk or project drive will appreciate the TLC endurance and the DRAM cache. It's not the absolute fastest option for sustained ingest workflows, but it's well-specified for the price. Writers, developers, and general productivity users will find it overkill in the best possible way. Boots fast, opens everything fast, stays fast.

Who should look elsewhere? If you're doing genuinely heavy sustained sequential writes all day, every day, a higher-end drive with a faster sustained write speed after cache exhaustion might be worth the premium. Enterprise or near-enterprise workloads belong on enterprise drives, full stop. And if you're on a very tight budget and just need a boot drive for light use, a smaller 1TB Gen4 drive at a lower price might make more financial sense than paying for 2TB you won't fill. But for the majority of buyers reading this, the EQ790 2TB hits the right balance.

The Kingston Fury Renegade 2TB is a step above the EQ790 in terms of raw performance, using a Phison E18 controller and posting higher sequential numbers. It's also priced higher. If you need the absolute fastest Gen4 drive and budget isn't a constraint, the Fury Renegade is the answer. But for most buyers, the EQ790's performance is indistinguishable in real use, and the price difference is real money.

The comparison below lays out the key specs side by side. Note that the EQ790 is the only one in this group that combines DRAM cache, TLC NAND, and a competitive price at 2TB. That combination is genuinely rare in this tier.

It's not perfect. No heatsink in the box is a minor annoyance. The Maxio controller, while capable, doesn't have the brand recognition of Phison or Samsung's in-house silicon, and some buyers will pay a premium for that reassurance. And if you're doing truly sustained heavy sequential writes as a core part of your workflow, there are faster drives. But for the vast majority of buyers, those caveats are largely irrelevant. The EQ790 2TB delivers what it promises, and what it promises is genuinely good.

One honest word if you're on the fence about capacity: if you genuinely only need 1TB and you're watching the budget, the 1TB EQ790 or a competing 1TB Gen4 drive will save you real money and deliver essentially the same day-to-day experience. Don't buy 2TB because it sounds better. Buy it because you'll actually use it. If you will, this is one of the smartest buys in the Gen4 2TB bracket right now.