A few weeks ago I had declared that the next-gen SSD wars had begun, and Sabrent was winning, having launched the fastest drive on the planet. Well, Adata just pulled a 'hold my beer' moment and has positioned its new XPG Gammix S70 as the drive to beat, at least for reads.
The Gammix S70 is another in a steadily growing line of PCI Express 4.0 models. Initially, PCIe 4.0 SSDs boasted read and write speeds in the neighborhood of 5,000MB/s (or 5GB/s, if you prefer). More recently, however, even speedier drives have emerged, though none faster than the Gammix S70—it is ready to rip through sequential reads at up to 7,400MB/s and sequential writes at 6,400MB/s.
For reading data, the Gammix S70 is 400MB/s faster than both Sabrent's Rocket 4 and Samsung's 980 Pro, each of which are rated at 7,000MB/s. However, those drives have the Gammix S70 beat on write speeds. Here's how the three drives compare:
- Adata XPG Gammix S70—7,400MB/s reads, 6,400MB/s writes
- Sabrent Rocket 4—7,000MB/s reads, 6,850MB/s writes
- Samsung 980 Pro—7,000MB/s reads, 5,000MB/s writes
In the speed tier these drives are competing in, a few hundred MB/s is really just splitting hairs—all three are incredibly fast on paper.
As of this moment, none of this matters a whole lot for gaming. That's because you will see virtually no difference between even the fastest SATA 6Gbps SSDs (around 580MB/s) and these PCIe 4.0 models. But that could change in the not-too-distant future. How so?
Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have finally adopted SSD storage, and it is of the PCIe 4.0 variety. Microsoft and Sony have been hyping new storage architectures that could virtually eliminate load times and enable more expansive game worlds.
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To facilitate the same potential benefits on PC, Microsoft announced this month that it is bringing a DirectStorage API to the DirectX family for Windows PCs. This API is based on the same Velocity architecture in the Xbox Series X that makes better use of fast storage.
Whether for gaming or shuffling around large files, there is still the caveat of needing a PCI 4.0 motherboard to take full advantage of these speedy SSDs. That means building a Ryzen PC around AMD's X570 or B550 chipset. Intel does not yet support PCIe 4.0 on the desktop (though Rocket Lake is rumored to), nor does AMD's entry-level A520 chipset.
As for the Gammix S70, it will be offered in 2TB and 1TB capacities. Adata has not yet announced pricing or a release date, only that these drives will be backed by a five-year warranty.
