The Team Group Delta RGB SSD Review: Lite Performance, Light Drive

Conclusion

We don't usually give much consideration to aesthetics in our SSD reviews, but that's the main selling point of the Team Group T-Force Delta RGB SSD. There's absolutely no reason to buy it if you don't want the lighting, as the storage capabilities of the Team Group T-Force Delta RGB SSD are nothing special. With the LEDs off it has good power efficiency, but the use of an older generation of Micron 3D NAND limits performance. To Team's credit the Delta RGB tends to get slightly better performance and power efficiency out of this controller and NAND flash combination than previous drives we've tested. Against recent SATA drives, the Fury RGB is hardly the fastest on the market.

Where our review sample performed poorly, it was typically due to the low capacity. The Delta RGB isn't as fast as Samsung's best SATA drives, but it's adequate for most purposes and noticeable performance issues only begin to show up when the drive is full.  

Given the price, it's also fair to compare the Delta RGB against some NVMe drives. At the small capacity of our review sample, the flash itself is often the bottleneck more than the SATA interface, so switching to NVMe doesn't always help. The entry-level NVMe drive (MyDigitalSSD SBX) included in this review does occasionally show off the higher performance enabled by the faster interface, but overall it isn't a huge upgrade. The more high-end ADATA SX8200 more routinely beats the SATA crowd by wide margins.

Realistically, even a relatively slow SATA SSD like this is probably fast enough for most users, even gaming enthusiasts. It's a bit of a disappointment that the Delta RGB doesn't combine its premium aesthetics with competitive performance, but it isn't slow enough to ruin the product. A high-end build could reasonably include the Delta RGB along with a more low-key M.2 NVMe drive. And unlike the HyperX Fury RGB, the lighting on the Delta RGB doesn't seem to impose negative side effects on anything other than the price tag. It seemed clear that the HyperX Fury RGB was designed as a lighting solution first and storage device second. That doesn't seem to be the case with the Team Group Delta RGB, which makes minor sacrifices in lighting design and storage performance to combine the two, but ultimately does both jobs well enough. After reviewing both drives it's clear the Team Delta RGB outshines the competition figuratively and literally.