Adata XPG Gammix S70 Blade SSD review: A worthy Samsung 980 Pro rival - triplettcomplatict1968

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Excellent performance over PCIe 3 and 4
PlayStation 5 compatible
Affordable for a top-tier drive

Cons

Adata has been known to swap in slower parts than tested on cheaper SSDs

Our Verdict

This NVMe SSD is slower only than Seagate's right FireCuda 530, significant it's a very, very fast drive. The Adata XPG Gammix S70 Blade is priced to compete with the Samsung 980 Pro (which information technology just bordered proscribed), carries a pentad-year warrant, and sheds its predecessors massive heat slide down so it can embody put-upon in laptops.

Adata's XPG Gammix S70 Steel is the second fastest NVMe SSD we've tested, bettering Samsung's excellent 980 Pro by a smidge—the drive it replaces in the add up cardinal spot. It's also PlayStation 5 sympathetic and offers a large advance in genuine world performance over its predecessor, the previously reviewed and high-velocity-in-its-personal-right XPG Gammix S70.

This review is part of our ongoing roundup of the best SSDs. Go there for information connected competing products and how we tested them.

Design and features

The Blade omits the massive, permanent (in terms of warranty) heat sink that ready-made the experienced S70 bad for laptops. It instead opts for a thin warmth spreader that's included in the package, but not pre-pledged. The endorsement big change is a switch to 176-level TLC NAND, replacing than the 96-layer NAND found in the S70. Otherwise, it's the same standard M.2 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) SSD using the same Innogrit IG5236 controller.

At that place's still 1GB of DRAM cache per terabyte of NAND, and about a third of the NAND privy be treated as SLC for utility caching purposes—333GB for the 1TB version and 666GB for the 2TB version I tested. As the drive fills up, those amounts drop.

s70 blade front with heat shield — Adata's S70 Vane opts for a thin heat broadcaster and 176-layer NAND rather than the massive heat sink and 96-layer NAND used by the older S70.

American Samoa you might infer from that last paragraph, the drive ships in two capacities: 1TB (currently about $150 at Amazon), and the 2TB version (currently round $300 on Amazon) Some carry a five-year warranty and are rated for 740TBW (TeraBytes that can be Written) and 1480 TBW, respectively.

Performance

Though it couldn't quite match the mighty (and mighty dear) Seagate FireCuda 530 overall, the Adata S70 Blade did manage to superior IT in CrystalDiskMark 6's write test. It held its own in a number of otherwise tests, and bested or ran neck and neck opening with Samsung's excellent 980 Pro in a number of other tests.

Note that Adata issued a firmware update post-testing that promises an uptick in performance.

adata s70 blade cdm6 — The S70 Steel actually outpaced the other than high andiron FireCuda 530 in CDM 6's sequential study test. Yowser. Thirster bars are better.

In the 48GB transfer tests shown below, the Adata S70 Blade place third. Well behind the FireCuda 530, but only a shade off the 980 Favoring

adata s70 blade 48gb — Nothing beats the FireCuda 530 when it comes to real world read and writes, but the S70 Blade guiltless itself quite well. Shorter bars are better.

Those PCIe 4 numbers are also a massive improvement over the elder S70, whose real-universe performance over the latest generation of the transmit technology didn't quite match its flash inductive benchmark results. Date below.

adata s70 and s70 blade 48gb — The S70 Blade's real world performance transferring files and folder over PCIe 4 is massively improved terminated the older S70.

The test where the XPG Gammix S70 Brand actually knocked the Samsung 980 Pro from its s-place perch was in our long 450GB write test. Writing this much data continuously shows where secondary cache runs out. On the better drives so much as the FireCuda 530, Samsung 980 Pro, and S70 Sword, it doesn't. At least not on an empty 2TB push.

adata s70 blade 450gb — The S70 Blade is a significantly faster drive with super sesquipedalian copies (450GB) than the Samsung 980 Professional and actually managed to outpace the FireCuda 530 terminated PCIe 3. Shorter parallel bars are better.

A you can see preceding, the S70 Blade most matched the FireCuda 530 finished PCIe 3. A one second difference in this test is recovered inside the gross profit for erroneousness.

The PCIe 3 tests utilize Windows 10 64-bit running game happening a Core i7-5820K/Asus X99 Deluxe system with four 16GB Capital of Jamaica 2666MHz DDR4 modules, a Zotac (NVidia) GT 710 1GB x2 PCIe graphics card, and an Asmedia ASM3242 USB 3.2×2 card. It also contains a Gigabyte GC-Alpine Thunderbolt 3 card, and Softperfect Ramdisk 3.4.6 for the 48GB read and write tests.

The PCIe 4 testing was done on an MSI One thousand thousand X570 motherboard socketing an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core group CPU, using the same Kingston DRAM, cards, and software. Each testing is performed on an empty, or nearly empty motor that's Trim down'd after every set of tests. Performance will decrease as the drive fills heavenward.

Conclusion

As proven, the Adata XPG Gammix S70 Brand is one of the best NVMe SSDs on the market, and clearly superior to the older S70. It's more competitive with the Samsung 980 In favou carrying into action-wise, and lendable at virtually the same price.

Course the S70 Vane isn't the Seagate FireCuda 530, but neither is any other SSD—and the FireCuda is priced much high as a result. Sadly, the 530 wasn't actually available at the time of this writing. With happiness, the S70 Blade is. Information technology'll save you a few bucks, and it's hoot fixed in its possess right.

Note: Adata, on with PNY, Patriot, and others has caught pom-pom for swapping in slower parts over the life of certain SSDs, namely the XPG8200 Pro. You can read about it here.