NFHK 4X NVME M.2 PCIE Raid Card Review UK 2026

The PCIe NVMe adapter market is full of cards that look identical but perform wildly differently. Some handle four drives without breaking a sweat. Others throttle, drop connections, or simply don't work with certain motherboards. Spending money to find out which category your purchase falls into isn't exactly ideal, so I've tested this NFHK 4X adapter for three weeks to give you the real story.

I tested this in an ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus, which supports bifurcation after enabling it in the BIOS. The process took about five minutes once I found the right setting (it's buried under PCIe configuration). If your motherboard doesn't support bifurcation, this card is a paperweight. Check your manual before buying.

And here's a practical limitation I discovered: you can't boot from a software RAID array created with this card. If you're planning to use RAID 0 for a blazing-fast boot drive, this isn't the solution. The drives work fine individually for booting, but RAID functionality is strictly for secondary storage.

Performance is pretty much what you'd expect from a passive adapter. Each drive gets its full x4 PCIe 3.0 bandwidth, so I saw no speed penalties compared to installing the same drives directly on the motherboard. Sequential reads hit 3,420 MB/s on the Samsung 970 EVO Plus drives I tested with, which is bang on their rated spec.

But (and this is important) thermal management becomes your responsibility. The included heatsinks are thin aluminium with basic thermal pads. They're better than nothing, but they're not substantial. During a 200GB file transfer test, drive temperatures climbed to 72°C, and one drive briefly throttled when I deliberately blocked case airflow.

If you're planning to use this card with four high-performance drives doing sustained writes, make sure you've got good case ventilation. Personally, I'd consider adding a small 40mm fan pointed at the card if you're doing regular heavy workloads.

The bracket is stamped steel that's thinner than I'd like. When I installed it, the bracket flexed noticeably as I tightened the case screw. It didn't break, but it doesn't inspire confidence. The mounting holes also weren't perfectly aligned with my case's expansion slots, which meant the bracket sat slightly crooked. Not enough to cause functional issues, but enough to be visually annoying.

The M.2 mounting screws are standard fare. They work, but I'd recommend keeping spares because they're the type that strips easily if you overtighten. The heatsinks attach with pre-applied thermal pads that are adequate but not impressive. They stick well enough, though one came loose during installation and needed reapplying.

But then you need to enable PCIe bifurcation in your BIOS, and this is where things get frustrating. The included manual doesn't explain this process at all. It just says "enable bifurcation mode" without clarifying that this is a motherboard-specific setting that might be called "x4x4x4x4 mode" or "PCIe slot bifurcation" depending on your board manufacturer.

On my ASUS board, I had to navigate to Advanced > System Agent Configuration > PEG Port Configuration > PCIe Slot Configuration and change the relevant slot from Auto to x4x4x4x4. On an MSI board I tested, the setting was in a completely different location. If you're comfortable in BIOS, this isn't a problem. If you're not, you'll be googling frantically.

Once configured, the card works transparently. Windows detected all four drives immediately, and they appeared in Disk Management ready to initialize. No drivers needed, no software to install. It just works, which is how it should be.

The NFHK card sits at the budget end of the NVMe adapter market. It's cheaper than the ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Gen 4, which costs around £55 but offers PCIe 4.0 support, better build quality, and significantly superior heatsinks. The ASUS card also includes clear documentation with motherboard-specific bifurcation instructions, which makes setup considerably less frustrating.

Sabrent's EC-PCIE adapter is closer in price (around £48) and offers similar functionality with slightly better build quality. The bracket feels more substantial, and the heatsinks are a bit thicker. However, the NFHK card occasionally drops below the Sabrent on price, which makes it competitive if you're purely focused on cost.

None of these cards offer true hardware RAID. If you need that, you're looking at enterprise cards from Broadcom or HighPoint that start around £200 and include actual RAID controller chips with battery-backed cache. Those are a completely different category.

Value is relative to what you need. If you've got a compatible motherboard, understand bifurcation, and just need four NVMe slots without caring about aesthetics or premium build quality, this card delivers functional expansion at the lowest price point I've found.

But the savings aren't massive compared to better alternatives. We're talking about a £44.00-15 difference between this and cards with better brackets, superior heatsinks, and actual documentation. Whether that saving matters depends entirely on your budget and priorities.