Adata is joining the ranks of Samsung and other solid state drive makers that offer high-speed SSDs with blazing fast read and write performance. In this case, Adata's new XPG SX8200 family is the company's highest-performing SSD line to date, with rated sequential reads of up to 3,200MB/s and sequential writes of up to 1,700MB/s.
We haven't tested the new drive line ourselves to see how its real-world performance compares with its rated specs. If reads and writes come anywhere close, however, users will have little reason to complain. The previous generation SX7000 and SX8000 were decent for the price, with the SX7000 earning our pick for the best budget NVMe drive, so we're looking forward to checking out the new model.
The XPG SX8200 is equipped with 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory from Micron, paired with Silicon Motion's SM2262 controller. They're available in the M.2 2280 form factor, which are those drives that are shaped like sticks of gum and plug directly into the motherboard without any SATA or power cables. And of course to achieve the kind of speed ratings that Adata is advertising, the drives sport a PCIe x4 Gen3 interface that shuttles data through the PCIe bus.
As for 4K random read and write performance, Adata says these drives can deliver up to 310,000 IOPS for the former and up to 280,000 IOPS for the latter. Generally speaking, the XPG SX8200 is comparable to Samsung's 960 Evo drives, though not as fast (on paper) across the board.
Adata didn't mention any pricing information in its press release (only that they're backed by a 5-year warranty), but according to AnandTech it will break down as follows:
- Adata XPG SX8200 960GB: $480
- Adata XPG SX8200 480GB: $260
- Adata XPG SX8200 240GB: $140
That's roughly in line with Samsung's 960 Evo series, though current sale pricing gives the 960 Evo the edge at 500GB ($230) and 1TB ($450). We'll have to wait and see how street pricing shakes out for Adata's drives, compared to the MSRPs.
Assuming performance holds up, pricing will ultimately dictate how interested we are in Adata's flagship consumer SSDs. That said, PCIe-level speeds are not needed for gaming, not today anyway. SATA-based SSDs still offer the best bang-for-buck and are good enough for most users (we continue to recommend Crucial's MX500 1TB SSD as the best option for gaming). Where drives like these come in handy are when doing a lot of heavy file lifting. It's also convenient being able to plug an M.2 drive into a motherboard and now have to worry about running SATA and power cables.
In any event, the XPG SX8200 should show up on store shelves soon.
