TeamGroup T-Force Cardea A440 - M.2 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD - 1TB

The TeamGroup T-Force Cardea A440 is TeamGroup's premium Gen4 NVMe drive, built on the Phison E18 controller with Micron TLC NAND and a dedicated DDR4 DRAM cache (1GB for 1-2TB, 2GB for 4-8TB). It delivers 7,000/5,500-6,900 MB/s sequential read/write depending on capacity. Available from 1TB to 8TB, and ships with both a graphene heatsink (thin, 3.7mm) and an aluminum heatsink (12.9mm).

DRAM Advantage

In TeamGroup's lineup, only the Cardea A440 and G70 Pro include dedicated DRAM. This matters for sustained random I/O consistency. Under mixed workloads, the Cardea A440 maintains more predictable latency than the DRAMless MP44, even though both share the same 7,000 MB/s sequential read ceiling. Random I/O reaches 650K/700K IOPS (1-2TB) and 1,000K/1,000K IOPS (4TB).

Capacity Scaling

Write speeds increase with capacity: 5,500 MB/s (1TB), 6,900 MB/s (2TB and 4TB), dropping to 6,000 MB/s on the 8TB model. The 2TB and 4TB models hit the sweet spot. The 1TB's lower write speed (5,500 MB/s) makes the MP44 (6,000 MB/s writes, cheaper, no DRAM) a competitive alternative at that capacity unless you specifically need DRAM-backed random I/O.

Endurance

700 TBW (1TB), 1,400 TBW (2TB), 3,000 TBW (4TB), 6,000 TBW (8TB). Five-year limited warranty. PS5 compatible with the aluminum heatsink.

Best for: Users who want DRAM-backed Gen4 performance from TeamGroup. Primary boot and application drives in workstation-class builds. The 2TB and 4TB models offer the best mix of capacity and write speed.

Avoid if: Budget is the primary concern. The DRAMless MP44 is cheaper with the same read speeds, and the DRAM advantage only matters under sustained random I/O workloads. At the Cardea A440's price tier, compare against the Samsung 990 Pro.