Specifications, Pricing and Availability

Corsair has released the Performance 3 in three capacity sizes; 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. The Performance 3's designed so the performance of each capacity size is different. The flagship 256GB model has the highest performance with a rating of 480MB/s read and 320MB/s write. The drive we are looking at today, the 128GB model is rated at 410MB/s read and 210MB/s write. The budget model with 64GB of capacity dips down to 365MB/s read and 110MB/s write. The performance of the Performance 3 scales well when going up, but things arn't so pretty down low.

Today we are looking at the 128GB size, the middle of the road product that many enthusiasts, power users and even mainstream users will more than likely be attracted to, since it offers the best mix of performance and price. The 128GB Performance 3 is right in the sweet spot.

The new Performance 3 Series of drives are now available at Newegg and a few other e-tail shops. The Corsair Performance 3 128GB drive is priced at 319.99 USD at the time of writing. We expect this price to drop in the coming weeks. The 120GB SandForce drives are already getting very close to the 200 USD price point, but you will have to look hard to find the 34nm version that has the same speeds as the drives used in our benchmark results.