High-end SSDs have always been a luxury, but this is becoming the default state of affairs lately. Having more options, especially affordable ones, is becoming increasingly important. Adata took this to heart with its XPG Mars 980 Blade, delivering an understated yet fast drive with none of the compromises of earlier solutions. It’s an affordable luxury with good performance and power efficiency, all under a basic but effective heatspreader. It checks the PCIe 5.0 box and delivers next-gen numbers at the lowest price in its class.

This doesn’t come without cost. Yeah, it doesn’t require a heatsink like earlier drives in this class, and it’s not making pit stops at 10 and 12 GB/s as it tries to push the PCIe 5.0 interface. This is a power-efficient, high-performance drive, but to bring the price down, it has to make a sacrifice somewhere. This trade-off is in the flash – older, 232-Layer Micron TLC that isn't as performant as subsequent iterations. This translates to some performance quirks that keep it from being a really fast drive. However, the price savings might be worth it in the current market.

Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade Specifications

The Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade is available at 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. At the time of review, only the 1TB was in stock, but recent pricing has the drive at $104.99, $159.99, and $319.99. This makes it extremely affordable compared to other drives in the high-end PCIe 5.0 SSDs class. It’s even less expensive than the Lexar NM1090 Pro, which has similar hardware. Given the current rise in SSD prices, the XPG Mars 980 Blade, or 980 Blade for short, is in a great place if you want a PCIe 5.0 drive. We caution that pricing and availability will be increasingly volatile, so comparable drives might offer a better deal at certain points in time.

The drive can deliver on the performance front. It’s capable of achieving up to 14,000/13,000 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, and up to 2,000K/1,650K random read and write IOPS. The drive peaks at 2TB. We’d recommend the Crucial T710 if you want a drive in this class that can reach high speeds at just 1TB. The 980 Blade includes a standard five-year warranty, with up to 740TB of writes per TB of capacity, backed by Adata. This is higher than the typical 600TB per TB, so if you’re a buyer focused on endurance ratings, this drive might be worth a second look.

Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade Software and Accessories

Adata’s SSD Toolbox for XPG drives is your typical multi-function Windows storage application. Toolboxes allow you to inspect drive health, run diagnostics, update firmware, secure erase, benchmark, and optimize your drives. Many manufacturers also offer an OEM version of Acronis True Image, which lets you back up and restore data or clone drives, which is useful when upgrading your storage. We also recommend MultiDrive, a free alternative, which was recently updated. For non-Windows users, there is Clonezilla.

Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade: A Closer Look

The 980 Blade is simplicity itself: a double-sided drive adorned by a heatspreader of basic design. Given that the XPG series has sometimes had lots of flair with over-the-top designs, we cannot forget the XPG Gammix S70 Blade that had an irremovable heatsink that prevented the drive from fitting in almost all systems and enclosures, this is a welcome change. While we would prefer a single-sided drive, we recognize that an SSD of this caliber is most likely to find itself in a desktop with room to spare. Most of the heat from the drive will come from the controller, and half the remaining componentry will be on the heatspreader side, so additional cooling might not be needed even if it ends up in a laptop.

The 2TB 980 Blade sports an SSD controller, two DRAM packages, and two NAND flash packages. The DRAM is Samsung DDR4, and these are 16-bit, 8 GB packages. That makes a total of 2GB of DRAM, which fits the expected memory ratio for a high-end drive. Some drives in this class use LPDDR instead, which can improve power efficiency.

The SMI SM2508 SSD controller needs no introduction. It’s a fast, power-efficient PCIe 5.0 solution that’s good enough for SanDisk/WD and good enough for us, too. It’s given some real competition to Phison, forcing a catch-up with the E28. In general, we don’t prefer one solution or another, but we would recommend avoiding the older E26 unless your needs are specific. The newer controllers are worth the cost in most cases.

As for the flash, it’s Adata encoded, but we have a pretty good idea of what’s inside. The SM2508 typically comes with three TLC flash variants: Kioxia/SanDisk’s 218-Layer BiCS8, Micron’s 276-Layer, and Micron’s last-generation 232-Layer. BiCS8 seems to have the best latency, but Micron’s flash can push more bandwidth at lower capacities thanks to having more planes per die. The 232-Layer version is less performant and has been seen on “cheaper” SM2508 SSDs like the Acer Predator GM9000. This combination is a half-solution in that it defeats any older, E26-based drive while achieving savings by using older flash.

We say “cheaper” in quotation marks because we’re still talking about a high-end, Gen 5 SSD. It’s true, though, as drives with newer flash do cost more. The double-sided nature of the 980 Blade – the Predator GM9000 we tested is single-sided – also gently points to it being more budget-oriented than it could be. Suddenly, the understated heatspreader makes sense. This drive is firmly intended to give those high-end marks with an edge over earlier E26-based drives while being the least expensive option available. Given the pricing we noted above, it meets this criteria.

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Comparison Products

The XPG Mars 980 Blade, or just 980 Blade, has a lot of competition. The class leaders are the SanDisk WD Black SN8100 with BiCS8 TLC and the Crucial T710 with 276-Layer Micron TLC flash. The proprietary Samsung 9100 Pro also belongs here, especially as it reached 8TB first. Another fast alternative with BiCS8 is the Kingston Fury Renegade G5, which, along with the Black SN8100, has an 8TB option on the way. All of these have a flash advantage over the 980 Blade. Upcoming drives based on Phison's E28 SSD controller should also have this advantage, arriving with BiCS8 TLC.

The 980 Blade instead competes as a pseudo-budget option against the likes of the Acer Predator GM9000, which has the same hardware, as well as older E26-based drives such as the Adata Legend 970 and newer DRAM-less heavyweights like the Biwin Black Opal X570. The 980 Blade, having DRAM and being much more efficient than E26 drives, makes it easier to digest with aggressive pricing. It’s a matter of where your priorities lie and what kind of performance you’re willing to trade.

Trace Testing — 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams. Future gaming benchmarks will be DirectStorage-inclusive and we also include notes about which drives may be future-proofed.

Right away, we see that the 980 Blade’s use of older flash impacts its performance. This flash has it falling behind the 276-Layer flash on the T710 and the BiCS8 on the Black SN8100 and Fury Renegade G5, drives that use the same controller. However, it’s not far off the 9100 Pro and E28, and it easily beats older, DRAM-less options like the Legend 970 and Black Opal X570, respectively. It’s good enough in 3DMark to put it over any PCIe 4.0 drive and many, if not most, PCIe 5.0 drives.

Trace Testing — PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The results are particularly useful when analyzing drives for their use as primary/boot storage devices and in work environments.

We see something similar in PCMark 10: the 980 Blade is certainly a fast drive, but it’s not on the level of the best PCIe 5.0 ones out there. Its performance is good enough if you just want a high-end drive for your fancy PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot, though. It might even be a good choice depending on prices and your budget, which is, of course, the idea with this drive. At the time this drive was cooked up, the AI memory spend wasn’t in full swing yet, but due to that new reality, the 980 Blade makes even more sense.

Console Testing — PlayStation 5 Transfers

The PlayStation 5 supports one additional PCIe 4.0 or faster SSD for extra game storage. While any 4.0 drive will technically work, Sony recommends drives that can deliver at least 5,500 MB/s of sequential read bandwidth for optimal performance. In our testing, PCIe 5.0 SSDs don’t offer much advantage and generally shouldn’t be used in the PS5, especially since they may require additional cooling. Check our Best PS5 SSDs article for more information.

Our testing utilizes the PS5’s internal storage test and manual read/write tests with over 192GB of data, both from and to the internal storage. Throttling is prevented where possible to see how each drive operates under ideal conditions. While game load times should not deviate much from drive to drive, our results can indicate which drives may be more responsive in long-term use.

We think that using a PCIe 5.0 SSD in a PS5 is a waste, but there are cases where it might make sense. There may come a time when PCIe 5.0 drives are close to the price of PCIe 4.0 drives, and, in fact, history suggests PCIe 4.0 might even end up more expensive.

Things are sketchy right now with prices trending rapidly upward, but most of that cost is on the flash and, to some extent, the DRAM. So it’s possible it could be worth grabbing a drive like the 980 Blade as an investment, even if you only use it temporarily in your PS5. Its performance in the console is excellent, and you can always swap it out later if you do a future PCIe 5.0 build.

Transfer Rates — DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We write 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to the test drive, then make a copy of that data to a new folder, and follow up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file. This is a real world type workload that fits into the cache of most drives.

We’re less pleased with the 980 Blade’s copy performance. In general, 2.2+ GB/s is an excellent result for the file mix we use, but we’ve come to expect more from high-end drives. In most cases, the copy transfer rate is limited by the write speed – the write portion usually falls inside the pSLC cache – so results are pretty predictable. We would expect the 980 Blade to be closer to the Predator GM9000, but for whatever reason, it didn’t get there for us today.

Since we look at our results in order when preparing a review, at this stage, we would expect a bad result here to be reflected somewhere in our later write saturation test. We mention that because any reader wanting to understand and identify drive characteristics should know where to look to confirm certain impressions. If you're someone who buys more than one drive every few years, these lessons can inform you about drives we don’t directly review, as almost every one we do review has “twins” for sale. We’re not just reviewing a specific drive; we’re exploring patterns that can be extrapolated to other products for careful readers.

Synthetic Testing — ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes and at different queue depths for both sequential and random workloads.

The ATTO data is mostly as expected, but the 980 Blade does have some nuance to its read and write results at high block sizes. Specifically, we see the same drop at 2MiB reads that we do with the Legend 970. We can probably ignore the 4MiB drop for writes, but the 4MiB recovery for reads also mirrors the Legend 970’s results. Given that these two drives have different controllers and controller manufacturers, we can guess it comes down to the flash.

Both are using Micron’s 232-Layer TLC flash, and both are labelled by Adata. Historically, Adata has bought flash by the wafer and done its own binning, which also allows it the freedom to encode the flash itself. This can make the flash more difficult to identify, even when specialized software tools are used. However, we can guess based on the results here that the 980 Blade and 970 Legend are almost certainly using the same flash, with other differences borne out by the controller change. Considering the 980 Blade underperforms the GM9000 in some areas and should be better, if anything, due to potentially newer or optimized firmware, we can guess this flash is either of a lower grade or Adata has it configured to perform differently.

We can spend all day speculating on why this is, but assuming the latter, there are many reasons why a manufacturer might have flash that doesn’t perform exactly the same as other models in synthetic tests. It could be to temper wear more readily, something that was the case during the short-lived Chia plotting days. Users tend to frown on this because it sounds like performance is being “held back” intentionally, but if you take these drives into a real-world setting, it’s usually a negligible difference. Trading synthetic performance for endurance on the sly doesn’t exactly sound like shady business. Either way, our goal is to point out that Adata does seem to be doing something different here. It doesn’t translate to much difference in CDM’s sequential results aside from QD1 reads being a little underbaked.

Everybody gets more excited by random read results, anyway. For 4KB reads at QD1, the 980 Blade delivers a respectable 38.47µs of latency, which is close to the 9100 Pro. We find this absolutely sufficient and better than any Gen 4 drive. 4KB QD1 write latency is even better, suggesting maybe Adata did some tuning on this drive that might explain some of the other discrepancies. While random writes aren’t as important for daily use, they can help in some productivity workloads, which means the 980 Blade could end up with better balance overall.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of pseudo-SLC (single-bit) programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC (three-bit) or QLC (four-bit) flash. Performance can suffer even more if the drive is forced to fold, which is the process of migrating data out of the cache in order to free up space for further incoming data.

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds. This process shows the performance of the drive in various states as well as the steady state write performance.

The 980 Blade writes at 12.6 GB/s in the fastest single-bit pSLC cache mode for over 30 seconds. The total cache is over 405GB, which is on the larger size but below the maximum size possible. Its overall output is similar to the Predator GM9000 and T710, demonstrating that Micron TLC flash – regardless of generation – performs similarly. The drives with different flash, like the 9100 Pro, the Black SN8100, and the Fury Renegade G5, have larger caches. The three outliers are the Phison E28, which is a different controller entirely, the Legend 970, which is an older drive, and the Black Opal X570, which is high-end but DRAM-less. If we look at steady state write performance, we don’t see any drives that break old records, but the 980 Blade underperforms to some extent. We anticipated this when reviewing the DiskBench results above.

The good news is that 3.68 GB/s is still very fast, and many other drives, even good ones, are left in the dust. The bad news is that you can get this level of performance or higher with many high-end PCIe 4.0 drives. There’s also the PCIe 5.0 Sabrent Rocket 5, which has superlative sustained write performance. The bottom line is this: the 980 Blade delivers within the expected range but does not awe us in any way. You’re trading the “fastest drive ever” brag for “very fast, and I saved money” instead.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre stock storage. Desktops may be more performance-oriented with less support for power-saving features, so we show the worst-case.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption but performance-per-watt, or efficiency, is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

For temperature recording we currently poll the drive’s primary composite sensor during testing with a ~22°C ambient. Our testing is rigorous enough to heat the drive to a realistic ceiling temperature.

Power efficiency is a funny thing. Many people don’t really care about it, while others make it their mission to get the most performance out of the fewest watts possible. This is certainly more of a game for high-consumption devices like CPUs and GPUs, but high-end SSDs are starting to draw significant wattage at peak. Consumer drives still, by far and large, are idle most of the time, but future game requirements might change this equation, especially if you need to run multiple SSDs to handle the larger games of tomorrow. Besides, reducing the overall heat inside your desktop computer – for laptops, even more so – is always a bonus. Luckily, the restrictively high heat output of early high-end PCIe 5.0 drives, which required a heatsink for operation, is becoming a thing of the past.

The 980 Blade uses one of the newer controllers that help keep power consumption and heat under control. Its efficiency is not fantastic, but it leaves PCIe 4.0 drives in the dust. With around 4W of average power consumption during our sustained write test – your own experience may vary – this is not a drive you have to worry about. Just compare it to the Legend 970, which only hit 10 GB/s at that. The 980 Blade only hit 66°C during our test, which is 17°C below the initial throttling point. This leaves a decent amount of headroom and confirms that the heatspreading label is effective.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade Bottom Line

The Adata XPG Mars 980 Blade is not a great drive, but it’s not bad, either. Its overall performance is quite good compared to most drives and any PCIe 4.0 drive, but among the newest crop of high-end PCIe 5.0 SSDs, it is mediocre at best. This goes for its power efficiency, too, which is at least significantly better than earlier drives in this class. None of this is prohibitive as the 980 Blade is priced to move when it’s available. This is a good opportunity to get a fast PCIe 5.0 drive at a discount. The limits of the interface are already being pushed, and prices are only going up, so the drive even works as a preemptive buy if you want to have one waiting in the wings.

On the other hand, we prefer the Crucial T710 if you’re going for a 1TB SSD. It has the best flash for that capacity to get the highest bandwidth. If you want the top drive otherwise, the SanDisk WD Black SN8100 remains our pick at 2TB and 4TB. We expect that drive to be great at 8TB when it arrives, and the 8TB version of the Kingston Fury Renegade G5 has also been announced. Until then, the Samsung 9100 Pro has the best and only 8TB option in this class, and it was as low as $749.99 during recent sales. If capacity is your game, then we would suggest the WD Black SN850X as a fallback compromise.

If other drives with the SM2508 are a better deal at the time of shopping, we recommend ones with BiCS8 TLC flash for the best latency and 276-Layer Micron TLC flash for the most bandwidth. Drives like the 980 Blade, with 232-Layer Micron TLC flash, are the budget option as a better pick than older E26-based drives. We can’t offer any suggestions around the Phison E28 controller just yet.

Newer mid-range PCIe 5.0 SSDs, like the Crucial P510, are also a possible solution if you’re still using a PCIe 4.0 slot. These newer drives will still be faster and more power-efficient overall and can be used as a secondary drive in faster systems down the road. We still think the SN850X and Samsung 990 Pro are the best overall drives here, with the SK hynix Platinum P41 being the budget choice if you demand DRAM. The price cut does imply that SK hynix has given up on fixing a write issue with the drive, but it’s still a good drive for most use cases. Alternatively, the Crucial T500 also has TLC and DRAM, but it is a little weak with sustained writes. If you choose to go DRAM-less, then we would suggest checking our reviews on budget drives.

So, who is the target buyer for the 980 Blade? Well, if you are lucky enough to have more than one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot, then it would make for a good second or even third drive. It might also be one of the last chances to get this level of performance at a reasonable price. It should be fine in older systems, desktops, or laptops, and the PS5 if you are buying for future plans. If you are on a strict budget or, alternatively, want the very best, we would tell you to steer clear. This is 100% an affordable luxury type item which would be at home as a “PCIe 5.0 SSD” on a prebuilt if the company wanted 14+ GB/s on the label and ran out of E26 drives. At least until DRAM-less drives like the Biwin Black Opal X570 become more common, as rising DRAM costs might alter the balance. For now, the 980 Blade is a safe bet to check the important boxes without doing anything exciting.

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AI datacenters are eating up the world's supply standard DRAM memory, NAND flash for SSDs, and hard drives. Adata chairman Simon Chen just made it extremely clear that in his three-decade tenure in the industry, he's never witnessed a simultaneous shortage of all of the aforementioned components, via a DigiTimes Asia report.

Chen goes on to explicitly state that Adata and its usual competitors aren't fighting between themselves for supply in what would be businesss as usual. Instead, cloud service providers (CSPs) — almost always AI datacenters in this day and age — are now gobbling up all available capacity of these components.

As if all that wasn't enough, Chen believes that the shortage of hard drives is incentivizing customers to try and purchase SSDs for non-volatile storage needs instead, further twisting the spiral of storage scarcity. Adata's sales team has purportedly gotten instructions to "sell sparingly" and "give priority to loyal customers" in turn.

Additionally, the inventory at upstream suppliers is charitably described as barebones, with only two to three weeks' worth of supply, down from the usual two-to-three months of capacity. In other words, that means that SK hynix, Samsung, Micron, Kioxia, and Western Digital are selling most everything they make to AI projects.

In case you're not entirely convinced of how big a deal Chen's suspicion-confirming statements are, Adata had a 11% share in the SSD market in 2024, and holds a 5% slice of the memory market. Those are small percentages, but they're for the entire world, meaning that Adata purchases memory and flash chips at large volumes and careful negotiated prices. The deals are likely done multiple months in advance, and Adata certainly would otherwise have far bigger negotiation power than, say, Joe's Discount Memory.

The company's stock price has climbed sky-high since August, and it hit a 15-year revenue high in Q2 2025. That's keeping in tandem with the general industry trend, with DRAM revenue jumping 17.1% in the past fiscal quarter, and enterprise SSD revenue boosting by 12.7%. Even CPU/GPU chipmakers are charging gigantic premiums for their top-shelf wares, too.

All of this AI-fueled demand is now affecting the supply chain for all modern consumer electronics. Most any advanced device, including phones, TVs, consoles, and cars, all need one or more of the components that are now in high demand. If you're on the fence on whether to purchase a new handset, computer, or television, you'd be wise to consider moving sooner rather than later. Even if AI isn't taking all of our jobs, it seems poised to take all of our silicon.

If you're looking for the best microSD Express cards for the Switch 2, our picks below, curated from our in-depth benchmarking, will show you the top cards available on the market right now. The Nintendo Switch 2 is one of the most highly anticipated launches in the world of gaming handhelds. It has met expectations by introducing a series of solid hardware upgrades, notably including significantly faster internal storage, complemented by microSD Express cards for expandable storage.

The original Switch featured 32GB of eMMC storage, a figure that subsequently doubled in the OLED version. The Switch 2, on the other hand, arrives with a whopping 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, a massive upgrade in both capacity and speed. The Switch 2 offers gamers up to 7X more storage capacity compared to the Switch and up to 3X more than the Switch OLED.

As is customary with gaming consoles, not all of the internal storage is available to you. For the Switch 2, Nintendo has allocated approximately 7GB of the 256GB for system use. Consequently, the actual usable space amounts to approximately 249GB. However, while 249GB of storage capacity may appear like a lot on paper, any avid gamer would dispute this perception.

Take first-party titles such as Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, for example — two games that will likely make your Switch 2 collection. They require approximately 22GB and 9GB of storage space, respectively. Modern AAA games aren't any lighter, either. If you like genres like Cyberpunk 2077 and Split Fiction, those occupy an additional 60GB and 70GB, respectively. Thus, only four games have already eaten up half of your available storage. If you share your Switch 2 with your children or a family member, space becomes even more important. The internal storage will inevitably fill up as your gaming library grows.

In its initiative to modernize the Switch 2, Nintendo adopted the microSD Express standard, thereby becoming a pioneer in this area. As of the time of this publication, the Switch 2 is the only device to use microSD Express cards. Although the standard has been in place since 2019, it has not yet gained momentum, which has primarily led to the limited availability and high cost of microSD Express cards.

Prime Day Exceptional MicroSD Express Card Deal

Here is a standout budget microSD Express card deal from the Prime Day event, which is currently taking place. See our best overall picks below.

Best MicroSD Express Cards At A Glance

Here's the shortlist of our recommendations and rankings, but we have a more detailed card-by-card breakdown and far more detailed in-depth performance benchmarks of these drives below. To find the best microSD Express cards for the Switch 2, we tested numerous cards of different capacities from various vendors.

Further below, we also have a hierarchy that ranks the microSD Express cards based on performance. Since it’s not possible to evaluate every card due to regional availability, we will continue testing and updating our recommendations as new cards become readily available for purchase in the U.S. market. We also have a detailed definition and explanation of the different speed classes across the various generations of the microSD specification.

Best 1TB MicroSD Express Card

The TeamGroup Apex SD7.1 1TB is a lightning-fast microSD Express card that unlocks the full potential of your Switch 2, ensuring smooth gameplay and rapid load times. Offering impressive speed at a more attractive price point than many competitors, it delivers outstanding value for your money. Priced at just $209.99 and widely available at major U.S. retailers, it comes with TeamGroup’s limited lifetime warranty, keeping your investment protected for years to come.

The Lexar Play Pro 1TB rivals the very fastest microSD Express cards in its class, delivering top-tier performance for demanding users. If you want uncompromising storage capacity and blazing speeds, this card is a standout. Widely available at major U.S. retailers, it provides unmatched convenience during your shopping. Plus, Lexar’s limited lifetime warranty means your investment is protected for the long haul, making it a smart and reliable choice for anyone seeking the best in high-capacity storage.

The Next 1TB stands out as one of the most affordable and fastest 1TB microSD Express cards available today, making high-speed storage accessible without breaking the bank. While it is currently exclusive to Best Buy and, like other budget options, comes with a standard one-year warranty, its unbeatable combination of price and performance makes it an exceptional choice for anyone seeking top value.

GameStop's 1TB microSD Express card delivers impressive speed and generous capacity, standing shoulder to shoulder with the leading brands—yet at a price that’s hard to beat. It brings high performance within reach for cost-conscious buyers. While it is sold exclusively at GameStop, making it harder to find outside the U.S., its outstanding value and competitive edge make the extra effort worthwhile. However, it only comes with a standard one-year manufacturer’s warranty.

Best 512GB MicroSD Express Card

The Adata Premier Extreme 512GB is the fastest 512GB microSD Express card we’ve ever tested, setting a new benchmark for speed and reliability. While its premium performance comes at $129.99, it delivers exceptional value for those who refuse to compromise on quality. If you’re seeking the absolute best in 512GB microSD storage, this card is the clear choice for unrivaled speed and top-tier capability.

The Lexar Play Pro 512GB offers ample space for all your Switch 2 games, with blazing-fast speeds that ensure seamless performance for even the most demanding titles. It comes with Lexar's renowned commitment to quality and warranty.

PNY’s microSD Express card is a great upgrade for your Switch 2. With speedy performance at a surprisingly affordable price, you get the speed your device deserves without breaking the bank. Plus, PNY’s limited lifetime warranty sets this card apart from some competitors.

While the GameStop 512GB microSD Express card may be marginally slower than a few higher-priced competitors, it still offers impressive speed and dependable performance for everyday use. Its affordability makes high-capacity storage accessible to more users, but its exclusive availability at GameStop is a downside. Even with a standard one-year warranty, this card represents a smart, budget-friendly pick for those seeking reliable storage without unnecessary expense.

Best 256GB MicroSD Express Card

The Adata Premier Extreme 256GB is the type of upgrade that will transforms your Switch 2's storage experience. It doesn't require a big investment, either. The included limited lifetime warranty provides extra confidence, making this card a truly smart buy for Switch 2 owner.

The Sandisk 256GB microSD Express card sets the gold standard for its class, delivering blazing-fast speeds and unmatched reliability. While it commands a premium price at $71.99, this investment rewards you with superior performance and the ultimate peace of mind—a lifetime warranty. For those who want the very best in 256GB storage, Sandisk’s offering is the clear leader that justifies every penny.

While the Samsung P9 Express may not claim the top-speed crown, it excels as the smartest 256GB microSD Express card for value-driven Switch 2 users. It offers reliable performance at a wallet-friendly price, making it an ideal pick for those who want dependable storage without overspending. With a generous three-year warranty—two years longer than some competitors—you gain extra peace of mind, proving that great value and solid protection can go hand in hand.

GameStop’s microSD Express cards stand out as some of the most budget-friendly options, and the 256GB version continues that tradition. You get reliable performance for what you pay. While it comes with a one-year warranty, the value it delivers at this price point makes it a compelling option for cost-conscious buyers.

Best 128GB MicroSD Express Card

The AGI TF338 is a mixed bag in terms of performance. While it may be harder to find and carries a premium price due to shipping from Amazon Japan, its limited five-year warranty far exceeds the standard coverage offered by competitors. If you spot this card at a discounted price in your region, it's worth considering.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle MicroSD Express Performance

The Switch 2’s improved hardware unlocks a whole new world for handheld gamers. Many AAA blockbuster titles, once exclusive to PCs and consoles, are now available with you on the go. A new challenge has surfaced: the increasing storage demands if you're going down the digital path. If you don't plan on picking the cartridge version of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the game will set you back 61.5 GB. That's about half the size of the PC or console versions. That’s within expectations, since the graphics are toned down to a level that allows the title to run seamlessly on the Switch 2.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, on average, takes over 40 seconds to reach the main menu after you press the A button to launch the game. One cool feature is that the main screen shows a static snapshot of your last checkpoint. When you select the “continue” option, the transition to your saved game is swift, clocking in at just over four seconds, depending on how far you’ve progressed in the game.

Once you’re in the game, traditional loading screens become a rarity. Instead of interrupting the player’s experience with loading screens, the developers replaced them with cinematic cutscenes. Although the storytelling and voice acting are great, this may annoy some players since it interrupts the action. However, the upside of this approach is that it's more engaging than staring at a loading screen. Occasionally, you might encounter a brief black loading screen, usually when transitioning between major locations. Fortunately, these interruptions are minimal and last no more than 10 seconds.

If you’re a hardcore Switch 2 gamer, there’s a high possibility that you’ll be running Indiana Jones and The Great Circle off a microSD Express card. The growing size of modern games has required gamers to rely on these high-speed external storage cards. Fortunately, you can rest assured that you’re not losing any storage performance. The difference that we measured in loading times between running the game off a microSD Express card and the Switch 2’s internal storage is minimal, less than 2% to be precise. You’re free to enjoy Indiana Jones and The Great Circle without compromise, and your gameplay experience isn't affected by the storage choice, unlike other titles that have shown a higher performance delta between the handheld's internal storage and microSD Express cards.

MicroSD Express Card Hierarchy 2026

Our hierarchy showcases every microSD Express card rigorously tested in our lab, thoughtfully organized by capacity to help you find the perfect match. All results reflect real-world performance on the Switch 2, and we provide an overall throughput metric—the geometric mean of our comprehensive bandwidth tests—for a clear, apples-to-apples comparison. For deeper insights into each card’s strengths, explore our detailed performance charts below.

1TB MicroSD Express Cards

512GB MicroSD Express Cards

256GB MicroSD Express Cards

128GB MicroSD Express Cards

MicroSD Express Card Performance Charts

Right now, the Nintendo Switch 2 is the only device that fully unlocks the power of microSD Express cards—making our Switch 2 benchmarks the most relevant for owners. We didn’t stop there, though, and tested every microSD Express card in standard storage scenarios, revealing just how much performance can vary between brands and capacities. As this technology rolls out to more devices, those differences will become important for buyers.

Nintendo Switch 2 Benchmarks

PC Storage Benchmarks (1TB & 512GB)

PC Storage Benchmarks (256GB & 128GB)

MicroSD Express Performance and Specifications

MicroSD Express Performance and Specifications

Nintendo's adoption of microSD Express cards for the Switch 2 is both a blessing and a curse. Nintendo has disabled the Switch 2 from playing games off a standard microSD card, thereby persuading gamers to pay the early adopter tax associated with new microSD Express cards if they want to play games. The new microSD Express format offers improved tangible performance compared to the regular microSD cards used in the original Switch.

The only way to expand the Switch 2's gaming storage is to buy into the microSD Express standard. The new cards have a similar resemblance to standard microSD cards. A simple way to tell them apart is to look for the 'EX' logo on the label of the microSD Express cards. If you're an experienced user, you can probably tell one card apart from the other because, although microSD Express cards have two rows of metal pins, like microSD UHS-II cards, the position and size of the pins on the second row differ.

You can still insert a standard microSD card into the Switch 2, and it'll work in a way. Usage is limited to screenshots, video playback, or file transfer, as the console doesn't allow gameplay from these media types. The funny thing is that MicroSD Express maintains backward compatibility with devices that lack support for this standard; it just defaults to UHS-I speeds in such cases. Consequently, the limitation observed in the Switch 2 is more attributable to Nintendo's design choices, potentially serving as a strategy to prevent any adverse impact on the device's reputation due to lower performance levels with standard microSD cards.

The original Switch utilizes microSD cards, specifically those that support the UHS-I interface. That's why even Nintendo advised Switch owners to select a microSD card with transfer speeds ranging from 60 to 95 MB/s (theoretical maximum for UHS-I is 104 MB/s); investing in higher standards, such as UHS-II or UHS-III, would be an unnecessary expenditure because the Switch couldn't tap into the higher transfer speeds. On the other hand, microSD Express cards offer significantly higher performance, resulting in reduced game loading and transfer times.

The Switch 2 uses microSD Express, which is based on the SD 7.1 specifications and theoretically achieves transfer speeds of up to 985 MB/s. This represents an approximately 9.5X increase over UHS-I cards. The enhanced performance is enabled by the current SD 7.1 revision's use of the PCIe 3.0 x1 interface, finally moving away from the antiquated SD bus. The standard will continue to improve, and once it leverages a faster interface, such as PCIe 4.0 x2, projected speeds could reach up to 3,938 MB/s. However, this is a topic for another time.

Like regular microSD cards, microSD Express cards also come with their own speed classes. These ratings are designated by the "E" prefix followed by a number, which represents the minimum sustained write speed. For example, a card marked with E150 guarantees 150 MB/s of sustained write performance. None of the brands, at least the ones we tested, labeled their microSD Express cards with the appropriate speed class ratings. However, our storage benchmarks include a sustained write test, and some of the cards comply with the E150 or E300 categories.

Despite their higher transfer speeds, microSD Express cards continue to fall short compared to the Switch 2's internal UFS 3.1 storage system. UFS 3.1 technology, primarily used in smartphones and tablets, achieves maximum sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,100 MB/s and 1,200 MB/s, respectively. Therefore, when performance is at stake, the most efficient method for loading games remains loading them from internal storage. But when you're out, that's when the best microSD Express cards become relevant.

Frequently Asked Questions: MicroSD Express Cards 2026

How We Test MicroSD Express Cards in 2026

We first test each card on the Switch 2, then move it to a PC test bed for further benchmarking. Although we charged the battery to 100% and had the Switch 2 connected to the wall, we used the device in handheld mode during our tests. We kept the firmware to version 22.1.0 to ensure consistency for all future evaluations. Should Nintendo release a subsequent update that improves transfer performance, we will retest each microSD Express card to incorporate the changes.

For the transfer tests, we used two games: Mario Kart World and Pokémon Legends: Z-A. We ran our benchmarks on versions 1.3.0 and 1.0.1 of the aforementioned titles, with sizes of 21.9 GB and 7.7 GB, respectively, for a total of 29.6 GB. We conducted it three times and picked the median result.

We employ a consistent PC test system for all benchmarking of our microSD Express cards. The specifications are in the table below. This system essentially serves as the test bed used in our RAM reviews. We apply our extensive SSD storage benchmarking suite to evaluate each microSD Express card. The evaluation encompasses trace tests, transfer rate tests, synthetic tests, and sustained write performance.

We have a consistent series of benchmarks, each executed multiple times. We utilize the highest result from each test. Windows 11 was held back to version 24H2 to ensure consistent testing outcomes, as various security updates have affected specific benchmarks over the years.

We utilize the Lexar microSDXC Express card reader (pictured above), available for $112 on Amazon, to interface our microSD Express cards with the system. The selection of the Lexar card reader was due to its active cooling design, incorporating a built-in fan to maintain optimal conditions for the microSD Express cards during rigorous testing. The reader connects to our system via a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port.

Adata launched the new Trusta brand at this year's Computex, seeking to break into the enterprise market with a group of new products geared towards uncompromising performance.

Trusta — T7 and T5 SSDs

The inaugural products of the Trusta badge are two new SSD lines: the T7 and T5 families. The T7 line supports several enterprise-exclusive standards, while the T5 series is based on the PCIe Gen4 and SATA III interfaces.

The T7P5 is the flagship SSD launching from Trusta. The T7P5 offers sequential read/write speeds of up to 13,500 / 10,400 MB/s, and will be available starting from 1.92TB and ranging up to 15.36TB.

The T7P5 notably is not available in any consumer form factors or interfaces—the display model uses the U.2 standard, and the T7P5 also comes in the E3.S and E1.S (9.5/15/25mm) standards. These unique standards are enterprise replacements for the M.2 and 2.5" form factors at much higher power budgets.

The T7P5 was running benchmarks at multiple display tables when we arrived. Besides local LLM demos, the SSD was also running a benchmark where it rested at around 18W power consumption, a decently high consumption for a U.2 drive.

The T5-series includes the T5P4B, T5S3B, and T5S3 SSDs. The T5P4B and T5S3B are M.2 SSDs and were on display at Computex, while the T5S3 is a 2.5" SATA SSD. The T5 SSDs are built for use as enterprise boot drives, with the T5P4B on PCIe Gen4 x4 and the T5S3B on SATA III.

The T5P4B has sequential read/writes of 6000 / 800 MB/s and is available from 240GB to 3.84TB, with the SATA T5S3B at a slower 550 / 480 MB/s and capacities of 120GB to 1.92TB. There is no word yet on pricing for any of the Trenta products, though it is likely that as enterprise products they will not be made available to the public.

Showing Off The Rest of the Enterprise Market

The rest of Trusta's display hinged on showing off a few borrowed components from other manufacturers meant for the enterprise space. Silicon Motion's MonTitan development platform and Intel's new direct liquid cooling system were among these items.

The MonTitan Gen 5 Enterprise SSD Platform was first announced by Silicon Motion back in 2022. Based on its SM8366 SSD controller, the MonTitan platform supports up to 128TB SSDs and sequential read/write speeds of 14 / 11 GB/s, as seen in action on the Computex floor. The platform has been seen in the wild before, with Adata's inclusion of it likely to hint at Adata's plans for enterprise Gen5 SSDs arriving sooner than later.

A Reddit user got a very unexpected surprise upon booting their PC: 50GB of anime girl pictures in their Windows temp folder, courtesy of XPG's Prime utility. This software was originally designed to customize and sync RGB lighting across compatible products. In our brief testing, we found that the software doesn't delete temporary UI wallpaper images and creates new redundant copies on every restart.

Why is XPG Prime filling my Windows Temp folder with 50 GBs of anime girls pictures? from r/pcmasterrace

XPG is a gaming hardware and accessories product brand from Adata that specializes in RAM and SSDs, with a strong commitment to its anime styled aesthetics, which you'll find present on everything from their boxes to their apps. They've even gone as far as to create a mini anime series on their YouTube channel.

To determine the underlying cause, I installed XPG Prime on my system, which conveniently has a DDR5 memory kit from XPG's Lancer series. There's no standalone installer for XPG Prime, so I had to grab it from the Microsoft Store. On opening the app, it prompted me to create or use an existing XPG account, though there was an option to proceed as a guest as well.

You might wonder, why does an app that's built to control and synchronize RGB need to store such a vast-collection of anime pictures? Under its "Wallpaper" section, XPG Prime allows users to change their wallpaper from one of seventeen options. For those wondering, that massive 50GB chunk was just hundreds of copies of the same seventeen images, not unique ones.

I tried reopening the app several times while monitoring the size of my temp folder. Every time the app started, it generated a roughly 15MB copy of the same wallpapers. This might vary from user to user, but reaching 50GB at this rate would require over 3,000 attempts. It's possible the Redditor's temp folder had old, uncleared data, but it's hard to be certain.

The app serves a rather limited purpose and could easily be substituted for alternatives like OpenRGB, unless you desire something specific. Considering the 15MB of temporary data generated with each app startup, a user who turns on their PC three times a day throughout the year would accumulate a considerable 16.4GB of bloat. While not harmful, this is still an undesirable situation, and we hope XPG issues an update promptly, given that many consumers don't routinely clear their temp folders.

Adata showcased plenty of upcoming hardware it aims to release this year, including PC cases, SSD and CPU coolers, and a power supply, at CES 2025.

The first product that caught our attention was the Adata XPG Invader X Pro case, which has a dual-curved tempered glass panel on all three sides (we also covered this last year). The other cases we saw were the XPG Valor Air Nano — an mATX case, the Invader X Mini ATX case, and the Starfighter and Starker Air BTF case.

The Valor Air Nano is made for mATX and mini ITX builds, and supports a 360mm radiator and ATX and SFX power supplies. While it does not have any glass panels like the Invader X Pro, it does have a plethora of ventilated areas on the front, top, and left panels with mesh to prevent dust accumulation inside the case. The Invader X Mini at Adata's booth shows custom loop cooling for the graphics card and the CPU, with two 240mm radiators mounted on the top and bottom panel. The case supports up to an ATX motherboard layout, GPU lengths of up to 330mm, 16mm tall CPU coolers, and a 240mm radiator. It's bundled with five ARGB fans and has dust filters on the top and bottom.

The XPG Starfighter didn't mention ATX motherboard compatibility, but it is compatible with a 360mm AIO cooler, an SFX power supply, and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card. The case comes with one 160mm fan. The Starker Air BTF is, as the name suggests, made for reverse connector ATX motherboards, but it also supports standard motherboard form factors from mini ITX to E-ATX.

For coolers, Adata showcased an XPG Levante II which has a dual-chamber based pump-block and is designed for thermal loads up to 320 watts. Adata has two fans called the Vento II 120 and 140, with NMB dual bearings and flushed anti-vibration gaskets around their screw mounts. The 120mm is rated for speeds up to 3,200 RPM, providing 89 CFM, and the 140mm for speeds up to 3,000 RPM with 180 CFM for airflow.

The Mars 970 Storm is a PCIe 5.0 SSD with Silicon Motion SM2508 controller with a liquid and air cooler block with dual fans that will provide 25% better heat dissipation. Its not sold separately, and it is a very large block. It would be interesting to see how its cooling performs compared to other SSD coolers in the market. As the image shows, it would be an obstacle for certain motherboards whose M.2 slot is housed below the PCIe x16 slot.

Two of the PSUs we saw were the XPG Pylon II and the XPG Pymcore SFX power supply. We couldn't find a ton of information on these, so we'll have to wait until we get them in for testing to draw any conclusions.

Adata is looking to expand its product range beyond storage and RAM in a time where there are already plenty of options. We'll have to see if users end up liking these products or if they'll end up lost in the shuffle.

This morning, Adata XPG announced in a press release that it would introduce its new XPG Hurricane Mag series of 120mm case fans alongside a new BTF form factor case, the XPG Starter Air BTF.

The XPG Hurricane Mag fans primarily caught our interest because they're comparably more innovative. They're reversible, meaning they can be configured to spin and push air in either direction. They're also magnetic and snap together for easier installation and power, allowing up to six magnetically attached fans to be powered off a single cable.

That's all pretty nifty, but we should take a moment to discuss case airflow and how the direction of your case fans can influence it. To simplify, your PC case is considered to have a "positive pressure" airflow configuration if you have more intake fans sucking air in than exhaust fans blowing air out, creating more air pressure inside your case. More exhaust creates "negative pressure" and can be comparably powerful, but will result in a dustier PC.

With the ability to switch fan direction with a single button, it becomes a lot easier for users to switch between these setups at will or experiment more broadly with their case cooling without needing non-matching fans to fill in the gaps. For example, you could choose to have your intake fans and their RGB facing inward but still sucking in air through your front panel, unlike traditional RGB fans.

Adata's XPG Hurricane Mag case fans are 120mm RGB fans rated for up to 2000 RPM. Airflow is estimated at 54.82 ± 10% CFM in a standard configuration and 49.27 ± 10% CFM in a reversed configuration. The fan is rated to last for 160,000 hours (roughly 6666 days) and has a two-year warranty period.

Adata will sell the XPG Hurricane Mag fans in individual quantities or bundles of 4. Unfortunately, we can't yet speak to the value proposition of singular Hurricane Mag fans, bundles, or even the Starter Air BTF case because Adata opted not to reveal this information in the press release.

Adata has just released a Pro version of its high-performance Legend 970 PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD. The new model sports a higher maximum capacity of 4TB (compared to the 2TB of the vanilla 970) and its active cooling solution is now powered directly from the M.2 slot, meaning you don’t have to plug it into a spare SATA power cable to power the tiny on-board active cooling fan.

The company claims a 14 GB/s sequential read and 11 GB/s sequential write speed for the Legend 970 Pro, delivering a small bump in performance versus the Legend 970. It also has a higher random read performance at 1,800K, although its random write drops to 1,300K (versus 1,400 for the Legend 970). The 4TB Legend 970 Pro has a minimum endurance of 2,960TBW, or about 740TBW per 1TB of space, which puts it slightly higher than average.

Here's a comparison of the Adata Legend 970  which we reviewed last December, and new Adata Legend 970 Pro specifications:

Some may consider the biggest feature Adata had brought to the Legend 970 Pro is the use of the M.2 slot to power its on-board fan, thus reducing the cable clutter brought about by the extra SATA power plug on the vanilla version. Furthermore, the 4TB maximum capacity on the Pro version could be a godsend for creators, especially those who work with massive files (like 4K video recordings).

Another thing to note is the new controller the Pro version uses. The Phison PS5026 E26 controller is known to crash instead of thermal throttle when hitting its temperature limits. Even though this issue has since been fixed, Adata switched to InnoGrit’s IG5666 controller for the Pro — similar to what the TeamGroup uses for its ultrafast T-Force Z54A consumer SSDs.

Adata hasn’t revealed pricing for the Legend 970 Pro just yet, but those who require fast and massive storage solutions should be on the lookout when these SSDs arrive on the market. Hopefully we can get one into the labs for a review and direct comparison with its predecessor and other rivals on the market.

Adata has added a BTF variant to its XPG Invader X case lineup. The new XPG Invader X BTF is compatible with rear-connector motherboards such as MSI's Project Zero and Asus' BTF. The XPG Invader X BTF is a mid-tower case and its main selling point is its design, which promotes clean aesthetics and better (-looking, at least) cable management by supporting rear-connector motherboards and components. But it also supports standard layouts, making it both flexible and (hopefully) upgrade- and future-ready.

The XPG Invader X BTF supports up to 10 fans and is compatible with liquid coolers that have radiators up to 360mm long. The case design allows for up to 400mm of GPU clearance, and supports power supplies up to 240mm long. If you'd like to use an air cooler, the case also allows for up to 175mm CPU cooler clearance, so it will fit taller coolers such as the new Noctua NG-D15-G2. The case features glass front and lefts panels and the rest is steel. It's available in both black and white.

The case comes with five 120mm fans included, four of which have reversed fan blades to pull air in. For storage, it has a bracket that allow you to install up to three 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives. The full specs are listed below: 

The XPG Invader X BTF has a mesh metal top panel and supports up to ATX-sized motherboards. If you're looking for a bigger case, Adata showed off the XPG Invader X Pro, which supports up to E-ATX, earlier this year at CES 2024. 

It's too soon to say if rear-connector motherboards and components will replace their standard counterparts (or get anywhere close), but we're seeing more and more companies jumping on the trend. We took a look at InWin's rear-connector-compatible F5 case in Feb., and Corsair showed off cases for both mATX and ATX boards. Rear-connector motherboards and GPUs provide cleaner cable management by hiding the cables away, but this means upgrading can be tricky if you want to keep your clean aesthetics. But because the Adata XPG Invader X BTF supports both rear-connection and standard layouts, upgrading will presumably be easier — though you might want to just buy a new case at that point.

Adata unveiled many new products at Computex this year, including an innovative new CPU cooler, an SFX power supply, and SSDs. This assortment played second fiddle to Adata's XPG Nia handheld gaming PC, which also appeared at its booth. 

First on deck was the Levante II, an AIO CPU cooler from its XPG gaming line. A much-needed refresh of the Levante X 360, the Levante II offers a few changes to address our concerns with the first model. Chiefly, the Levante II moves the AIO pump from the radiator down to the cooler head, creating a slightly thicker CPU block. 

This new design is patented by Adata, which is a big change for the vendor that traditionally uses Asetek-patented designs for its AIOs. The Levante II promises to keep the X 360's low noise and drop its price to $179 from $199. It will arrive sometime in Q3 2024.

The XPG Hydro CPU cooler is perhaps more interesting due to its hybrid nature. The product is both a water cooler and an air cooler. The dual 120mm fans push air across the central radiator, which rests directly atop the CPU.

The Hydro promises to be worth the novelty. Reading only 28 dB at max performance, the cooler approaches pure-AIO sound levels and promises to keep up that low noise performance at max loads when cooling up to 280W TDP. And because XPG is marketed towards gamers, we have a thin RGB line across the top of the cooler. The XPG Hydro will cost $109 when it arrives in September.

Adata is not the most well-known name in power supplies, but it will seek to enter the market through the Pymcore SFX power supply. Likely named after Ant-Man from Marvel Comics (because one PSU referencing Marvel at Computex wasn't enough), the Pymcore was first spotted at CES in January, bringing the new 600W cable to small form factor builds. The power supply will be available from 850W to 1000W, ranging in price from $219 to $249, making it one of the most expensive SFX power supplies on the market. 

Adata is jumping into the interlocking fans market with its Hurricane Mag fans. Hurricane Mag is a series of 120mm fans that can magnetically lock together, joining the recent trend of bucking daisy-chaining PWM cables in favor of just daisy-chaining fans. Snapping together easily and quickly, the fans promise to make PC building much less painful. The fans will also come equipped with a forward/reverse flow switch, which is a welcome addition. The Hurricane Mag will be slightly above average pricing for its field, selling four fans in one package for $109 starting in August. 

Rounding out our Adata coverage is another upgrade to an existing Adata product: the Adata Legend 970 Pro NVMe SSD. Not to be confused with Samsung's SSD of a similar name, the Legend 970 Pro succeeds the Legend 970, a drive that we reviewed highly on release. The Legend 970 Pro has a few changes from its older brother, moving away from the Phison memory controller to an InnoGrit chip. Perhaps it is this change that boosts the Legend 970 Pro up to speeds of 14,000/12,000 MB/s, as compared to the advertised 10,000/10,000 MB/s of its predecessor.

The most significant change from its predecessor is actually on the heatsink. The tiny fan on the SSD's heatsink now draws its power from the PCIe slot rather than an extra SATA power cable; the heatsink is likely to be just as useless as before, but now installing it is less of a hassle. The price and release date weren't specified to us, but you can expect to pay close to the $169 and $299 price tags of the Legend 970's 1TB and 2TB skews.

From its Computex booth, Adata looks set to jump on the handheld PC gaming bandwagon with a new device called the XPG Nia. It is becoming a crowded market, with players jostling to herald their winning take on the handheld formula. Adata’s special sauce is to offer both upgradable RAM and storage in its handheld – a first for the industry. Further appeal comes from Adata’s AMD Phoenix handheld featuring a Windows Hello camera, and a tilting screen which can boost system cooling.

Owners of the Adata XPG Nia can expand the memory up to 64GB using one of the shiny new CAMM2 form factor modules, we have seen so much of at Computex 2024. It isn’t clear what configuration the Nia will ship with, but it is nice to have the ability to upgrade.

In a similar vein, the XPG Nia’s storage configuration is flexible. A back panel can be easily removed, for access to both the RAM and SSD. There appears to be only a single slot for SSDs, just like competitor devices, and here Adata will supply one of its own S55 M.2 2230 drives (up to 2TB).

Adata has used a sliding tilt screen mechanism in the XPG Nia. This should deliver better ergonomics, and there is a further benefit as moving the screen to tilt mode exposes more cooling vents.

Demo units of the Nia came with Windows 11, and this could use the built-in webcam as a Windows Hello biometric security device. The camera is also intended to add to the gaming experience, with eye tracking backed by Eyeware of Switzerland.

Adata touts the XPG Nia as especially ergonomic, and it looks quite chunky, which is usually good for adult hands. The tilting screen is also good for ergonomics, as may be the built-in kickstand.

Going even further with ergonomics, Adata’s ‘Circular Computing’ initiative would be important. As part of this plan, Adata is making the XPG Nia a welcoming system for modders, and things like 3D printing file sources will be open so users can remodel cases, triggers etc. This initiative will also come into play later in the product’s life, when it is hinted motherboard upgrades may be available, and users can re-use discarded motherboards in other projects – given full specs, diagrams, pinouts, etc from Adata.

With some competitors already launching AMD Ryzen 8040 (Hawk Point) handhelds, readers may be puzzled about Adata sticking to Ryzen 7040 (Phoenix) APUs. Part of it is down to the XPG Nia still being a work in progress, another part might be Adata’s intention to deliver the XPG Nia at a very keen price – between $500 and $600.

To get to its desired pricing bracket, Adata will likely sell direct, and may also set up a Kickstarter to gauge support and interest in various processor / configuration options.

In a press release Adata has announced that from the second quarter of 2024 it will use a thermal coating technology on the PCB of its DDR5 memory modules. This coating is claimed to reduce temperatures by 8.5 degrees Celsius in Adata's own tests, and offer a heat dissipation efficiency of more than 10%. But, this new technology will not be available on all models.

Compatible XPG memory modules clocked at 8,000 MT/s or more, including the new Lancer Neon RGB and Lancer Neon RGB series, will be available with the thermal coating from the second quarter of 2024.

The company claims its PCB heat dissipation solution is in an optimized solder mask. Not only does the solder mask insulate, it also dissipates and conducts heat. A bold claim. Adata's PR states that it reduced overclocked DDR5 memory temperature by 8 degrees Celsius when compared to non-coated RAMs. To demonstrate this the memory and storage maker used a thermal camera on its DDR5 kits.

The images show a pair of Lancer Neon 8000MT/s. On the left are units with no thermal coating, on the right with. The left side pair are running at 78.5 degrees Celsius, while on the right, they are running at 70 degrees Celsius. 

While it's good to improve upon any component's heat dissipation abilities, when compared to other core components, like CPUs cooling for memory kits is not seen as a priority. Modern memory kits typically have heatspreaders that are more for branding and RGB than cooling performance.
The use of a thermal coating technology could provide an alternative method to heatspreaders. Some may question if it makes a big enough difference to effectively prolong the product's lifespan. 

In the press release, XPG states that it is prioritized the application of the thermal coating technology to overclocked DDR5 gaming memory running at 8000 MT/s or more. These modules will be officially unveiled at Computex 2024 (June 4 2024).

IT industry market research outfit TrendForce has published its latest report on worldwide SSD shipments. The source headlines with the interesting observation that global SSD shipments were down 10.7% YoY in 2022. It also looks at the brands jostling to sell the most units in the global rankings and some of the reasons behind the shipment volume fall.

The report claims that the various supply and demand issues that had plagued the SSD industry were largely resolved in 2022. In particular, TrendForce says that the problem with constrained SSD controller supplies was resolved last year. We must assume that supplies of the other major component, NAND flash, were also flowing without issue.

Despite the seemingly free-flowing supplies of key SSD components, TrednForce is basing this percentage on its figure of 114 million SSDs being shipped during 2022. Of course, we don’t have full-year 2023 figures yet.

So, what happened to cause the significant decline in SSD shipments last year? TrendForce doesn’t address that question directly but does mention that the global economy is still struggling in 2023. Indeed, 2022 saw the pandemic-inspired IT sales bubble burst (with a resulting drop in PC sales), and recessionary forces like inflation and layoffs were frequently in the news. The Russia-Ukraine war has also had impacts far beyond the region.

A larger part of TrendForce’s analysis was of the competition between the top SSD makers, as evidenced by shifting market shares. It was noted that the top five SSD brands increased their combined market share from 53% to 59% from 2021 to 22. Meanwhile, Kingston is clearly dominant, closing on controlling nearly a third of the market on its own. TrendForce says Kingston has been putting roots down in the industrial control and OEM markets to both expand and strengthen its grip.  Another interesting observation is that while worldwide shipments were down, Kingston and Adata managed to consolidate their market dominance.

As for 2023, TrendForce paints a picture of the global economy continuing to struggle and the big players continuing to use their muscle to grow. We have previously reported on the aggressive production cuts by NAND suppliers in search of better prices. However, Chinese NAND and controller suppliers might be keen to address any gaps left by more established brands. Trying to create artificial scarcity to push market prices higher seldom pays off in a truly competitive market. TrendForce notes that there is already evidence of China’s Longsys becoming more international, with acquisitions in Brazil, for example.

It still seems to be a good time for those wanting to add more SSD storage to their systems. However, there are warning signs that consumer SSD prices are leveling out, or even starting to increase.

Adata has finally launched the SE920, the company's first USB4 external SSD. We first heard about the Adata SE920 over two years ago, but it's only now coming to market, with slightly reduced specs. It boasts transfer speeds up to 3,800 MB/s, which means the SE920 rivals even the best external SSDs currently on the market. Naturally, you'll need a modern PC or laptop with the appropriate connector(s) to take advantage of the potential transfer rates.

The SE920 has the latest USB4 (40 Gbps) Type-C interface to deliver blazing-fast performance. The interface is backward compatible with USB 3.2 and USB 2.0 ports, though the latter would seriously limit throughput. Thunderbolt 3 and 4 support is also on the table; however, you'll want to pair the SE920 with a USB4 Type-C port to unleash the drive's full potential. The Adata SE920 is, at least on paper, one of the fastest external SSDs around. It's up to 40% faster than the Sabrent Rocket Nano XTRM, which is already pretty speedy for file tranfers.

The SE920 comes in 1TB and 2TB flavors, providing a decent amount of capacity. Adata doesn't specify what SSD controller powers the SE920 nor the type of NAND that's inside the drive, which is unfortunate. Lack of such details suggests the manufacturer could change hardware in the future, should it deem in practical to do so.

The SE920 offers sequential read and write speeds up to 3,800 MB/s and 3,700 MB/s, respectively. In real-world usage, we're looking at around three seconds to transfer a 4K video file that's 10GB in size. It's important to highlight that the SE920's sequential write performance is restricted to 3,200 MB/s on the Thunderbolt 4 interface.

The SE920, which features a black exterior, measures  4.13 x 2.52 x 0.62 inches (105 x 64.2 x 15.9mm) and weighs 6.4 ounces (181.52g), so it's a portable drive that you can take with you anywhere — maybe even inside your pockets if they're large enough. The SE920 comes with a spring-loaded enclosure and an active cooling system. Pressing down on the case will activate the tiny cooling fan to improve heat dissipation and extend the body to exhaust the heat. According to Adata's testing, the micro fan helps reduce operating temperatures by up to 10 degrees Celsius.

The SE920's active cooling system is an interesting concept over the typical metal chassis with passive cooling. However, we're unsure of the practicality, especially when the fan dies and you need to replace it. Unfortunately, Adata didn't provide any data on the fan and its noise level and, more importantly, life expectancy.

In regards to compatibility, the SE920 gets along with Windows (10 and 11), macOS (13 or later), Linux (Kernel 6 or later), and Android (13 or newer) operating systems. The external SSD is compatible with previous and current gaming consoles, such as the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X or S, so you can store your favorite titles on the SE920.

Adata backs the SE920 with a limited five-year warranty, though it doesn't list an endurance rating. The brand didn't share pricing for the SE920 yet, either. The USB4 external SSD is supposedly available today, but we haven't found it listed at any U.S. retailers.

Memory makers are witnessing increasing prices as production reductions lead to price rises in both DRAM and NAND segments. Companies like Adata, Phison, and Winbond are experiencing improved revenues in September and Q3, with an overall positive future outlook, reports UDN.com.

The memory industry is seeing positive growth, especially after production cuts by leading makers such as Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. Phison, a leading developer of SSD controllers and a supplier of actual drives, has reported an increase in September revenues, achieving NT$50.04 billion ($1.557 billion). This is a 25.38% monthly increase and a 4.05% yearly increment, marking a 14-month high. The company's Q3 earnings also showed an encouraging 24% quarter-over-quarter growth, despite a year-over-year drop of 15%. Cumulatively, Phison's revenue for the first three quarters was down by 32%, standing at NT$324.74 billion ($10.1 billion).

Adata, leveraging both the production benefits and the recovery of DRAM and NAND prices, presented remarkable figures. The company's September revenue landed at NT$14.82 billion ($461.2 million), which is a monthly increase of 16.47% and an impressive annual growth of 113.10%. Adata's Q3 revenue amounted to NT$36.48 billion ($1.135 billion), with a 35.5% decline from the previous quarter but a significant 116.33% yearly spike. Their earnings for the first three quarters were great, too: at NT$108.72 billion ($3.383 billion), it indicated a 119.22% yearly increase, setting unprecedented highs.

Optimism surrounds the fourth quarter as well, especially for Adata. The company aims to capitalize on upcoming major shopping events like Singles' Day and Christmas. With plans to meld online and offline sales strategies, they are poised for an even more profitable season, according to the report. Furthermore, Adata's leader, Chen Libai, has highlighted signs of industry revival and anticipates DRAM and NAND Flash contract prices to ascend by 10%-15%. He believes that both spot and contract rates for these memory components will sustain this upward trajectory.

Winbond, a producer of memory focused primarily on specialty memory, also faces rejuvenated customer demand. Their financials for September showcased a revenue of NT$ 67.66 billion ($2.1 billion), reflecting a 5.32% growth from the previous month and a 7.96% decline year-over-year. The company's quarterly earnings for Q3 amounted to NT$ 195.06 billion ($6.07 billion), a rise of 3.69% from the previous quarter and a drop of 11.92% compared to the previous year. The total revenue accumulated over the first three quarters was NT$ 558.32 billion ($17.375 billion), marking a 25.86% annual decrease.

Some of the best SSDs, specifically the PCIe 5.0 drives based on the Phison PS5026-E26 controller, have been crashing instead of thermal throttling when operating without a cooler. However, it is worth noting that all of the impacted drives are designed and marketed to specifically be used with a heatsink, so the conditions that expose the thermal shutdown will not present themselves if the drives are used correctly (in accordance with manufacturer specifications).

Initially, only the Corsair MP700 exhibited this behavior; however, it's now become apparent that the issue is more widespread and affects other Phison E26-based SSDs that are designed for heatsinks when they are used without heatsinks attached.

German news outlet Computerbase discovered that the Seagate FireCuda 540, Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 10000, and Adata Legend 970 also suffer from the shutdown issue. It was to be expected since the PCIe 5.0 SSDs utilize the same Phison E26 controller. The FireCuda 540, Aorus Gen5 10000, and Leged 970 are still on firmware 22. Seagate hasn't gotten back to Computerbase when the new firmware will be available, whereas Gigabyte promised that it'll arrive "soon."

To recap: the issue only occurs when you use a PCIe 5.0 SSD without cooling. When the drive gets too hot, it shuts down to protect the SSD controller, NAND, and data. This shouldn't be an issue if the PCIe 5.0 drive is adequately cooled by the included heatsink or the M.2 heatsink from the motherboard. Regardless, Phison has released a new firmware (version 22.1) that ensures the PCIe 5.0 SSDs throttle — instead of just crashing, which can lead to data loss. 

Firmware 22.1 introduces link-state thermal throttling that essentially reduces the PCIe interface speed — for example, dropping from PCIe 5.0 to PCIe 4.0 or even PCIe 3.0 to lower the temperature of the physical layer (PHY) without throttling the processor clock. This will obviously impact the PCIe 5.0 SSD's performance, but it should also keep it from engaging a shutdown to protect the integrity of the SSD controller. According to Computerbase, the thermal threshold on the new firmware 22.1 is 85 degrees Celsius.

In the beginning, the Crucial T700 didn't have the issue. The PCIe 5.0 would throttle until the drive operated at hard drive speeds but didn't shut down thermally. Computerbase performed more tests on the Crucial T700, and it showed similar failures, so the drive may also need the firmware 22.1 update.

Under the new firmware 22.1, Phison E26-powered SSDs should still provide an acceptable level of performance at high temperatures. Without a cooler, the Corsair MP700 delivered sequential read and write speeds over 10 GB/s and 2 GB/s, respectively. Remember that it's a safety measure in case temperatures get out of hand, and you should always use a cooler with your PCIe 5.0 SSD.

Edit: 7/21/2023 3:45pm PT: Clarified that these SSDs are specifically designed to be used with a heatsink. 

Speedy Gen 4 M.2 storage that won't break the bank — this 2TB stick of Adata XPG Gammix S70 Blade SSD is now down to $109. With sequential read and write speeds of 7400/6800MB/s this drive is more than fast enough for any task you can throw at it. 

A recently released gaming laptop that's close to $1,500, the Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 8 is down to $1,579. Specs for this laptop include a high-end Core i9-13900HX processor and Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, which provide plenty of power for playing the very latest games titles. 

If you're looking for a new mechanical keyboard that has multimedia controls and enough RGB to attract the fussiest of Unicorns, then the Corsair K70 RGB Pro for $109 is an excellent option for a wired gaming keyboard. 

See below for more deals.

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• 2TB XPG Gammix S70 Blade SSD: now $109 at Amazon (was $149)
• Lenovo Legion 5i (2023) Gaming Laptop: now $1,579 at eBay (was $1,969)
• Corsair K70 RGB Pro Mechanical Keyboard: now $109 at Amazon (was $145)
• Intel Core i3-12100F CPU: now $79 at Amazon (was $90)
• 2TB Solidigm P44 Pro PCIe 4.0 SSD: now $109 at Newegg (was $234)

Today’s best deals in detail

Looking for more deals?

Adata is showcasing its upcoming fully digital power supply that can handle four Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards without breaking sweat at Computex 2023. The Adata Fusion 1600 Titanium PSU is fully digital, compatible with ATX 3.0 as well as PCIe 5.0 specifications and will be Adata's flagship power supply when it arrives. 

To demonstrate the potential of its Fusion 1600 Titanium power supply, Adata attached it to a rig featuring four of Asustek's GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards and ran FurMark and OctaneBench to load it to the maximum. 

Theoretically, four of Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards running at their peak power draw would be asking for 1800W of power, exceeding the capacity of the 1600W power supply. However, the PSU managed to continuously supply the rig with circa 1800W without any problems. Furthermore, the system peaked at over 2200W, which exceeds the capacity of the PSU by over 37.5%.

It looks like Adata's Fusion 1600W Titanum can handle extreme loads pretty well thanks to its planar transformers and GaN FETs. While GaN transistors are actively used for mobile electronics as well as in electric vehicles, Adata (or rather its OEM partner Delta Electronics) will be among the first to use gallium nitride electronics for gaming PSUs. 

In fact, the Adata Fusion 1600W Titanium is a fully-digital PSU, featuring three MCUs to enable advanced software control and monitoring as well as to provide greater precision in voltage regulation and power distribution. Users of all-digital PSUs can adjust various parameters, such as fan curves and over-current protection levels. Digital PSUs can also offer improved efficiency by enabling precise control over power stages and real-time adjustments in Power Factor Correction (PFC), though Adata yet has to confirm which features it supports using its software.

Adata says that the Adata Fusion 1600W power supply will be available starting next month, though does not disclose its recommended price. Keeping in mind that we are dealing with an advanced all-digital PSU that uses GaN, the unit will certainly carry a premium price tag. The PSU will come with a 12-year warranty.

A number of all-new memory module standards targeting different applications emerged in the last couple of years. Introduction of new modules represents challenges and opportunities for module makers, so Adata decided to show that it is ready to produce CAMM, CXL, and MR-DIMM modules for client and server applications at Compute 2023.

The Compression Attached Memory Module (CAMM) specification is to be finalized only sometimes in the second half of 2023, but Adata is already demonstrating a sample at the trade show. It is noteworthy that Adata's CAMM module looks quite a bit different from the one used by Dell today, but this is not particularly surprising as Dell uses some sort of pre-JEDEC-approved modules. 

For those not familiar, CAMMs are projected to replace SO-DIMMs for ultra-thin laptops and other small form-factor applications. Their advantages include simplified connection of memory ICs to memory controllers (which enables usage of both module-optimized DDR5 and point-to-point interconnections-optimized LPDDR5 chips on CAMMs), simplified dual-channel connectivity (as every module is going to enable dual-channel connectivity by default), higher density, and lower Z-dimensions. 

Another module that Adata is showing off is a CXL 1.1-compliant memory device with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface and featuring an E3.S form-factor. This module carries 3D NAND memory that can act to expand system memory for servers and are meant to enable a relatively inexpensive way of system memory expansion using PCIe modules for machines that need it.  

Yet another module aimed at servers that Adata is showing off at the trade show is an MR-DIMM (multi-ranked buffered DIMM). MR-DIMMs are projected to be next-generation buffered memory modules for servers (along with MCR-DIMMs). These modules are expected to be supported by next-generation CPUs from AMD and Intel (including Granite Rapids CPUs) and tangibly increase performance and capacity of memory subsystems by essentially combining two memory modules on one. 

The modules are set to start at 8,400 MT/s (based on information from Adata) and then scale to 17,600 MT/s data transfer rate. Meanwhile, Adata claims that the modules will exist in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, and 192GB capacities.

Adata revealed some additional details about its NeonStorm solid-state drive with a self-contained liquid cooling system that promises up to 14GB/s sequential read speeds and up to 2M random read/write speeds at Computex 2023 trade show in Taipei. The PCIe 5.0 x4 drive appears to use an all-new platform from Silicon Motion and deliver rather unprecedented levels of performance. 

Adata's proprietary self-contained liquid cooling system is arguably the most important selling point of the upcoming NeonStorm drives, so it makes sense to start with it. While the cooling system uses a high-performance coolant, it is not an LCS as we know them. 

When a NeonStorm generates heat, it is absorbed by a thermal gasket and a metal heat spreader to maximize contact area. This heat is then transferred into a liquid reservoir where it is absorbed by a high-performance coolant, which in turn is cooled down by an aluminum alloy tube that is encircled by the coolant. Meanwhile the tube is cooled down using two fans that blow air from one side to another. The liquid-assisted cooling setup outperforms traditional fan-cooling mechanisms, delivering an impressive 20% additional reduction in SSD temperatures, according to Adata. That extra cooling will be instrumental to ensure consistently high performance of NeonStorm drives.  

Adata's NeonStorm SSDs are set to use Silicon Motion's SM2508 controller that is compliant with the NVMe 2.0 specification and promises sequential read speed of up to 14GB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 12GB/s as well as random read/write performance of whopping 2 million IOPS, which is comparable to that of enterprise-grade SSDs. As far as capacities are concerned, SM2508-based drives will support up to 8TB of 3D NAND, which is plenty for client-grade drives. 

The key advantage of Adata's NeonStorm coolers is that the reservoir is contained and there is no circulation of liquid from one system to another, so there are no potential failure points. Assuming that the build quality of NeonStorm is fine and its fans do not fail, it will probably be able to work for years without issues. Furthermore, the cooling system does not seem to be too expensive to make and it also looks impressive.

Of course, fans produce noise and for now Adata even has to feed them using an external cable. Meanwhile, the company hopes that Silicon Motion manages to reduce power consumption of its platform so that to supply fans from the slot, the company said. 

Adata's NeonStorm is still months away, so there is time for the SSD maker to think about how to make its fans a bit quieter and for SMI to find out how to reduce power consumption of its controller.

Today at Newegg, the Adata Premium 2TB SSD for PS5 has been marked down to $99. It usually goes for around $149, so this offer saves users $50 off the going rate. As of writing, this discount is scheduled to expire at the end of 5/28/2023. Overall, this is a fairly powerful SSD and today’s discount only sweetens the deal.

This offer applies only to the 2TB capacity but it also comes in a 1TB edition. It has an M.2 2280 form factor and can reach read/write speeds as high as 7400/6800 Mbps. If you’re looking to specifically upgrade the storage on your PlayStation 5, check out our list of best PS5 SSDs to see what else is available on the market.

Both of the drives in this line make use of an InnoGrit IG5236A1 controller and are compatible with PCIe Gen 4 x4 interfaces. The Adata Premium 2TB SSD for PS5 uses 3D NAND flash. For an SSD in its class, the Adata Premium makes for a worthy investment as it provides a serious upgrade performance-wise compared to others in the same price range.

This SSD is also supported by a limited 5-year manufacturer’s warranty from Adata that voids should the drive reach 1480 TBW. It has an estimated MTBF of 2,000,000 hours. It’s also covered by Newegg’s 30-day return policy.

Visit the Adata Premium 2TB SSD for PS5 product page at Newegg for purchase options and more information.

Adata has revealed a new PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD that certainly stands out from the crowd. Of course, we're getting used to elaborate active coolers being bundled with these storage components now, but Adata’s Project NeonStorm is definitely one of the most flamboyant offerings we have seen. This new XPG-branded M.2 SSD drive has a self-contained water cooling solution bolted on top – with tiny twin fans cooling the circulating liquid and thus minimizing the chances of SSD throttling.

As we approach Computex, more and more companies are preparing their marketing materials, and we are getting glimpses of the treats they have in store. Adata’s press release is quite lengthy; as you might expect, it has several new SSD solutions (and other things). The most notable new drives are the headlining Project NeonStorm, and the Legend 970, which both utilize the PCIe Gen5 x4 interface for the fastest transfer speeds on the newest platforms from AMD and Intel.

Project NeonStorm adds a boxy self-contained liquid cooling system to Adata’s M.2 2280 form factor storage device, directly cooling the SSD controller and NAND. In the images provided, you can see that the design appears to feature copper pipes, and there is a little bubble that hints that the structure is filled with liquid.

We can’t see the twin fans built into this device, so if CotCowLand is correct, they must be installed on the far side of the cooler, out of view. Thanks to these fans, this SSD’s AiO doesn’t require a connection to a larger system cooling loop. Performance numbers shared by Adata are impressive, with this XPG-branded device claimed to offer sequential read and write speeds of 14,000 and 12,000 MB/s, respectively.

Adata’s Legend 970 Gen5 SSD looks more conventional in design. However, the memory and storage specialist says it improves on the previous generation Legend device by utilizing extruded aluminum fins and larger fans (meaning multiple fans?). According to Adata, the Legend 970 has sequential read and write speeds of 10,000 and 10,000 MB/s, respectively.

At the Computex exhibition, Adata will be showcasing the above two PCIe Gen5 SSDs and various other storage, memory, chassis, power supplies, and laptops. If you are at Computex and need a bit of an energy boost, you might also want to check out the new XPG-branded e-sports chewing gum and chocolate sticks.

The Corsair MP600 Core XT is a mid-range, QLC-based PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD designed to offer additional capacity at a reasonable price. It’s very similar to the Crucial P3 Plus with all the same advantages and caveats, although it is currently slated to be more expensive. However, this price will likely decrease after launch and provide a reasonable alternative for additional, fast storage.

QLC flash lacks TLC's endurance and performance characteristics, but often this can be difficult to tell, particularly when paired with a solid controller like the Phison E21T. The MP600 Core XT offers nothing new or exciting here, but more competition is a good thing. In addition, recent SSD pricing trends are making large SSDs more affordable, and this drive is sufficiently faster than older PCIe 3.0 options to make it a comfortable selection.

Specifications

The Corsair MP600 Core XT is available at 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB at $59.99, $136.95, and $284.99, respectively. These prices were at the time of writing and our expectation is that pricing will come down closer to the Crucial P3 Plus sometime after launch. The drive can manage up to 5,000 / 4,400 MBps for sequential reads and writes and 700K / 1000K IOPS for random reads and writes. The former is somewhat higher than the P3 Plus.

Endurance is also close to the P3 Plus at 250TB, 450TB, and 900TB written for each capacity, which is significantly lower than the 1TB and 2TB Solidigm P41 Plus. This is under a five-year warranty.

Software and Accessories

The MP600 Core XT comes with Corsair SSD Toolbox support. This downloadable application displays drive and S.M.A.R.T. information, and additionally allows for some relevant operations. The latter includes overprovisioning, secure erase, cloning, and TRIM optimization.

A Closer Look

The drive has an SSD controller and four NAND packages. This is also true of the 4TB model, but the 1TB has only two NAND packages. There is no DRAM present as this controller can utilize system memory via the Host Memory Buffer (HMB) NVMe feature.

The SSD controller is the Phison E21T which we have seen many times. It is a good performer with TLC, as with the Silicon Power UD90, Team Group MP44L, and Corsair’s own MP600 GS. As with the MP600 GS, Corsair is somewhat late to the game as we have already tested this controller with QLC as well on the Crucial P3 Plus.

Each NAND package contains 512GB of Micron’s 176-Layer QLC (N48R) in a quad die package (QDP) configuration. This is also true of the 1TB, which has half the package count, while the 4TB packs in 1TB per package with an octal die package (ODP) configuration. This enables the MP600 Core XT to be single-sided at all capacities which is convenient for space-limited builds.

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Comparison Products

The Corsair MP600 Core XT faces stiff competition in our test suite, including the Adata Legend 960 Max, the Samsung 990 Pro, the WD Black SN850X, the Corsair MP600 Pro LPX, the Acer Predator GM7000, the Lexar Professional NM800 Pro, the Addlink S90 Lite, the Solidigm P41 Plus, and the Corsair MP700.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The MP600 Core XT does pretty poorly in 3DMark, but surprisingly beats the Legend 960 Max.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

In PCMark 10 the MP600 Core XT beats the 960 Max again, but also the S90 Lite.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

In DiskBench we are looking mostly at copy performance and the MP600 Core XT is faster than the S90 Lite and P41 Plus, the latter being another popular QLC drive.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The Phison controller on the MP600 Core XT lets it do well in ATTO for sequential reads, but the limited interface speed reduces sequential write performance. This is also a factor for CDM sequential results, but it manages to beat the S90 Lite and P41 Plus while matching the Legend 960 Max.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. 

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The MP600 Core XT can use all of its flash in pSLC mode, so the cache is gigantic. There’s no middle ground as it then hits a wall with its very slow folding state. This is an abrupt transition from about 4.4GBps to a meager 100MBps. The aggressively-sized cache means that the MP600 Core XT has to recover quickly.

Power Consumption

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

One bright spot is power efficiency. The MP600 Core XT is extremely efficient, particularly at this capacity. Its single-sided nature at all capacities makes it a good choice for laptop use, especially as a secondary drive.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Bottom Line

The Corsair MP600 XT is a Crucial P3 Plus in disguise, or in other words, a mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSD built around QLC to give the most capacity for the price. The MP600 XT's performance is unexceptional but good enough, particularly if you use it as a secondary storage drive for bulk data storage or as a drive for your game library. It can simply outpace older controllers and older QLC and is even an attractive alternative to many PCIe 3.0 options.

Unfortunately, the MP600 XT's list price at the time of review is too high, but the expectation is that this will come down quickly after launch. QLC flash is still generally disliked by storage aficionados, but it is making inroads, and the best place for it is inside high-capacity drives. 

SSD prices have been dropping, and in particular, the P3 and P3 Plus have made it easy to get 2TB or 4TB of relatively fast storage. More competition in this space is welcome. There’s still some needle-threading required between HDDs and higher-end SSDs, but the value is pulling away from SATA SSDs  — if you have the M.2 slots.

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The Adata Legend 960 Max is another common PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD for your PS5 or desktop PC, with the added advantage of a heatsink to keep things cool. Overall, it’s a Legend 960 in disguise, simply with an added heatsink, but this works well with the drive’s chemistry. Although it sets no real records, the ability to write for a long time while keeping cool could make this drive interesting for some uses. However, it faces stiff competition, so it has to be priced right to be meaningful.

Specifications

The Adata Legend 960 Max, as with the original Legend 960, comes in 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB flavors. During the time of review the prices dropped on these to $84.99, $169.99, and $369.99, respectively. This pricing feels a bit high at 1TB with heatsinked drives like the Lexar Professional NM800 Pro around and there’s fair competition at 2TB, too. At 4TB the Legend 960 Max is reasonable for a high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD if you want a svelte heatsink, possibly for PlayStation 5 use, but the WD Black SN850X is otherwise attractive.

The Legend 960 Max reaches up to 7,400 MBps / 6,800 MBps for sequential reads and writes and up to 750,000 / 630,000 IOPS for random reads and rights. TBW is at 780TB per TB of capacity and the drive is backed by a five-year warranty.

Software and Accessories

Adata provides a download for its SSD Toolbox software package. This application has drive information, diagnostics, cloning, TRIM optimization, a firmware updater, and the ability to perform a secure erase.

A Closer Look

The Legend 960 Max is quite similar to the original Legend 960 with the primary change being the addition of a full-fledged heatsink. This is a nice addition as the original drive could get quite hot during sustained workloads. It’s possible to add your own heatsink or to use a motherboard heatsink on the original, although currently these drives are priced similarly. What we spot otherwise is a double-sided drive with one DRAM and two NAND packages on either side, with the controller centralized on the top side.

 The Legend 960 Max uses the same controller and DDR4 as the Legend 960. There’s plenty of DRAM and the controller has proven itself capable, but not exceptional. SMI was a little late to the market this time around.

The flash is Micron’s ubiquitous 176-Layer TLC, or B47R. In time we expect Micron’s 232-Layer design to become more common, particularly on higher-end drives. This includes a range of upcoming PCIe 5.0 SSDs. That flash has twice the typical density of B47R, which promises to help kick capacity up a notch.

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Comparison Products

The 2TB Adata Legend 960 Max is up against some of the best drives we’ve tested. Our comparison list includes the Samsung 990 Pro, the Solidigm P44 Pro, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G, the Adata Legend 960, the Acer Predator GM7000, the Corsair MP600 Pro LPX, the Sabrent Rocket 4.0, and the Gigabyte Aorus 7000s. The Rocket 4.0 is the odd one out here, being from the original crop of PCIe 4.0 SSDs designed for the X570 launch. The Aorus 7000s is using a fully-fledged 4.0 controller but was from the time of older Micron flash.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The Legend 960 Max is average in 3DMark and, as anticipated, the same as the original 960. This is “good enough” performance but suggests this drive must be cheaper than better offerings like the P44 Pro.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The Legend 96 Max does pretty well in PCMark 10, average to above average, but still can’t catch the P44 Pro or 990 Pro. SMI controllers and Micron’s flash have provided a good general user experience in the past, so this is plenty fast for daily use.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The Legend 960 max copies sufficiently fast, like other high-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs, but does not stand out with reads or writes.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The Legend 960 Max has good ATTO sequential write results, but some improvement would be nice for reads. This could be a factor of the controller with certain block sizes. At 1MB for CDM, things look fine. Random 4KB latency is a bit disappointing as this was an area SMI controllers used to shine. InnoGrit and Phison alternatives simply get more out of this flash.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. 

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The 2TB Legend 960 Max manages almost 6.5 GBps for over 30 seconds which a sufficiently large cache of 200GB. The TLC mode is pleasing at up to 3.6 GBps, and even folding is reasonable at nearly 1.3 GBps. Recovery to TLC is relatively rapid and its performance is sufficient for some sustained workloads.

As with the original Legend 960, this makes the drive useful for certain workloads while having a cache that’s large enough to handle bursty, random writes. The addition of a heatsink on the Max makes this drive even better as it could work well as a caching drive without suffering from the detrimental aspects of heat.

Power Consumption

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

Combined with the above results for write saturation, the Legend 960 Max would be even better if it had good power efficiency under load. Unfortunately, it is not exceptional here, although certainly good enough even for that sort of workload.

The original Legend 960 did not throttle even after 1TB of writes, so the situation just gets better with the Max. In warmer environments and under heavier workloads, the Max is able to maintain consistent performance. This could include in a PS5, since that can get surprisingly warm, or other devices with limited airflow.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Bottom Line

The Adata Legend 960 Max is an ordinary PCIe 4.0 SSD that can offer relatively high levels of performance but does not impress against other options that have been on the market longer. If priced right, it’s a fine alternative for a PS5 or desktop SSD, but otherwise it struggles to stand out in a crowded market. It does have good sustained performance, but this only matches what other controllers with the same flash can do if also designed around a small pSLC cache.

The drive is essentially the regular Legend 960 with a heatsink instead of a headspreader. That’s a good thing as even though the original 960 ran relatively cool, a heatsink makes this very cool-running. Coupled with its potential for sustained writes, this drive could be useful for certain workloads or applications, but again it would have to be cheaper than drives with rival controllers and similar performance characteristics. It’s a nice option to have on the market, but this drive does little to stand out. 

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The Crucial T700 sample we have in the labs today is unquestionably the fastest consumer SSD in the world, at least for now, delivering up to a blistering 12.4 GB/s of sequential throughput and 1.5 million random IOPS over the PCIe 5.0 interface. That's 70% faster than today's highest-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and 20% faster than the current crop of PCIe 5.0 drives.

The T700 is slated to be the first of a new set of faster PCIe 5.0 SSDs that offer even better performance than what we saw with the initial PCIe 5.0 SSD we covered in our Phison E26 SSD controller preview. The T700 uses the Phison E26 SSD controller, a robust design used in several other 5.0 SSDs, paired with speedy 232-Layer TLC flash, thus creating the fastest SSD we’ve ever tested in our labs. Impressively, it delivers this level of performance with passive cooling thanks to its well-designed heatsink, but if you remove the heatsink the SSD will also work well in motherboards with proper M.2 heatsink coverage. 

The drive also comes with DirectStorage enabled, which will allow games that support the feature to deliver the utmost in performance. Crucial provided an early T700 sample to us for testing, and the drives will launch in a few months (by the end of the second quarter). Let's see what they'll look like when they arrive. 

Specifications

The Crucial T700 delivers up to 12.4 / 11.8 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and 1.5 / 1.5 million IOPS in random read/write workloads with the 2TB and larger models (the 1TB model is slightly slower). The drive will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, with pricing yet to be determined. Crucial backs the drive with a five-year warranty and endurance of 600TB of writes per 1 TB of capacity.

The drive supports AES-256 encryption and TCG Opal 2.01, including for crypto erase (TCG OPAL was not implemented at the time of testing). Crucial also has other optimizations in the works, but the drives we're testing are considered Engineering Samples (ES), so the firmware is not final. Crucial expects that performance in random write workloads will improve in the future. 

Software and Accessories

Crucial offers its own Crucial Storage Executive SSD toolbox with the typical features you would expect. The utility includes drive information, SMART attributes, firmware updates, secure erase/sanitize, overprovisioning, and other features related to encryption. The T700 is not explicitly supported per Crucial’s website, but this will likely change when the drive arrives at retail. Third-party software like CloneZilla is recommended for cloning and imaging.

A Closer Look

The T700 comes with or without a heatsink, depending on your needs. If your motherboard already has a substantial M.2 heatsink, or if you want to install your own solution, the bare drive is an option. In that case, the drive has a copper thermal label that is not intended to be removed. This SSD is not intended to be used without a heatsink, such as in a laptop or PlayStation 5.

The default model comes with a pyramidal, central T-pose heatsink designed to keep the drive cool without any (direct) active cooling. The heatsink is constructed of multiple materials and has air channels to maximize heat dissipation via airflow in the case. The SSD components — SSD controller, NAND flash, power management integrated circuit (PMIC), and voltage regulators — have good contact with the heatsink via thermal material. The back side of the heatsink is nickel-plated copper that provides support and heat spreading, while the top is aluminum with a significant amount of surface area for heat dissipation.

All T700 models are double-sided with two NAND packages per side, for a total of four. The top of the SSD has the requisite SSD controller package and a single DRAM package.

The Phison E26 is the first consumer PCIe 5.0 SSD controller to hit the market. We previously conducted preview testing of an engineering sample, and now a whole host of drives are arriving with this controller on board. This controller has DirectStorage-optimized firmware, which we also previewed before its official release. That firmware has already found its way into one PCIe 4.0 SSD, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G.

The T700 is not the first PCIe 5.0 SSD on the market, as the Inland TD510 has been out for a while. The T700 is also not the first to be announced by a big brand name, as we can see with the Corsair MP700. However, the T700 is the fastest implementation of the E26, as it can reach up to 12.4 GBps in sequential read workloads thanks to its speedier flash with an I/O speed of 2000 MT/s. This is in contrast to the 1600 MT/s flash used in the earlier E26 SSDs, limiting them to around 10 GBps. The E26 controller supports up to 2400 MT/s flash, which would put a cap of around 15 GBps. But for now, the T700 is the fastest around.

The T700 has DRAM identified as D7CJG, meaning this is LPDDR4 in a 1G x 32b configuration. LPDDR4 is more power efficient than DDR4 memory (we saw the benefit of LPDDR4X in our Lexar Professional NM800 Pro review). In this configuration, we have 4GB of DRAM for 2TB of NAND, the same as in our E26 preview. There may be reasons for such a high memory-to-flash ratio, but we'll have to review the amount used with other capacities.

The 232-Layer Micron TLC (B58R) flash takes up the mantle from Micron’s very successful 176-Layer TLC (B47R). Micron has gone from four planes to six and has made other improvements that make multi-planar operations faster for superior internal parallelization. The move to 1Tb (128GB) dies over 512Gb (64GB) is also an important consideration for capacity: bigger dies, more storage.

Denser dies also mean less relative parallelization for the same capacity because fewer dies are required. This is mitigated to some extent by the increase in internal parallelization, or planes. The T700 can still reach peak performance at 2TB like older PCIe 4.0 SSDs, but has the opportunity to be better at 4TB as well, depending on multi-planar optimizations. The performance of TLC flash during sustained write workloads could also improve without a corresponding improvement to read latency, although read performance as a whole should improve due to independent plane advancements.

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Comparison Products

Besides the prototype Phison E26 ES, the Crucial T700 is also up against the Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 10000, the Inland TD510, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G, the Adata Legend 960, the Corsair MP600 Pro LPX, the Crucial P5 Plus, the Samsung 990 Pro, and the Solidigm P44 Pro. We've tested all of those, though we haven't yet reviewed the Aorus and Inland models.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The T700 is the fastest drive we’ve tested in 3DMark, just barely edging out the Phison PCIe 5.0 E26 sample that we tested before the official launch. The T700's performance leap over Crucial’s last flagship, the P5 Plus, is significant. The other two currently shipping Gen5 drives (Inland TD510 and Aorus Gen5 10000) come in slightly behind the E26 engineering sample, with nearly identical performance — no surprise, since those two feature identical components.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The T700 is also the fastest drive we’ve tested to date in PCMark 10. It provides a significant advantage over PCIe 4.0 SSDs, although it doesn't take a massive leap over the Phison engineering sample, which again outpaces the Aorus and Inland models. 

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types including pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder. A secondary test copies those same files from the drive to itself (so it's both reading and writing data simultaneously). Finally, we follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The T700 copies at very high speeds, even significantly faster than the Phison E26 sample. This time the Phison sample basically ties the Aorus and Inland drives.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The T700 does require its heatsink to perform properly, especially during tougher or prolonged tests. Nevertheless, the T700 smooths out the bumps we saw with the Phison E26 sample in ATTO and sets all-time highs. Likewise, the drive also provides improved sequential throughput in the CrystalDiskMark benchmark.

We expect fewer improvements in 4K random workloads as this drive mainly benefits from a faster bus, and this bears out: Random read and write latencies see little to no improvement over PCIe 4.0 drives.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash.

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for (over) 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The T700 obviously needs a heatsink for heavy sustained write workloads. Sustained write performance starts high, hitting nearly 12 GBps in pSLC caching mode for over 20 seconds. This cache size is ample while still providing good TLC performance after depletion of around 3.6 GBps. A slower 1.4 GBps folding state follows, and on the whole, the post-pSLC pattern is reminiscent of what we saw with the Phison E26 sample.

In steady state, after 15 minutes of sustained writes, the T700 still averages nearly 3.8 GBps, the fastest of any SSD we've tested to date. The main improvement comes from the sequential burst speed, with the T700 ending up about 6% faster than other E26 drives we've tested.

Sustained performance may improve with a 4TB drive, and the peak will be higher with 2400 MT/s flash. The T700's recovery to TLC speeds is relatively rapid, but pSLC is unsurprisingly a bit slower to recover.

Power Consumption

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

We want to immediately mention that Crucial is still optimizing the T700's power consumption in idle states. This did not impact our testing due to how we currently test, and it shouldn't be a huge factor anyway as this drive is not intended for laptop use.

The Crucial T700 is more efficient than the E26 ES, indicating that the controller is more efficient when able to run at higher speeds. This makes sense in our testing as the tests finish faster. This does mean higher peak consumption, making a heatsink all the more important for sustained workloads. Idle consumption with our desktop setup also shows improvement, and this controller is being optimized over time.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use appropriate cooling for all SSDs.

Bottom Line

The Crucial T700 takes a good thing and makes it even better. It’s hard to find fault with the product, especially as the non-Phison-reference heatsink is attractive and effective, and performance is equal to or better than other PCIe 5.0 drives. Faster, cheaper, and more capacious drives are on the way, and that’s a good thing.

There are a lot of DirectStorage skeptics, but Crucial seems pretty excited about the technology. The company is also especially proud to produce the fastest 5.0 SSD currently announced, even if it’s not using an in-house controller. The problem is that an announced drive isn't the same as a publicly available drive, and more critically, we don't have pricing details for the T700 yet.

When you look at the plunging SSD prices, you can now find good PCIe 4.0 2TB drives starting at just $120, like the Crucial P5 Plus 2TB. The T700 is unquestionably faster, but current Gen5 2TB SSDs start at $280 (Micro Center's inhouse-brand Inland TD510), and that's already $120 lower than the launch price from just a couple of months back. Unless you absolutely need maximum throughput, PCIe 4.0 drives are a far better value and are likely to remain so.

This is far from the only PCIe 5.0 SSD that Crucial has planned, but it's a nice surprise. The P5 and P5 Plus were also innovative in their own ways, although with proprietary controllers they have not held up well against the competition, except in pricing. And pricing is one area that Crucial has done well by introducing products like the P3 and P3 Plus. Unfortunately, Crucial hasn't shared pricing information for the T700 yet. However, we do know they'll arrive in a few months (by the end of the second quarter of this year).

Enthusiasts have been waiting for Crucial to bring out a leading-edge product, and the T700 looks to be just that. The key innovation is the use of higher speed Micron NAND, however, which is something other manufacturers can easily acquire. Whether they can match the T700 in other respects remains to be seen.

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The Lexar Professional NM800 Pro is a high-end PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs that enters a crowded market but can set itself apart with its high efficiency and low temperatures. This drive is best caught on sale and particularly at 2TB, where it would be great for the PlayStation 5 or a gaming desktop. It sets no new performance records and has some inconsistent performance results, which keep it off the best PS5 SSDs and best SSDs overall lists, but on the whole it performs well enough to get the job done. With PCIe 5.0 SSDs on the horizon, this drive may best be suited to adding extra fast storage to your system.

SSD prices have been dropping fast for a while now so it’s important to score the right deal. This drive should be included in your list if the above characteristics fit your criteria. Another drive in this class that’s been priced low in recent sales is the Crucial P5 Plus, but the NM800 Pro is the superior choice as it generally performs better and comes with a stylish heatsink. The non-heatsinked version should be okay in a laptop if you really want full PCIe 4.0 bandwidth.

On the other hand, there are many drives faster than the NM800 Pro, even if the performance gap can be difficult to subjectively feel in the day-to-day. Our recommendation is to put this drive in your PS5 or as a secondary PC drive when it’s priced right, particularly at 2TB. The NM800 Pro does not really stand out in any other way.

The Lexar Professional NM800 Pro is available in 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. The prices at the time of review are $69.99, $83.49, and $129.99, respectively. This pricing is competitive at 1TB and especially 2TB, but the market has been volatile. This is a drive that you might have to catch on sale, regardless of capacity.

The NM800 Pro can push PCIe 4.0 bandwidth at up to 7500/6500 MBps and 1300K/1200K IOPS for sequential/random reads and writes, respectively. Lexar warranties this drive for five years and 1PB of writes per TB capacity. This endurance rating is more than the industry average, although that is generally not a significant factor.

Software and Accessories for Lexar Professional NM800 Pro

Lexar does not offer any special downloads or accessories for this drive, beyond the optional heatsink variant. We recommend Clonezilla or similar for imaging/cloning and CrystalDiskInfo for general health analysis.

A Closer Look at Lexar Professional NM800 Pro

Our sample arrived with a heatsink, which is a nice addition. Some competing drives lack a heatsink which is beginning to be an issue with high-end drives that can experience thermal throttling without one. Lexar also sells a version of this drive without a heatsink. Either one would work fine for PlayStation 5 use. Underneath the heatsink, the drive is essentially identical to the non-heatsinked version.

Beneath the label, we spot a controller, a DRAM package, and two NAND packages. Even at 2TB this drive manages to be single-sided which is particularly challenging at this capacity. This makes it an option for certain tricky builds, including some laptops and HTPCs.

The controller is the InnoGrit IG5236, a popular 8-channel design that’s used for high-end PCIe 4.0 drives. Usually these drives are cheaper than competing SSDs built around Phison’s E18 or proprietary solutions. In the future it will have to tackle faster, 4-channel controllers that can max out the interface, such as the Maxio MAP1602 found on the Acer Predator GM7. Some other examples include the TenaFe TC2201 and SMI SM2268XT. These controllers are DRAM-less with fewer, faster channels, which makes them particularly competitive on price and for application in laptops.

The DRAM is labeled FLXC2002G-N2, which is LPDDR4X. This is extremely efficient DRAM, which should allow the NM800 Pro to run more efficiently as a whole, although DRAM is just one component. This will also help a little with thermal management, with or without a heatsink. This is 2GB of DRAM, which is an excellent amount for 2TB of flash.

The NM800 Pro uses Micron’s 176-Layer TLC, or B47R. This flash is typically sold with 64GB dies which implies each 1TB NAND package contains 16 dies in a HDP or 16DP configuration. This is usually the most amount of dies one can reasonably stack per package.

Lexar has the option of swapping to other flash, such as the efficient YMTC TLC found on the Predator GM7, but reports are that the IG5236 SSD controller has firmware issues with YMTC flash. The efficiency of that flash would be a nice fit on this drive and it seems other flash manufacturers have taken notice of the possible advantages found with such a design.

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Comparison Products

We are putting the 2TB Lexar Professional NM800 Pro against some of the best drives we’ve reviewed, all high-end PCIe 4.0 options. This list includes the HP FX900 Pro, the Adata Legend 960, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G, the Solidigm P44 Pro, the Samsung 990 Pro, the WD Black SN850X, and the Acer Predator GM7000. The NM800 Pro is most similar to the FX900 Pro and Predator GM7000, which use the same controller and flash. Historically this combination performs well and can undercut the competition on price by a small amount. Phison, for its part on drives such as the Rocket 4 Plus-G, offers more flexibility to the manufacturer.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The NM800 Pro finishes dead last in 3DMark. It should perform at least on the level of the FX900 Pro and GM7000, but instead it falls short. This begins a pattern of sometimes inconsistent performance on this drive, possibly driven by firmware tuning.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The picture looks a bit better in PCMark 10 as the NM800 Pro gets a middle-of-the-pack score. This is certainly good enough.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The NM800 Pro performs as expected in DiskBench, matching the FX900 Pro and GM7000. This is below other high-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs but is sufficiently fast.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The NM800 Pro shows weak performance with sequential reads in both ATTO and CDM, matching the pattern of the FX900 Pro. This appears to be a facet of InnoGrit controllers, including the IG5220 which is used on the HP FX900. Sequential writes are satisfactory. Random performance in CDM is solid for reads, an important benchmark, but unusually poor for writes. This is more of the NM800 pro’s inconsistency.

There are many possible reasons for this, but it’s possible that Lexar’s choice of LPDDR4X for the DRAM cache and its firmware tuning creates this outcome. LPDDR4X is very efficient and typically bandwidth does not matter for DRAM’s application on SSDs. However, this DRAM has significantly higher latency, and DRAM is most useful for random writes on SSDs. Lexar appears to have optimized the NM800 Pro to run efficiently and at lower temperatures. This could be a worthwhile tradeoff for many applications.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. 

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The 2TB NM800 Pro writes within pSLC at 6.55 GBps for over 97 seconds with a cache of 640GB. This is almost the entire drive in pSLC mode, making for a very large cache. TLC shows a write speed of 2.57 GBps for just over 64 seconds before the drive enters folding at 1.4 GBps. This is a good result and in line with the FX900 Pro and GM7000, with some minor differences. The drive is able to recover back to TLC mode without too much difficulty.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states via sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

The NM800 Pro is quite efficient, which is nice. The included heatsink makes for an SSD that would work well in a PS5 or desktop environment. The non-heatsinked version would also be usable for reasons elaborated above, including for laptops.

The drive idled at a sensor reading of 34C which is a very cool temperature. Despite the large cache, the drive only reached 62C after 1TB of writes. This is an excellent result and the drive would operate well with any workload. It stays far cooler than the FX900 Pro with its graphene thermal pad, reinforcing our suspicions that Lexar designed the NM800 Pro to run efficiently and cool.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

The Lexar Professional NM800 Pro is a typical high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD that manages to set itself apart in some ways without impressing on the whole. It runs incredibly cool and is very efficient but has inconsistent performance results. It’s placed in a difficult market which ultimately makes it an alternative choice whenever it appears on sale, especially attractive at 2TB. The heatsinked version would be good in a desktop or PS5 while the non-heatsinked version could work in a laptop, thanks to Lexar’s optimizations.

Compared to similar drives, like the HP FX900 Pro, the NM800 Pro is more efficient thanks to its single-sided design and the use of LPDDR4X. This also helps it run cooler as a whole, and a lot cooler with its heatsink. The drive cannot directly compete with the best but it doesn’t have to if it’s priced right. Lexar also gives a boost with the drive’s TBW rating, which would perhaps entice you over its direct rivals when all else is equal. We think the option of a heatsink is a better selling point, though.

The SSD market has been long trending downwards in terms of pricing which makes it challenging to make a wise purchase. It’s perhaps best just to look for the right deal and grab it. It’s better to focus on figuring out what you really need. The NM800 Pro is still viable in some cases. With PCIe 5.0 drives and new hardware coming in the near future, this SSD is probably an impulse buy for your PS5 or for extra storage on your main machine, and that’s okay. It’s just not something worthy of a high score.

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Average selling prices of NAND memory and solid-state drives have been dropping in the recent quarters due to slow demand and oversupply. But as more applications adopt SSDs, their unit and dollar sales are poised to grow. Five years from now, in 2028, SSD revenues will increase to $67 billion, according to estimates from Yole Group (via StorageNewsletter).

In the long run, the overall market size for SSDs is expected to grow from $29 billion and 352 million units in 2022 to $67 billion and 472 million units in 2028, with a compounded annual growth rate of about 15% between 2022 and 2028, Yole claims.  

Out of 352 million SSDs sold in 2022 (including those that belong to our best SSDs list), about 55 million units were enterprise drives and the rest were client SSDs. The enterprise SSD shipments in 2022 were dominated by PCIe SSDs, which accounted for approximately 55% or 30 million units. It is anticipated that this figure will increase to approximately 71% or 79 million units by 2028. The share of PCIe client SSDs is expected to rise from around 85% in 2021 to around 96% in 2028, representing 252 million units and 347 million units, respectively. 

Enterprise drives will also adopt new PCIe interfaces faster than their client brethren. Yole believes that while 69% of enterprise-grade SSDs will use a PCIe 5.0 bus in 2028, only 12% of client drives will use this interface that year. As for PCIe 6.0 SSDs, they are expected to command 16% of the datacenter drives market in 2028, but their share on the client SSD market will be negligible 3%.

SSD sales dropped by 14% year-over-year to $29 billion in 2022 from $34 billion in 2021; in terms of units, this equaled to around 352 million units, down from over 400 million units in 2021. But this sharp decline was a one-time event, Yole Group believes. Meanwhile, the company does not exactly strive to provide a more or less precise dollar or unit sales outlook for 2023 due to the continued slow depletion of inventory and a weak economy, resulting in substantial oversupply.

Not all SSD suppliers are set to monetize on the market growth equally. Client SSD products will experience weak demand in the coming years (according to Yole), while enterprise SSD growth will be driven by 'low-latency storage needs of advanced workloads' in the datacenter space, according to Yole. The market research firm does not disclose which workloads it means though low-latency solid-state storage applications are crucially needed for trendy applications like generative AI. 

Yole Group notes that there are two types of SSD suppliers: NAND integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) that produce their own memory, develop their own NAND controllers, and produce their own drives as well as third-party SSD manufacturers who buy flash memory (in the form of NAND wafers or chips) from IDMs and controllers from third party to build their drives. Meanwhile, both types of SSD producers tend to buy controllers from companies like Silicon Motion, Phison, and Marvell. Large operators of cloud datacenters often develop their own storage devices, yet they still buy memory and/or controllers from third parties. 

Large IDMs like Samsung, Kioxia, Western Digital, Micron, SK Hynix, and Solidigm controlled an 82% share of the total SSD market in 2022. By contrast, third-party SSD makers like Kingston, Seagate, and Adata only controlled 18%.

The Adata Legend 960 is a high-end PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that has arrived late to the market. Performance is merely average aside from sustained writes, which means it doesn’t excel at anything except for very specific workloads. The drive runs cool enough but is not particularly efficient so is not eligible for our list of best SSDs, but would work well in a PlayStation 5. Warranty and software support are good but not exceptional. This leaves the Legend 960 as something worthwhile to pick up on sale but it does not stand out from other high-end PCIe 4.0 drives in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, faster, PCIe 5.0 SSDs are due out soon.

Specifications

The Adata Legend 960 is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, at $109.99 and $167.11 for the first two capacities. The 1TB price is high given recent sales and general SSD market pricing trends. The 2TB is currently on sale but faces a lot of competition within the same price range, such as the Corsair MP600 Pro XT, the Corsair MP600 Pro NH, and Corsair MP600 Pro LPX.

The 4TB model was not available at the time of review. It has sometimes been challenging to find drives of that size, with the WD Black SN850X and the Inland Gaming Performance Plus being two popular and available options. The Inland Performance Plus that we previously reviewed is also popular and now has updated hardware that matches the Gaming Performance Plus, sans the heatsink.

The Legend 960 is rated for up to 7,400/6,800 MBps for sequential read and write and 750K/630K IOPS for random read and write. The former is essentially the maximum for PCIe 4.0 while the latter falls behind a bit compared to other products, although this is more than enough performance for most. The hardware is certainly capable of more. Adata backs the drive with 780TB of warrantied writes per TB capacity, slightly higher than typical, with all options having a 5-year warranty.

Software and Accessories

Adata provides a download for its SSD Toolbox software package. This application has drive information, diagnostics, cloning, TRIM optimization, a firmware updater, and the ability to perform a secure erase.

A Closer Look

The Adata Legend 960 comes with an installable heatsink/heatspreader that is easy to apply. This is a nice option for a high-end drive like this, especially as it lets you use your own solution that may dissipate heat more effectively if you so choose. The SSD has one DRAM and two NAND packages per side for a total of two and four, respectively. There’s also the prerequisite SSD controller located in the center, a layout that should improve heat dissipation with the spreader.

The controller is an SMI SM2264, a newer design, and this is the first drive we’ve tested that utilizes it. The SM2264 is an eight-channel, 12nm, quad-core ARM Cortex-R8 SSD controller with 1600 MT/s channels. It has 4KB codeword LDPC error correction, double that of the previous generation SM2262EN’s 2K, and can also handle double the dies with ideal support up to 64.

The R8 is a distinct processor revision from the R5, the latter commonly used for SSD controllers, including most or all of the Legend 960’s competitors, and having it manufactured may be why SMI is late to the market. The R8 is also used for the SM2269XT, found on the Solidigm P41 Plus, and it should also form the basis of the upcoming SM2268XT, a controller we will hear more about soon. An R8-based design is potentially very powerful and will be used in SMI’s PCIe 5.0 solutions as well.

The DRAM package is labeled K4A8G165WC-BCTD, which is Samsung DDR4 in a 512Mx16b configuration for 1GB of DRAM. The two modules together are 2GB in total which is the ideal amount for 2TB of flash.

The Legend 960 is using Micron’s 176-Layer TLC (B47R) with thirty-two 64Gb dies in four packages. Each package contains eight dies for 512GiB of flash. This is an ideal amount of dies for interleaving and this particular flash has proven to provide good to excellent performance in our testing.

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Comparison Products

The 2TB Adata Legend 960 is up against some of the best drives we’ve tested. Our comparison list includes the Samsung 990 Pro, the WD Black SN850X, the Kingston Fury Renegade, the Crucial P5 Plus, the Solidigm P44 Pro, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G, and the HP FX900 Pro.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The Legend 960 is mediocre to below average in 3DMark. This is a bit disappointing, given that it took SMI a long time to get this controller to market in comparison to Phison’s E18 and InnoGrit’s IG5236.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The Legend 960 does somewhat better in PCMark 10, but still lags the best SSDs, namely the 990 Pro, the P44 Pro, and the Black SN850X. The P44 Pro is also sold as the Platinum P41.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

When it comes to file copying, the Legend 960 performs adequately. There’s not a huge amount of improvement possible given the limitations of the PCIe 4.0 interface and the flash. Controllers with faster channels are on the way, such as the previously mentioned SM2268XT at 3200 MT/s, but improvements here will largely come with PCIe 5.0 drives and 232-Layer TLC.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

No surprises in ATTO. The sequential performance results are satisfactory, minus a dip with smaller reads at QD1. This may be peculiar to SMI’s current R8-based SSD controller architecture as we saw a similar pattern with the SM2269XT on the Solidigm P41 Plus.

Sequential performance in CrystalDiskMark is also average. This is not the end of the world as the numbers are still pretty good. Random performance is often more important and here the Legend 960 unfortunately trails the competition. Good things are possible with the flash being used, so perhaps this is just conservative controller optimization or design to offer third parties more options for their controllers. Such a trade-off is visible with sustained write performance. We are, in any case, more excited for the SM2268XT in the PCIe 4.0 space.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. 

We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The 2TB Legend 960 writes in pSLC mode for just over 30 seconds at just under 6.5 GBps, demonstrating a cache of almost 200GB. The TLC mode is an impressive 3.59 GBps with a not-too-slow 1.28 GBps folding mode following it. The drive is able to recover after some time back to TLC, allowing it to write an incredible amount in total, second highest of all time for 2TB aside from the Rocket 4 Plus-G.

This is a very good result and the drive is mostly consistent which helps make up for its otherwise lackluster performance results. pSLC recovery is also present and not overly slow. The cache’s size is adequately sized, making this an effective design for any type of use.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states via sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

The Adata Legend 960 exhibits mediocre power efficiency under load, but its idle power result is excellent. Our idle power testing currently measures what many users would be running on a desktop for maximum performance, which means that the difference is probably not huge relative to the entire system power draw. Additional power-saving features will further reduce power draw, particularly on laptops. The efficiency results paint a better picture of power consumption under load and the Legend 960 is nothing special there.

The 2TB Legend 960 idled at 34C. After 1TB of consistent writes, the drive hit up to 80C but did not quite throttle. This is likely a borderline case given the performance with pSLC as the drive is rated to increasingly throttle at 78C and 81C. This drive could benefit from a heatsink in some systems and for some usage scenarios, such as sustained writes. It seems that Adata has anticipated this as the Legend 960 Max comes with an ample heatsink. The heat spreader is otherwise sufficient.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Bottom Line

The Adata Legend 960 is a mediocre PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD with average performance and below average power efficiency. The included heatspreader is sufficient to keep the drive from throttling which matches well with its excellent sustained performance, although a full heatsink would be better. Adata’s reputation has taken some hits in recent years, but the drive is backed by a decent warranty with sufficient software support. This makes it a capable product, particularly for desktop and PS5 use, but it is not one that particularly stands out.

One reason it doesn’t stand out is that it’s late to the market, which makes sense since it’s using SMI’s delayed SM2264. It is cool to see this technology and competition in the marketplace, but the Legend 960 faces two important hurdles: drastic NAND price drops and the looming take over of PCIe 5.0 SSDs. It’s a perfectly fine drive but it’s put in a tough spot; it has to be priced right to be worthwhile.

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Adata’s booth at CES 2023 held a few surprises, including the first SMI-powered PCIe 5.0 SSD, which peaks at a blistering 14 GB/s, a new CXL 1.1 DDR5 device, and the company’s new portable SSD that won a CES innovation award for computer peripherals. The display also confirmed that SMI's PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers will be faster than the Phison E26-powered models that will come to market over the next few months. 

Adata was one of the early SSD pioneers and has a history of using nearly every type of SSD controller available. However, because Silicon Motion’s future 2508 controller is still far off on the horizon, it was surprising to see the peak speeds it can achieve with Adata’s configuration. The preview gives a good view of how PCIe 5.0 SSDs other than those powered by Phison’s E26, which dominates the current crop of new PCIe 5.0 drives, will perform.

The 12nm Silicon Motion (SMI) SM 2508 SSD controller powers Adata’s as-yet unbranded ‘XPG PCIe GEN5 SSD.’ The drive offers up to 14 GB/s of sequential read throughput, saturating the PCIe 5 bus, and 12 GB/s of sequential write throughput, 200 MB/s faster than SSDs powered by the E26.

Adata also claims that its drive will serve up 2 million random read/write IOPS, beating the Phison E26 by half a million IOPS in random write workloads. This level of performance is impressive as both the SM 2508 and E26 are eight-channel controllers. 

Adata plans to field up to 8TB SSDs with the controller but hasn’t specified which type of NAND it used to reach this level of performance. However, the company will qualify multiple types of NAND with the controller.

The M.2 bus now supports up to 11.5W of power to an M.2 SSD, and we expect that PCIe 5.0 SSDs will begin to push up to those higher power limits. PCIe 5.0 SSDs will need beefier cooling to deliver the utmost performance, and now we’re also seeing plenty of signs that active cooling will be required for high-powered models, just like the early Phison E26 sample we recently tested.

Adata’s SMI-powered SSD will have an integrated fan built right into the heatsink, but even though these types of small fans typically produce a high-pitched whine, Adata says the noise level is negligible. That makes sense given that the fan is nestled below an upper covering that has an air channel with openings at either end, as you can see in the pictures above. That should contain any meaningful noise from the fan.

Adata also touts that the heatsink is the ‘world’s first’ to use a crystallization treatment that purportedly lowers temperatures and helps with thermal dissipation. This drive is sandwiched between the heatsink and a stainless-steel base plate (the baseplate and heatsink latch together).

We’re looking forward to putting the drive to the test, but Adata isn’t ready to comment yet on final specs, pricing, or availability. We followed up with SMI representatives who tell us that they expect the controller to be in mass production in early 2024, so it looks like Adata’s SSD will be a bit further out on the horizon than expected. SMI will also bring a cut-down four-channel version of the SM2508, the SM 2507, to market in 2024. Meanwhile, SMI has its full-featured 16-channel MonTitan PCIe 5.0 x8 SSD controller sampling to data center customers, with full production to begin this quarter. 

We also spotted Adata's new CXL 1.1 memory module, which can come packing up to 512GB of DDR5 memory that communicates over a PCIe 5.0 x4 bus. This module comes in the E3.S form factor, so it can plug into arrangements similar to the 2.5" NVMe drive bays you see on the front of a server, or into custom-built backplanes inside a separate chassis. 

A single RISC-V powered Montage MXC (M88MX5891) CXL memory expander ties the DDR5 memory chips together, allowing 32, 64, 128, 256, or 512GB of DRAM to be placed on a single device that is roughly the same size as a 2.5" U.2 SSD. The controller supports the CXL 1.1 and 2.0 RAS spec, with CXL.mem and CXl.io protocols on the menu for memory expansion. 

Compute Express Link (CXL) devices allow server processors to address remotely-placed memories, DDR5 in this case, as local memory. The typical latency impact weighs in around that of a standard NUMA hop, so it is entirely tenable for many types of workloads that prize extra memory capacity. Adata is ready to produce these cards today with various flavors of memory, but they are reserved for custom orders for large hyperscalers and the like, so you won't see them at retail. You can read all of the nitty-gritty details of the CXL spec here. 

AMD's EPYC Genoa and Intel's Sapphire Rapids both support CXL, so we should expect these types of devices to find plenty of users over the coming years. 

Adata's SE920 picked up a CES award at the show. The device has a USB4 interface that operates at 40Gbps. An Asmedia ASM2464PD controller powers the drive to deliver up to 3,800/3,2000 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput. 

The cover is slidable, and the drive can function in either the closed format (first and second pictures) or be expanded to open up a larger recess in the middle of the drive (third and fourth pics). Expanding the drive opens up the air channels in the middle of the device and engages a small interior fan (not seen here) that cools the device by expelling air through the small holes at the top of the device. That's useful during long file transfers that require the utmost performance. The drive connects to the host via a USB-C connection.

The SE920 will retail for roughly $150 to $170 for the 1TB model and $300 for the 2TB model. We can expect to see them on shelves before the end of April.  

Update 1/12/2023: Corrected the article to reflect that the SM 2508 is an eight-channel controller. 

The Sabrent Rocket nano V2 portable SSD is a tiny, lightweight drive up to 4TB that you can easily carry around. It’s very similar to the Corsair EX100U in performance and pricing, with some minor differences. Designed to compete with the best external SSDs, It has TLC flash memory, which is nice, and the embedded design means that it is small and efficient. This flash produces solid sustained write performance, a place where the EX100U eventually falls flat, but the weak UFD controller otherwise holds the nano V2’s performance potential back. This is not significant for many use cases because the USB interface is already restrictive in random performance for heavier workloads.

The 20 Gbps interface is, however, a bonus for traditional sequential workloads such as media file transfers and backups. The tighter and more rugged design of the Rocket nano V2, in contrast to the EX100U, translates to a more reliable experience on the whole, particularly with sustained writes. Direct competitors such as the updated Corsair X6 are stuck with QLC and usually a 10 Gbps interface. The Samsung T7 Shield is also limited to 10 Gbps but is otherwise an excellent portable drive, but it’s also bulkier. The nano V2 is appealing if you need 20 Gbps for burst transfers, high portability with some ruggedness, and a minimum level of sustained write performance.

Specifications of Sabrent Rocket nano V2 

The Sabrent Rocket nano V2 is available at 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. Launch pricing for these capacities is $119.99, $199.99, and $499.99, respectively. This makes the 2TB model the best value, although pricing may change. It is, of course, still far cheaper than the recently-reviewed SanDisk Pro-G40, but a bit more expensive than the updated Crucial X6. It’s very similar to the Corsair EX100U in design and pricing.

The Rocket nano V2 has a 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface and reaches up to 1600/1500 MBps for sequential read and write. Random performance is seldom stipulated for external drives due to interface limitations.

The drive has a 3-year warranty with registration which is not atypical in the industry, although we prefer 5-year for premium products. The drive is very small and lightweight coming in at 2.85 x 1.28 x 0.57 inches and 1.57 ounces, although without the outer silicone shell it’s a bit smaller and lighter. This outer covering does offer better protection against drops.

Software and Accessories of Sabrent Rocket nano V2

The Rocket nano V2 comes with Type-C to Type-A and Type-C to Type-C USB cables. This means it can work on a wider range of devices without you having to buy a separate cable.

As of the time of review, the drive was not supported in Sabrent’s SSD toolbox application, but it may be added later. Sabrent generally offers an OEM version of Acronis True Image Home for its SSDs but this drive is not supported yet. We recommend Macrium Reflect Free for imaging and cloning needs.

A Closer Look at Sabrent Rocket nano V2

The Sabrent Rocket nano V2 is a simple, small portable SSD. The overall design is muted but pleasant. An optional silicone shroud offers additional protection. It has a single USB-C port that is not waterproof, in a departure from the EX100U’s annoying solution. It should be pointed out that this is a very lightweight drive which makes its high capacity options quite attractive, considering it manages them without using QLC.

This is an embedded, or hybrid, design, which means that there’s no bridge controller. The Phison U18 is a native UFD controller which makes this closer to a USB drive in many respects. This can reduce cost, complexity, and physical size. It also usually means lower power draw with higher efficiency. It also means that the storage portion cannot be shucked. There are four NAND packages to go along with the controller, two per side.

The Phison U18 controller is only 2-channel with up to 8 chip enable for each channel, which to us suggests it’s best with 8 dies but can manage 16 just fine. Given the capacity range of the Rocket nano V2 it’s possible to use both 512Gb and 1Tb dies, the latter to reach 4TB. This somewhat limits what flash can be used as some TLC is only available at 512Gb and most QLC only at 1Tb.

This gives us a hint about what the Corsair EX100U is using - Corsair would only state 3D TLC - but Sabrent is more explicit about it. To be direct, we would be looking at either Kioxia’s 112-layer BiCS5 TLC or SK hynix’s 128-layer V6 TLC.

This looks like SK hynix’s 128-layer V6 TLC. This is very good flash, famously used in the SK hynix Gold P31, an extremely popular drive. That particular SSD stood out for its excellent power efficiency but its performance was also class-leading. As with the EX100U we see TI DDR4000 ICs which we believe help maintain a high bus speed with this much flash on a 2-channel controller. The EX100U we reviewed appears to have had the same flash but Corsair left open the door to changing it if necessary.

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Comparison Products

The 2TB Sabrent Rocket nano V2 is up against the SanDisk Extreme Pro v2, the Corsair EX100U, the Kingston XS2000, the Samsung T7 Shield, the SanDisk Pro-G40, the Lexar SL660 Blaze, and the Adata SE900G. The XS2000 and SL660 Blaze are being tested at 1TB.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The Rocket nano V2 is near the bottom in 3DMark, although it does edge out the EX100U. Portable storage is not ideal for high-end gaming, although at this time there is very little difference between any two SSDs when it comes to game load times. This drive would be fine if you wanted to run some games off of it.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

PCMark 10 performance tends to follow 3DMark, and that is the case here with the nano V2 again falling behind. The UFD controller operates like a flash drive which can have negative consequences for some performance measurements. This drive is not ideal for heavier application workloads.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

Performance is a bit better in DiskBench, but the USB interface in general is restrictive for all the drives tested except for the Thunderbolt-capable Professional Pro-G40.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

ATTO write results are good but read results could be better for the Rocket nano V2. There’s a notable dip at 1MB although performance is acceptable on the whole. CDM sequential performance is also merely fair, with most of the 20 Gbps drives falling within a general range. The 10 Gbps T7 Shield notably falls behind while the TB3 Professional Pro-G40 leads the pack.

Where the nano V2 shines is with random performance in CDM, specifically low queue depth 4KB. The omission of a bridge chip may have helped a bit here, although the flash being used is also quite good. That would explain the XS2000’s relatively poor results in comparison. 4KB performance is an important marker for subjective feel.

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery and Temperature

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states via sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

The 2TB Rocket nano V2 writes in pSLC mode at almost 1.57GBps for just over 15 seconds with a cache of 24GB. This is a small, dynamic cache, best used to absorb random writes. Recovery in general will be a bit slower. For larger writes, especially sequential ones, sustained performance in TLC mode is at over 800MBps. This is an excellent result for a drive like this and means it can be used for applications where a certain level of consistent performance is desirable, such as with transferring footage.

This is also where the Rocket nano V2 pulls away from the very similar EX100U. Our sustained write test involves the use of active cooling to avoid throttling. The EX100U still throttled while the Rocket nano V2 did not. The Rocket nano V2’s aluminum casing and thermal interface help keep it cool, an important consideration especially in warmer environments. That casing is also more protective in general.

We wanted to get a feel for how this drive handled a sustained load in comparison to the EX100U, a drive that easily throttled, with no active cooling. With sustained writes, the maximum temperature reached by SMART was 75C with the metal part - inside the silicone outer case - reaching 54C. The Rocket nano V2 did not throttle.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs. Portable SSDs are tested with write caching explicitly enabled for the device within Windows.

Conclusion

The Sabrent Rocket nano V2 is a capable but unexciting portable SSD. Performance is generally weak but it does well with 4KB and sustained writes, two crucial areas for storage of this type; portable drives are often used to transfer files, particularly larger files, with occasional reading of backup data. The Rocket nano V2 is also quite small and lightweight which makes it easy to carry around, it comes with both types of USB cables you might need, and the metal exterior adds protection and helps keep the drive cool. It checks all the boxes for effective portable storage.

The Rocket nano V2 additionally has an optional silicone case which can add some drop resistance, but the drive lacks an IP rating and the USB port is not waterproof. Coupled with just a 3-year maximum warranty, this reinforces the drive as being budget-oriented. The good news is that it’s available up to 4TB and comes with excellent TLC, factors that help set it apart from some of the competition. The 20 Gbps interface is also nice but of secondary importance.

We are giving this drive the same score as the EX100U despite the fact that the Rocket nano V2 is the better drive. The nano V2 does not have the same throttling issues of the EX100U and the overall design also feels superior, almost like a premium product. However, we cannot score it higher because the performance just isn’t there. That is the trade-off for getting such a small drive, keeping in mind that this is also a very efficient design that won’t completely drain your laptop battery. It really comes down to picking the drive that suits your needs at the right price point, and the Rocket nano V2 is a fair option to have.

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The Kingston NV2 is one of those SSDs that is just too good to be true. The price is exceptional, especially at 2TB, and it is sold as a PCIe 4.0 drive. Yet it has no definitive hardware inside and its performance for both of our samples is distinctly bottom of the barrel. It also runs a little hot and inefficient in our testing, too. 

Miles behind the best SSDS, the NV2 may still make a good secondary or backup drive if your budget is absolutely strapped but it is not recommended for primary or laptop use. It is on the whole a good example of caveat emptor - buyer beware.

The NV2 follows Kingston’s previous NV1, a drive very much in line with Kingston’s philosophy of providing cheap drives at scale. The SATA-based A400 is the perfect example of this as it was a prevalent drive in cheaper builds. The NV1 followed suit and became more popular than it perhaps deserved. The NV2 is similar in that it uses a hodge-podge of hardware - different controllers and NAND flash from drive to drive - offered at an insanely low price. It should become commonplace especially in regions with limited SSD options. If you actually have solid alternatives, however, please look elsewhere.

Specifications

The Kingston NV2 is available in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. At the time of review, pricing for these capacities was $22.99, $34.99, $54.00, and $124.99, respectively. This drive is often on sale with the 1TB and 2TB SKUs becoming even better values. This drive is the A400 of NVMe drives and a fitting replacement for the NV1, which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it. In essence it is a dirt cheap NVMe SSD that meets the minimum requirements to get the job done.

The drive can manage up to 3,500 / 2,800 MBps for sequential read and write, respectively, but has no random performance specifications. This makes sense because it can come with more than one controller and more than one type of flash. The sequential write specifications are such that it can only have QLC at 1TB and 2TB, however. The sequential values are low for a PCIe 4.0 drive for a good reason: Kingston set them for the weakest possible controller and flash.

The NV2 has a 3-year warranty and can manage 320TB of writes per TB capacity. This is exactly as expected for a budget drive.

Software and Accessories

The Kingston NV2 is a barebones drive but Kingston does offer an SSD Manager on its site. This has typical SSD toolbox functionality and is able to display disk information and health, update drive firmware, and securely erase drives. It only works on Microsoft Windows.

A Closer Look

Although we are looking at the 2TB in the photos here, mention will also be made of the 1TB because the flash and controller on the Kingston NV2 will vary from drive to drive. The 2TB drive is single-sided with a DRAM-less controller and four NAND packages. There’s not much to this drive but it should always be single-sided for where that matters.

The 2TB model we sampled is using the SMI SM2267XT controller. This is one of those entry-level PCIe 4.0 SSD controllers that barely qualifies for the 4.0 moniker. It’s similar to the Phison E19T controller used on drives like the WD Black SN750 SE or the Inland TN436. This technology has a 1200 MT/s bus which, with four channels, means it can saturate a x4 PCIe 3.0 link, much like the controllers on the SK hynix Gold P31 and WD Blue SN570.

For all purposes this makes the controller a jacked-up SM2263XT with higher bandwidth and IOPS but not really new technology like the SM2269XT. This performance requires a much higher core clock rate. This means the power efficiency should be fairly terrible for a budget drive when compared to other, newer PCIe 4.0 DRAM-less options like the HP FX900 and Silicon Power UD90.

Our 1TB sample also uses the SM2267XT, but this drive has been spotted with the newer SM2269XT as well. Given the limited performance specifications, it’s possible this drive could also come with the comparable E19T as well. Other, faster controllers closer to the SM2267XT, such as the InnoGrit IG5220 and Phison E21T, are also technically possible.

Four 512GB NAND modules with four 128GB dies deliver a total of 2TB. This is Intel’s 144-layer QLC. This flash is used on the Intel 670p and Solidigm P41 Plus. It remains arguably the best QLC on the market but is still QLC.

Our 1TB sample arrived with Kioxia 112-layer BiCS5 TLC, instead, but QLC is a possibility at that capacity.

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Comparison Products

The 2TB Kingston is up against other 2TB drives including the Crucial P3 Plus, the Adata XPG Gammix S50 Lite, the Corsair MP600 GS, the SK hynix Gold P31, the Solidigm P41 Plus, the WD Black SN770, and the Samsung 990 Pro.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The NV2 comes in dead last and by a significant margin. It’s the worst for score, bandwidth, and latency. There’s really no excuse here as the P41 Plus, which has the same flash, is far superior and the S50 Lite, with the same class of controller but with DRAM, is also faster. The NV2’s older, DRAM-less controller just can’t hang. It should still be close enough with load times so is fine for a dedicated games drive.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The NV2 is below average in PCMark, although it manages to still beat the popular Gold P31. The S50 Lite is using the DRAM-equipped version of the NV2’s controller, the SMI SM2267, but with older flash.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The NV2 copies at a slow speed, no better than the PCIe 3.0 Gold P31 or the entry-level PCIe 4.0 drives, entry-level meaning glorified PCIe 3.0 drives like the S50 Lite and NV2. There’s little reason to waste a 4.0 slot on these drives.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The NV2 is essentially dead last in ATTO. CDM sequential performance is below average to poor. 4KB performance is also relatively poor, although it beats out the P3 Plus for reads at a queue depth of 1. This is adequate for a gaming drive but basically only provides a budget experience.

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

The 2TB NV2 maintains 2.95GBps in pSLC mode for over 190 seconds for a cache of 561GB. This implies that the entire drive is capable of pSLC mode so the dynamic cache should usually be about one-fourth the size of the free space. The cache is relatively quick to recover, as expected.

QLC mode flatlines around 240MBps which is not terrible for QLC but still pretty poor on the whole. This is about what we would expect from this flash when using such a wide cache. Comparisons to the P3 Plus and P41 Plus are enlightening to see how cache size and pSLC speed impact QLC performance. This is a drive that will suffer when fuller, particularly with prolonged writes.

Power Consumption and Temperature

We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade as even the best ultrabooks can have mediocre storage.

Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states via sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

NV2 power efficiency is fairly terrible, as expected. This will still be an unfortunately popular drive for laptops as it’s single-sided and dirt cheap. If this drive isn’t regularly pushed, and it shouldn’t be, it may be passable with its power usage, but there are many better options.

Normally with QLC-based drives we won’t see throttling because the QLC mode is too slow. The 2TB NV2 runs hot, though, another characteristic of its controller since it’s 28nm technology. The drive idled at 56C by IR and 37C in SMART, a wide deviation between measurements, then hit 86C and 70C, respectively, after roughly 500GB of sustained writes. At this point the drive began to throttle.

These temperatures make it difficult to recommend for laptop use. While it takes a lot of writes to get the drive to throttle, the high idle temperature is concerning. A heatsink is recommended for other use.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

The Kingston NV2 is simply not a drive we can recommend in most cases because the range of hardware it can have makes it too risky for the buyer. You could get the great SM2269XT or the mediocre SM2267XT controller. You could get BiCS5 TLC or much slower QLC. None of these will have DRAM and it’s probably unfair to call this a PCIe 4.0 drive on top of all that. 

In testing, the drive also ran hot even when idle and it draws a decent amount of power, making it less than ideal for many machines, including laptops. Its saving grace is its amazing price, which does make it perhaps good for something other than a primary drive.

Despite this, you may not want to roll the dice and hope you get lucky. It is probably better to approach it from a worst-case perspective: this is a budget drive designed to be a cheap way to add more NVMe-class storage. If you have worked with the A400 or NV1, then you know what to expect with the NV2. Many motherboards come with their own M.2 heatsinks or shields, which can also help alleviate any heat problems this drive might have, mitigating one of its downsides.

Our samples both use the SMI SM2267XT controller which did not perform well with either TLC or QLC. The flash, in either case, is actually not bad. It’s just that there are so many better options on the market. Pricing really is the ultimate factor here that you must consider when looking at the NV2. It may be okay for a gaming drive if it’s priced competitively against SATA alternatives, but this implies you want higher capacity. At lower capacities it’s simply a way to upgrade an old machine cheaply - but we did not review those SKUs.

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It gets tough for newcomers to capture a sizeable share of the solid-state drive market away from well-known brands, which is why Kingston and Adata have led retail SSD shipments for years. But apparently, Gigabyte became one of the Top 10 retail SSD suppliers after only a few years on the market.

SSD shipments through global distribution channels reached 127 million units in 2021, up 11% year-over-year, despite shortages of controllers and power management ICs, according to TrendForce. 42% of these shipped drives were from companies that make their 3D NAND memory (Kioxia, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Western Digital). In contrast, the remaining 58% encompasses companies focused purely on SSD assembly. TrendForce's retail SSD rankings only count the latter category of 'pure play' SSD producers.

In retail, brand strength matters, which is why Kingston, Adata, Kimtigo, Lexar, and Transcend have been in TrendForce's list of Top 10 makers of SSDs sold in retail or inside custom-built PCs for ages. But Kingston's share dropped a bit in 2021 to 26%, probably because there were just many players addressing segments that Kingston has addressed. On the other hand, other top 3 makers strengthened their positions, according to TrendForce. Lexar, which currently has nothing to do with Micron, sits at No. 4 with a 6% share. Netac sits just a little below Lexar.

Meanwhile, after only a few years in the game and multiple drives that ended in our best SSDs list, Gigabyte found itself in the No. 9 place with a 3% market share. Colorful, just like Kimtigo, is primarily oriented on China and is even higher with a 4% share. Finally, Powev is another new Top 10 entrant with a 4% share.

Hundreds of companies supply solid-state drives today as SSDs are relatively easy to produce, and the market is growing. But because there are so many names around, the competition is cut-throat as everyone is trying to offer the best price, highest quality, and highest performance. For obvious reasons, companies that produce their 3D NAND memory have an advantage over pure-play SSD houses as they have their chips and know how they behave. They know how to ensure consistently high performance of drives that use their memory.

But while it is hard to compete against makers of 3D NAND in terms of price, some specialists successfully produce high-speed drives. Companies like Corsair, G.Skill, Patriot, Sabrent, and TeamGroup may not be in the Top 10 list of the largest retail SSD makers by unit shipments. However, they still serve their loyal customer base that demands two things only: performance and quality.

Gigabyte has published a list of unannounced DDR5 memory modules boasting extremely high data transfer rates, including 7000 MT/s, 7200 MT/s, and 7400 MT/s. The modules should be available from various brands, including Gigabyte's own Aorus division, Adata, and Kingston. Unfortunately, the memory sticks will require high voltages and slip into systems powered by high-end motherboards.

As it turns out, Gigabyte's top-of-the-range Z790 Aorus Master platform supports (as noticed by @momomo_us) DDR5-6800 CL34, DDR5-7000 CL32, DDR5-7200 CL34, and DDR5-7400 CL34 modules from Adata, Corsair, Gigabyte Aorus, and Kingston. These 16GB modules are based on SK hynix A and SK Hynix M memory devices and require 1.4V, 1.45V, or 1.5V voltages. In addition, these modules feature XMP 3.0 profiles for one-click overclocking and are designed to work in pairs, so Gigabyte does not guarantee that four of such modules will work flawlessly.

Intel's 13th Generation Core 'Raptor Lake' processors seem to have higher overclocking potential in general and memory overclocking potential in particular than their predecessors, which is why it looks like DDR5-7000+ memory modules will be available from numerous manufacturers.

So far, only TeamGroup has formally introduced its 32GB DDR5-7200 CL34 dual-channel kits. In contrast, other suppliers of high-speed memory modules are testing their products with all Intel Z790-based motherboards that will become available shortly. Meanwhile, Gigabyte has tested its flagship motherboard with several manufacturers' high-end modules.

Speaking of high-end memory module suppliers, they should probably be eager to release their highest-performing memory sticks as soon as possible to offset lost revenue and profits caused by softening demand for PCs among consumers.

While all of the high-performance DRAM sticks tested by Gigabyte with its Z790 Aorus Master mainboard will likely be among the best RAM, there is one crucial thing to note about them. 1.4V – 1.5V voltages for DDR5 memory modules represent a 27% – 36% overvoltage compared to the JEDEC standard, which is a significant increase and will inevitably affect memory ICs and Intel's memory controller. We do not know the longevity of these memory modules and Intel's Raptor Lake CPUs, but significant overclocking usually also means a tradeoff between performance and longevity.

Unfortunately, it is unclear when Adata, Corsair, Gigabyte Aorus, G.Skill, and Kingston will release their DDR5-6800 CL34, DDR5-7000 CL32, DDR5-7200 CL34, and DDR5-7400 CL34 modules and how much will they cost.

Even though PCIe 5.0 SSDs are looming on the horizon, there’s still a vast market for current-generation PCIe 4.0 devices. With this in mind, Adata today announced its latest PCIe 4.0 SSD, the Legend 960. It should soon find itself competing with the best SSDs.

Adata says that the Legend 960 is designed for creators, but it would also be at home in your gaming rig, thanks to rated sequential read/write speeds of 7,400 MBps and 6,800 MBps, respectively. Most high-performance SSDs that we’ve seen released recently are getting close to maxing out the PCIe 4.0 interface, and the Legend 960 is no exception. 4K random reads/writes are spec’d for 750K and 630K IOPS, respectively. A Silicon Motion SM2264 controller runs the show, backed by SLC caching and a DRAM cache buffer. Adata claims an endurance rating of 1,560 terabytes written and a MTBF of 2 million hours while backing the SSD with a 5-year warranty.

It should be noted that while the Legend 960 will most likely find its way into PCs, it is also compatible with Sony’s PlayStation 5. Because of the SSD’s low-profile heatsink and performance that easily meets Sony’s minimum requirements, DIYers could pop in a Legend 960 to expand their storage for today’s best AAA games. However, Adata notes that maximum reads top out at 6,400 Mbps (instead of 7,400 MBps) when using the Legend 960 in a PlayStation 5. Be sure to check out our PlayStation 5 SSD guide.

The Adata Legend 960 should be available at retail locations in 1TB and 2TB capacities in the coming days. In addition, Adata confirms that a 4TB SKU is also in the works and will arrive later this month. Unfortunately, pricing isn’t available for any of the SKUs at this time.

Earlier this year at CES 2022, Adata showed off its next-generation PCIe 5.0 SSDs: Project Nighthawk, which will use a Silicon Motion SM2508 controller, and the InnoGrit IG5666-equipped Project Blackbird. Project Nighthawk promises sequential reads/write speeds of up to 14 GBps/12 GBps, while Project Blackbird is rated for 14 GBps/10 GBps. It’s also reported that the SSDs, which will be available in capacities up to 8TB, will see a 50 to 80 percent uplift in random IOPS over existing PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Of course you'll need either an Intel Alder Lake or AMD Zen 4 platform to get PCIe 5.0 support.

Adata's PC performance brand XPG has added a new mid-tower PC design to its stables. This new XPG Valor Air model is ready for motherboards up to the full ATX form factor and Adata claims that it has as an optimized airflow design. 

The design seeks to maximize front to back air transmission with a trio of 120mm fans in the front, and a 120mm exhaust fan at the backs. Air is accelerated on a pretty straight path to the back of the case but it can also escape via venting on the top and in the base. Adata's design has magnetically attached filters under the vented front and perforated top panels. Channelling the airflow are barriers to the left and right made of tempered 3mm glass and SPCC steel, respectively.

The design of the XPG Valor Air Mid-Tower is pleasingly clean and eschews RGB LED lighting. The diagonal venting design with an XPG logo isn't too large or prominent on either the white or black finish choices. The left side of the case sports a glass window that sits above the PSU chamber. If users were to add a little RGB bling to their build, then a modest amount of RGB LEDs could be seen via the window. There are no vertical GPU mount options provided through.

Adata has positioned the front I/O along the front upper right edge of the case (see below). Users get quick access to 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, 1x 3.5mm audio combo jack, a Reset Button and a Power Button. Sadly there is no Type-C port.

If you like the look of the new XPG Valor Air Mid-Tower, please pay attention to the max compatibility figures above, to make sure any components you might want to migrate or acquire fit without issue. Note that the max GPU length is 305mm, unless you want to remove/reposition one of the trio of front 120mm fans. You should check this clearance very carefully if you have a triple fan GPU.

Adata hasn't shared pricing or availability for the XPG Valor Air Mid-Tower PC case as yet. A similarly specified case from Adata, the XPG Defender mid-tower, currently retails for $105 at Newegg.

In the meantime, if you are considering a new PC case purchase, please check through our Best PC Cases 2022 feature, with 11 models that have been through the Tom's Hardware labs.

Lexar’s SL660 Blaze is the company's latest portable drive for gaming and comes in 512GB and 1TB capacities. The drive comes with resplendent RGB lighting and includes software support combined with a selection of materials and styling to sell as a 'gaming' drive that will compete for a spot on our list of best external SSDs. 

The SL660 Blaze reminds us a lot of the Kingston XS2000, they share the same hardware, but it comes with some additional features. It also competes with the ADATA SE900G, which also comes with RGB lighting but has a bulkier package. 

As with the XS2000, SE900G, and other portable drives, convenience is the name of the game. Alternatively, you could purchase your own drive and enclosure independently and save money by combining the two yourself. Of course, SATA-based options of both types also often remain viable, but sometimes it’s nice to have 2GBps of bandwidth at your fingertips.

Let’s see how that works out here.

Specifications

The Lexar SL660 Blaze has just two capacities: 512GB and 1TB. The price per gigabyte at the time of writing, which is for pre-orders, is around $0.20 per gigabyte. This is more pricey than the Kingston XS2000, which has fewer frills while being smaller and weighing less. The SL660 Blaze is rated for up to 2.0/1.9GBps for sequential reads and writes, in line with the XS2000. We would expect these write speeds to dip with extended writes once the SLC cache is exhausted.

As with the XS2000, the SL660 Blaze has a five-year warranty and is rated for shock resistance. In addition, the controller itself has typical data protection with SMI’s NANDXtend, a patented technology that has similarities to techniques used on other controllers. This gets the most endurance out of the flash through LDPC error correction and can correct errors through RAID parity. Lexar also offers 256-bit AES encryption, but this is software-based, so it won't be as performant.

Software and Accessories

The SL660 Blaze comes with more than a few items. It has both Type-C to Type-C and Type-C to Type-A USB cables and a detachable stand. These are both convenient as you can dock the drive when near your computer, and the drive will be compatible with two common types of USB ports. The drive also comes with a nice pouch for added convenience and protection, although this may increase overall bulk. The competing Kingston XS200, for its part, did include a rubber sleeve.

The drive also comes with an SSD toolbox, the Lexar SSD Dash, and support for software encryption through Lexar’s DataShield. We have previously stated that hardware encryption with a Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) tends not to be a priority for consumer drives and is otherwise potentially inconsistent. Lexar offers a software solution as a checkbox for their feature list, but it is actually usable and useful even if it’s something you could do yourself on other drives with the appropriate software. Likewise, we like to have a SSD toolbox even if it’s generally unnecessary.

A Closer Look

The USB interface can also be its own bottleneck regardless of the internal SSD. Portable drives are also usually streamlined and made to be efficient, which in other words means they often have a DRAM-less design that would benefit from the performance-boosting Host Memory Buffer (HMB) tech — but that doesn't work over the USB interface. Both of these issues present challenges for external drives: Most users use these types of drives for large files or image backups, which are essentially large, sequential file transfers. This type of work can be limited by the interface or by the sequential write speed of the drive, with the latter being impacted by the lack of HMB.

Most previous portable drives came with ASMedia’s bridge chips, such as the ASM2362 and ASM2364 for 10Gbps and 20Gbps, respectively. Portable units tend to have an independent drive with its own controller and a separate bridge chip to handle communication with the host, for example, with two lanes of PCIe 3.0 on one side and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, at up to 20 Gbps, on the other. The newer SM2320 chip from Silicon Motion, as used on the SL660 Blaze and XS2000, instead provides an embedded or hybrid design with everything in one package. This pairs very well with the streamlined intentions of a portable SSD.

The SL660 Blaze has a sleek, aluminum exterior that certainly lends itself to the gaming aesthetic, even without RGB enabled. It’s otherwise clean, with the rear side listing the capacity/model and serial number. The interior shares the black coloring with a bit of protection. Of course, this is not a drive you would have to shuck, given the nature of the prominent SM2320 controller. The black PCB has no DRAM but has four flash packages with two on each side.

The controller, labeled SM2320G, looks to have been manufactured about a year ago. SMI is proud of this quad-channel design, able to manage up to 4TB of flash in a tight 9x9 mm package. While there are disadvantages to having a single chip for a portable drive, the advantages of reduced size and cost generally outweigh them. We also see the four LEDs on the edge of the board, which, as tested, were not controllable but rather just shifted between various colors.

The flash modules are produced by Longsys and labeled 29F208EMLCER. From the “29,” we can tell this is Intel or Micron flash, as in MT29 from the IMFT days, at 2Tb or 256GB per chip in an 8-bit configuration for a total of 1TB. It’s similar to the 96-layer Micron TLC we saw on the XS2000. This is an older flash but is perfectly suitable for a quad-channel portable drive.

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Comparison Products

We compare the Lexar SL660 Blaze to other popular portable SSDs including SanDisk’s Extreme and Extreme Pro (both v2), the Samsung X5 and T7, the WD Black P50, the Adata SE900G, and of course the Kingston XS2000. Two of these drives are at the 2TB capacity but this should offer no advantage in this drive class.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

The SL660 Blaze is marketed as a gaming drive, so it’s nice to see it delivers a very good result here. SSDs, in general, offer the best loading times, and it can be nice to have a portable option if you’re on the go or if you use a gaming laptop.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The 1TB SL660 Blaze is in the middle of the pack here, right alongside the Kingston XS2000. We see better results from the SanDisk Extreme Pro v2, which has DRAM, and the Samsung X5, which utilizes Thunderbolt 3 and also has DRAM.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The 1TB SL660 Blaze, along with the XS2000, is on top of the USB-based portable drives. It offers very fast transfer times and is only beaten by the ThunderBolt 3-equipped X5.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

Users transfer files of various sizes regularly with portable drives, so it’s important to look at transfer speeds for different block sizes in ATTO. The SL660 Blaze only comes up short for sequential reads versus the Samsung X5, which again has a ThunderBolt 3 interface. It also falls slightly behind the ASM2364-based drives at larger sequential write sizes, which points to a difference in controller limitations.

CrystalDiskMark, that most popular of SSD benchmarks, just shows the interface's limits for peak sequential reads and writes. We see a bit of a different story with random performance. Random write performance is quite good, and the SL660 Blaze again matches the XS2000 while falling behind only the X5 at low queue depth. Reduced write latency may be a product of the hybrid design, as writes require acknowledgment. However, we see the SM2320 drives falling behind along with Samsung’s T7 Touch during a low queue depth read workload.

This is likely due to the controller being DRAM-less - the same is also true of the T7’s Pablo controller - which can exacerbate the limitations of the interface. Low queue depth random reads are often utilized as a guideline for general user experience, yet we saw the SL660 Blaze do quite well with the Final Fantasy XIV benchmark - at least in comparison to other portable SSDs. There is simply a performance threshold where you get most of the gains of a solid state drive, but portables are limited by interface. This illustrates why a DRAM-less design like the SM2320 can still be optimal for a portable drive, and certainly so for gaming.

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery and Temperature

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Continuing from the Crystal Disk Mark results above, we can then speculate that a DRAM-less SSD may still have significant shortfalls as a secondary effect. This is clearly the case in the write saturation test.

Our results are very similar to what we saw with the XS2000. The drive writes at maximum speed, or 1.8Gbps, for approximately 55s, for a total cache size of around 100GB. From what we understand these drives utilize a hybrid cache, with 6GB of static and the rest being dynamic.

After the cache is exhausted, the sequential write performance is very erratic. The drive is folding to native TLC which eventually frees up enough SLC for a brief spike in write throughput, before falling back down. Overall post-SLC sequential write bandwidth is around 200MBps, which is certainly not great and is reminiscent of some QLC-based desktop drives. The T7 Touch relies on a much smaller cache but then engages direct-to-TLC. For that reason, it is faster and its more consistent post-SLC performance can out-write the SL660 Blaze and XS2000.

DRAM-less drives tend to have weaker post-SLC performance due to larger SLC cache sizes, fewer flash channels, and an overall design philosophy that benefits from the slower folding state. While the T7 outpaces the SL660 Blaze and XS2000 it still falls behind the rest of the drives in sustained writes, and interface limitations squeeze it with shorter writes.

Cache recovery on the SL660 Blaze was similar to the XS2000, with the static portion recovering relatively rapidly and the dynamic portion requiring more time. However, it’s a fairly reasonable response given how this drive will be used. Those regularly doing large, sustained writes, which could include videographers, for example, might want to look at a different portable drive, but this cache should be adequate for gaming even in a fuller-drive state.

We had good thermal results from the XS2000 but we would expect them to be even better with the SL660 Blaze due to its aluminum case and interior design. This proved to be true as the surface was 5C cooler than the XS2000’s under load, at 31C, with the drive itself reaching around 7C less, or 64C, as measured by an IR gun. We certainly saw no throttling and idle temperatures were also good.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs.

Conclusion

It is difficult for us not to compare the Lexar SL660 Blaze to the Kingston XS2000 because the internal hardware is similar, and our test results point out plenty of similarities. The SL660 Blaze has a higher price point, which is sensible as it offers more than the XS2000. For example, it comes with an extra cable, a detachable stand, RGB functionality, and software support that includes encryption. It maintains shock resistance but is also larger and weighs more. In a sense, this makes it less portable, but the aluminum body and overall design make it more attractive. Plus, it remains sufficiently convenient.

This is being marketed as a gaming drive which tends not to mean a whole lot in the SSD space — for now. However, the angular design and presence of RGB are probably sufficient to match the requirements of such a moniker. The detachable stand is also a nice feature when considering the possibilities of portable gaming, even if used with a console. 

The Sl600's warranty is strong and the drive feels durable, particularly with the pouch, which we feel is a strong selling point if you’re moving the drive around a lot. Although we question the usefulness of software encryption with a gaming drive, software support is a nice touch, but there are other options available that don’t require Lexar's proprietary software. We wouldn’t mind some OEM software for drive cloning, though.

Aside from some minor pitfalls, the SL600's performance is actually not bad for a portable drive. The one area it does fall short is during sustained, sequential write workloads, which exhibit very poor post-cache performance. The cache design itself is robust even if the cache is not particularly large, but this issue will be more troublesome with a fuller drive. While this is not usually a problem for gaming, if you also want to also use this drive to transfer files, particularly larger ones, some alternatives are more attractive in terms of speed and consistency.

Therefore, the SL660 Blaze’s traits are a bit of a double-edged sword. You don’t really need anything special for gaming, so what you are really paying for — versus, say, the XS2000 — is basically aesthetics. The extra cable and the standalone dock are useful additions but may be of situational use. It’s possible to get a cheaper drive if performance is your top priority, making this a luxury item.

ADATA’s SE900G also offers RGB and the extra cable but appears to have a lower MSRP. Is it worth a premium for the dock and Lexar’s software package? Probably not, but we do feel Lexar did a good job of making a product with a premium feel, although we would have liked to see a 2TB option given the size of games these days. That being said, the dock might be useful for certain users.

If you want a portable SSD with a “gaming” feel, something that also feels a bit premium with the aluminum enclosure, pouch, stand, and RGB, then this is the ticket. We feel the market is inundated with gaming-oriented SSDs that are really an excuse to charge more for aesthetics and semi-useful features. We will say that it’s nice Lexar includes a ton of accessories, but someone willing to do a bit of legwork can likely find something just as good for less money. The Lexar SL660 Blaze is for the gamer who has everything.

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Adata just turned 21 today, and the company has started the celebrations with an online event where users can play games, win prizes, and see a virtual showcase of Adata's new products.

Adata has created the Meraverse, a virtual universe with mini-games that offer prizes, including XPG Xenia gaming laptops, storage devices, Amazon gift cards, and other goodies. The company will also be hosting a unique Adata & XPG product showcase on an unspecified date in the summer to launch the Ace series of DDR5 memory and the renovated Legend series of PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

Adata's current DDR5 offerings include plain DDR5 memory modules and the XPG Lancer series for enthusiasts. According to the press release, the Ace series will be the flagship DDR5 lineup that offers low latency memory kits for creators and overclockers. Sadly, Adata didn't reveal any specifications. The manufacturer launched the Legend 840 PCIe 4.0 SSD on the storage side not long ago. However, Adata will upgrade the SSD to deliver higher sequential performance, up to 7,400 MBps reads and 5,000 MBps writes in the shape of the Legend 960 and Legend 850. Of course, Adata didn't mention if it'll swap the SSD controller or NAND chips to improve the performance.

To commemorate the company's 21st birthday, Adata will release the Ace DDR5-6400 Limited Edition and Legend 850 Limited Edition. The renders show the former in a 16GB x 2 configuration and the latter with a 512GB capacity. It's unknown if Adata will commercialize other variants.

The Ace DDR5-6400 Limited Edition and Legend 850 Limited Edition feature a unique flower design from established German designer Mister Fred. It's a nice departure from the typical RGB gaudiness that has flooded the hardware market. Sadly, the artwork may go to waste since it wouldn't be easily visible on the memory modules once they're installed. However, Adata may get away with it on the SSD drive if the consumer doesn't or chooses not to use an M.2 SSD heatsink over the floral design.

Both products are limited edition, and Adata will only produce 500 units of each. The company didn't indicate when the products will be available or how much they'll cost.

In an Adata blog post released today, the company announced it will be making an appearance at CES 2022 and teased a number of new products, including a new gaming mouse concept known as the XPG Vault. The XPG Vault is a gaming mouse equipped with 1TB of solid-state storage for your games library.

The 1TB SSD built into the mouse is no slouch, with up to 985MB/s of bandwidth, it's significantly faster than your traditional SATA 3 SSDs which peak at around 550MB/s of bandwidth. It may not be as fast as an NVMe drive, but that is the trade off for convenience. The XPG Vault comes with a single USB Type C connector which pulls double duty for mouse and the 1TB SSD. Adata is also working on a new custom game launcher that promises to make your game libraries easy to store, organize and launch directly from the mouse.

Putting storage in a mouse has the potential to be very useful. If you are always on the go then you would have one less thing to carry or forget. There's nothing stopping you from just storing games right on the mouse and playing directly from it like an actual storage device. The downside of having all your eggs in one basket is that should the mouse break, so does your storage.

For now, it's just a concept, so there's no release date or pricing available for the XPG Vault. But if it gets enough attention, we wouldn't be surprised to see Adata giving the mouse the green light and building a bunch of these. It would definitely stand out in the market as the only gaming mouse with 1TB of built-in high-speed storage.

Adata has released a detailed teaser outlining what to expect from its CES 2022 presentation. The most noteworthy new products come in the form of two PCIe 5.0 SSD designs — the Adata Project Nighthawk PCIe 5.0 and Adata Project Blackbird PCIe 5.0. Adata claims these drives will deliver up to a blistering 14 GBps of sequential throughput, twice the speed of existing PCIe 4.0 SSDs. However, the company hasn't shared any information about random IOPS performance yet. 

The firm is priming the public for a wide range of new performance PC DIY components, peripherals and laptops that it will release at CES 2022 under the gaming-centric XPG sub-brand in its Dawn of a New Xtreme presentation on Wednesday, January 5.

Adata's Nighthawk and Blackbird projects

The Adata Project Nighthawk and Blackbird PCIe 5.0 SSDs are admittedly prototypes and are thus framed by Adata's PR department as making "a special appearance" at its booth at The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. Thankfully, Adata isn't being too cloak and dagger about the star guests and has provided us with some key specs and performance metrics for the next-gen PCIe interface and controller packing M.2. SSD sticks.

Adata's Project Nighthawk PCIe 5.0 is designed using a Silicon Motion SM2508 controller. At this time, we don't know what NAND will be used. However, according to Adata's internal testing, the Nighthawk "is capable of delivering sequential read/write performance of up to 14 / 12 GBps."

The Adata Project Blackbird PCIe 5.0 is differentiated from the Nighthawk by its use of an InnoGrit IG5666 controller. This PCIe 5.0 SSD appears to be balanced differently, less adept at fast sequential writes, and Adata says that it "is capable of delivering read/write performance of 14 / 10 GBps." As mentioned previously, we don't know if the NAND used in these prototypes is a variable affecting performance or not. 

In September, Tom's Hardware reported on Kioxia's PCIe 5.0 SSD prototype hitting 14 GBps sequential read transfers, so Adata's figures appear to be in line with expectations. However, Kioxia's test product only achieved 7 GBps writes. At the time, indications were that IOPS figures would be uplifted by 50 to 80% with the move from PCIe 4.0 to 5.0 SSDs.

Both Nighthawk and Blackbird PCIe 5.0 SSD models will be made in capacities up to 8TB, says Adata. We look forward to CES 2022 to pick through more details.

Other interesting Adata XPG products coming to CES 2022

As well as the above PCIe 5.0 SSDs, Adata will showcase a new Elite SE920 USB4 external SSD with speeds of up to 40 Gbps packed in an actively cooled chassis. Of course its latest DDR5 developments will be in the spotlight too. Adata says its new XPG Lancer RGB DDR5 and Caster RGB DDR5 "deliver next-level performance of up to 6,000 MT/s and 7,000 MT/s, respectively."

Other Adata XPG components you might be interested in, range from AiO coolers and PSUs to full chassis designs. Adata will also have an updated family of XPG peripherals to showcase including a USB Type-C gaming mouse with integrated "XPG vault" SSD.

Last but not least, Adata's CES 2022 booth will feature a range of gaming and ultrabook laptops.

Last week Gigabyte published a list of DDR5-7000 memory modules supported by its Z690 Aorus Tachyon motherboard, and this week G.Skill confirmed that it had managed to push its Trident Z5 DIMMs to 7000 MT/s without usage of liquid nitrogen or other extreme cooling methods. Apparently, there are DDR5-7000 modules incoming from multiple vendors, but to hit such speeds requires rather high voltage.

Gigabyte's list includes 16GB DDR5 memory modules from Adata, Gigabyte's Aorus, and TeamGroup that can work at a 7000 MT/s data transfer rate with CL40 40-40-80 latency settings at 1.5 Volts.

All these modules are based on chips from Samsung, but so far none of the companies have formally announced them, so we can only assume that they are set to be available at a later date. G.Skill managed to run a pair of its 16GB Trident Z5 modules at 7000 MT/s with CL40 40-40-76 timings and pass the Memtest stability test, though the company did not disclose the voltage setting of the modules. 

Regular DDR5 runs at 1.1V, while overclocked modules typically use up to 1.25V. Running 1.5V represents a whopping 36% overvoltage compared to the JEDEC standard. That's a pretty sizeable jump in voltage, just for the final 500 MT/s. It's difficult to say how such a high voltage affects longevity of DRAM ICs, not to mention Intel's DDR5 memory controller, but a 36% overvoltage is not something consumer-grade hardware will likely handle for prolonged periods of time.

Still, enthusiasts like to push hardware to its limits and companies are willing to help them. In fact, now that memory modules have their own voltage regulating module and power management IC, makers of DIMMs can at least ensure that they use premium components and deliver quality power to the DRAM.

One of the things that suppliers of premium memory modules never stop is their race for highest possible data transfer rates. Even when companies cannot offer certain speed bins here and now, they can still pre-announce them or issue a teaser to demonstrate that they are working on such DIMMs. DDR5 offers makers of enthusiast-grade DIMMs even higher levels of performance potential, but the technology is so new that the manufacturers are still learning. For now, they're being cautious about offering extreme speeds while they gain more experience with the new memory ICs and controllers and figure out how they behave in overclocked mode for prolonged periods.

In the meantime, DDR5-7000 represents too sweet a number to miss, which is why at least four companies are working on such modules. We'll likely see far higher speeds from DDR5 in the coming years. How much higher, though? GDDR5 speeds topped out at around 9 GT/s with the GTX 1060, and while the underlying technology may be different, it wouldn't be too surprising to see desktop memory hit that speed in the coming years.

Kingston’s XS2000 comes with the high-powered combo of Silicon Motion’s newest SSD controller paired with Micron’s 96-Layer TLC flash, delivering big performance for its price point. This tiny but mighty SSD can deliver up to 2 GBps of sequential throughput in a compact, lightweight, and water and dust-resistant package. 

Portable SSDs have become the favorite solution for those who need fast and reliable storage on the go. But while SATA SSDs powered many of the external models for the past few years, NVMe SSDs and the latest chips from companies like ASMedia, JMicron, and Intel have opened up new performance ceilings. These products give gamers, content creators, and enthusiasts top speeds of up to 10 or 20Gbps, or faster.

Internally, most of these portable SSDs have an adapter board with the interface bridge chip integrated into its own PCB, which then connects to an M.2 NVMe SSD. However, that can require a large and heavy enclosure design to contain all the components and efficiently handle the heat output.

Kingston’s XS2000 is unique because it leverages a streamlined internal design from Silicon Motion that doesn’t need an external bridge chip; instead, it communicates with native USB. This design reduces size, weight, power consumption, and cost, all while offering high levels of performance.

Specifications

The XS2000 is available in popular capacities of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB, each priced around $0.16-$0.20 per GB. The drive is rated to deliver both read and write speeds of up to 2,000 MBps and comes preformatted with the exFAT file system for compatibility with all OSes. However, write performance may degrade during heavy use because the XS2000 employs SLC caching and will need ample idle time to recoup its full write speeds after sustained workloads.

Kingston backs the XS2000 with a five-year warranty, and like many portable SSDs, it comes without an endurance rating. Still, Kingston’s XS2000 leverages SRAM ECC and end-to-end data path protection, as well as Silicon Motion’s NANDXtend ECC technology. NANDXtend ECC is a three-level error correction algorithm that combines LDPC hard and soft decoding with RAID protection for enhanced endurance and data retention with minimal overprovisioning.

The XS2000 comes with a single 11.5” USB Type-C cable. The drive is IP55 rated and shock resistant with an included rubber sleeve. It also supports TRIM, S.M.A.R.T. data reporting, and UASP.

A Closer Look

Kingston’s XS2000 is made of both plastic and metal for a light and fairly durable design. Measuring 69.5 x 32.6 x 13.5mm and weighing in at an ultra-light 28.9 grams, the Kingston’s XS2000 is compact and ready to go wherever you need it. The included rubber sleeve adds even more durability to the mix in case the drive drops from your hands or accidentally gets kicked across the room. It also has a blue activity light next to the USB-C port.

Internally, Kingston's XS2000 sports Silicon Motion's latest portable SSD controller, the SM2320. As mentioned, this SSD controller isn't a typical model — it's built as a single chip solution for portable SSDs, so it's both a controller and USB bridge in one. The controller has a single core and four channels, with each channel interfacing with up to eight NAND dies. Our 1TB model comes with sixteen dies of Micron's 512Gb 96-Layer TLC flash. Each die has a four-plane architecture to provide fast access during both sequential and random workloads.

However, one of the drawbacks is that the drive is DRAM-less, which results in poor sustained write performance compared to many DRAM-based portable SSDs that we've reviewed. Also, while the controller supports AES 256-bit encryption and many competing drives come with support for it, the XS2000 lacks this useful security feature. 

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We put the Kingston XS2000 against many of the best portable SSDs in the market, including Samsung’s very fast TB3-powered X5. Also rocking a 20Gbps bus, we threw in the SanDisk Extreme Pro v2, Adata SX900G, and WD_Black P50. We included a couple of comparably-priced 10Gbps SSDs like the SanDisk Extreme, Samsung T7 Touch, and Crucial X8, too.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

When it comes to game load times, Kingston’s XS2000 proved itself very capable. The XS2000 came in second place to the Samsung X5 by a fraction of a second but outperformed all the other 20Gbps competitors. The 10Gbps competition lagged the XS2000 by a couple of seconds, but Samsung’s T7 Touch proved the slowest in the group.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We write a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to the SSD, copy that dataset to a new folder, and then we follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written  6.5GB zip file.

The XS2000 did extremely well in our file transfer tests. It scored second place across the board, edging out ahead of the Adata SE900G and SanDisk Extreme Pro v2. However, it fell behind the TB3 enabled Samsung X5 once again.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage: Data Drive Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. To test drives that store files rather than applications, we utilize the Data Drive Benchmark.

Due to its DRAM-less architecture, the XS2000 fell behind some of the competition in this PCMark 10 workload but still led the WD_Black P50 and Adata SE900G while maintaining close proximity to the Samsung X5.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

Kingston’s XS2000 displays solid sequential performance scaling across most block sizes but lags slightly with large-block writes. Its random read latency results were very high, however, tying the Samsung T7 Touch. 

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery, & Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and interrelated metrics for external devices. Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash.

We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds as well as the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance.

Kingston's XS2000 write performance is solid within its SLC cache, but due to its DRAM-less architecture, the drive is very inconsistent once it is full. The SLC cache features both a static and dynamic portion. Our 1 TB sample wrote roughly 103GB of data at 1,890 MBps before its write performance degraded to an average rate of 214 MBps for the remainder of the test. Furthermore, the XS2000 recovered only its 6 GB static portion within a five-minute idle window, and the dynamic portion fully recovered within a longer half-hour long idle window.

Due to such low power consumption, surface temperatures remained fairly cool throughout testing, even with the sleeve. As reported by the XS2000's SMART data, peak internal temperature measured over 72 degrees Celsius after a 400GB transfer. The surface temperature measured only 36 degrees Celsius based on our IR thermometer reading. We didn't see any throttling — just slow and inconsistent write speeds once the cache was full.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use a Rocket Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, Windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability.

Conclusion

On paper, the Kingston XS2000 is very competitive with SanDisk's Extreme Pro v2. It not only outperformed the SanDisk and most 20Gbps competitors in read workloads and managing small datasets, but it also hung fairly tight alongside the Samsung X5. Its material mix makes for a solid and light SSD design that is water and dust-resistant, too. However, it's not quite as rugged as the SanDisk or Samsung drives, and if you don't use the rubber sleeve, the IP55 dust- and water-resistant rating isn't guaranteed.

The common use cases for portables are to absorb large bulk write transfers from the host either for system and file backup, transfer around or store large datasets for content creators and data hoarders, or hold game libraries. Depending on the size of your datasets and your daily read/write needs, Kingston's SX2000 can either operate very responsively or leave you waiting much longer than expected for that system image or write transfer to complete.

Due to its DRAM-less architecture, random read performance is fairly low, but its write performance can suffer severely when hammered with large, sustained loads. Idle recovery was also a little slow for content creation workloads and those who frequently perform multi-hundred GB transfers. SanDisk's Extreme Pro v2, the WD_ P50 Black, and Adata SE900G reign supreme for those types of workloads. 

The XS2000 is well priced and a very enticing buy compared to Crucial's X8 or Samsung's T7, and possibly WD's My Passport SSD. However, it lacks AES 256-bit encryption. Adata's SE900G puts up a tougher fight and may be more attractive for the same price, but it is much larger and lacks the IP55 rating of the Kington. It also has a shorter warranty. 

Overall, gamers and performance addicts who don't necessarily need to perform massive write transfers often but require very fast read performance can benefit from the XS2000's speed.

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DDR5 memory modules and supporting platforms are yet to hit the market, but DRAM houses have already started an informal DDR5 overclocking contest. Recently, Adata's XPG Overclocking Lab (XOCL) announced that it had managed to overclock the company's DDR5 memory module to 8,118 MT/s. This is the first time that a memory module house demonstrates overclocked DDR5 SDRAM sticks.

To hit a rather record data transfer rate, Adata's XPG Overclocking Lab (XOCL) took a pre-production 16GB DDR5 memory module based on ICs from SK Hynix with a stock data transfer rate of 4,800 MT/s and an unknown Intel Z690-based motherboard equipped with an undisclosed Intel's 12th Generation Core 'Alder Lake' processor. The module could hit 8104 MT/s and 8188 MT/s in single-channel mode and the system remained stable enough to load Windows and CPU-Z software. 

Adata does not disclose what kind of cooling it used for the CPU and what voltage it set for the DDR5 module to get to 8188 MT/s. All the company demonstrated were CPU-Z screenshots.

Speaking of the module, it is necessary to note that we are indeed dealing with a pre-production unbuffered DIMM marked as AX5U5200C38 16G-BLA, so as the name suggests, the module was supposed to run at DDR5-5200 with CL38 CAS latency. Meanwhile, its SPD has an XMP-6800 CL46 entry at 1.35V, which is perhaps what Adata is preparing to launch in the foreseeable future. In any case, the default data rate featured by most DDR5 modules set to be released this year will be JEDEC standard 4800 MT/s. 

So far, leading makers of memory chips like Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix have demonstrated that their DDR5 memory chips could work at 7200 MT/s or even 8400 MT/s. Those experiments were conducted using equipment test equipment for DRAM chips or standalone DDR5 DRAM controllers and while such experiments reveal the potential of DRAM, they do not test memory ICs in real-world conditions using real-world workloads. Memory module houses followed the suite: Netac said it was developing DDR5-10000 modules back in April, whereas Adata said that it had managed to run DDR5 at 12600 MT/s in the lab back in August.

This time around Adata uses real (albeit pre-production) hardware to achieve a very high data rate and even launch Windows along with CPU-Z software. It will of course take some time before the company and its peers release actual DDR5-8200 memory modules, but at least we do know that even current-generation modules can work at extreme speeds.

If you like anime, a new Asia-exclusive DDR4 memory kit might be of interest to you. Adata and Asus have come together to make the new XPS D50 "Long Yao" ROG STRIX memory kit for the Chinese market. The kits feature large white RGB-illuminated heatsinks with Anime illustrations. The kits boast speeds of 3600-3733MHz and will be available in 2x8GB (16GB) and 2x16GB (32GB) capacities.

The new DDR4 itself is derived from Adata's current XPG D50 series of DDR4 modules and has the same profile with very tall heatsinks that jut out beyond the actual PCB.

The Long Yao ROG Strix memory kit has a new white theme featuring a large anime character designed by XPG to the left. The sticks are also emblazoned with ROG Strix branding to the top right, above the Chinese word for 'snowstorm.' Aside from the Asus reference, the white paint is the only other aesthetic that looks similar to Asus' products, matching the color of the company's Gundam-themed motherboards and graphics cards. The memory kit also has a fully illuminated RGB light bar to the top, which spills over in a triangle shape around the sides of the heatsink.

The anime-inspired memory kit comes in both DDR4-3600 and DDR4-3733MHz configurations with a known CL timing of 18 for the 3600 kits. Unfortunately, we don't know much about the DDR4-3733 kits besides their memory speed. We also don't know if Adata will introduce more memory configurations soon, like 3200 or 3800-4000.

For now, the new Long Yao ROG Strix memory kit will remain exclusive to the Chinese market, and there's no word from Adata if we'll see the memory kit in other markets in the future.

Adata has announced its new SE920 external SSD, the company's first external drive with a USB4 interface. The drive promises an up to 4000 MB/s sequential read speed (with SLC caching and when working with a USB4 host), which makes it one of the industry's fastest external storage device designed for consumers. In fact, it is even going to outperform any external SSD with USB 3.x or Thunderbolt 3/4 interface as far as a sequential read speed is concerned. 

Adata will offer its SE920-series drives in different versions featuring different capacities, yet for now the company has kept details about the family confidential. Adata also hasn't talked about the architecture of its SE920 drive (which SSD controller it uses, how high is the write speed, etc.), though it says that the SSD uses the company's proprietary Heat Conduction technology that ensures appropriate cooling and consistent performance. 

Designed to compete with the best external hard drives and SSDs, Adata's SE920 drives will be among the fastest portable storage devices with a Thunderbolt 3/4 and USB4 interface when they are available later this year. This is not particularly surprising as most of external storage devices with a TB3 interface integrate a previous-generation SSD with a PCIe Gen3 interface that cannot even theoretically saturate a TB3 bus (which supports non-video bandwidth of up to 32.4 Gbps, or 4.05 GB/s). 

Furthermore, since TB3 uses an 8b/10b encoding with a rather high overhead, its actual usable bandwidth is about 25.92 Gbps or 3.24 GBps. By contrast, even an entry-level drive with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface can easily hit a 4 GBps throughput. Meanwhile, USB4's 128b/132b encoding ensures that the interface's usable bandwidth is considerably closer to the theoretical one as this method has a lower overhead. 

Typically, high-performance external SSDs pack an M.2 drive with a PCIe / NVMe interface as well as a PCIe-to-USB bridge. If this is the case with the SE920, then the drive integrates an NVMe M.2 SSD, a PCIe-to-USB4 bridge, and a USB4 chip responsible for power delivery support and orientation of the connector. Meanwhile, it is possible that Adata developed its SE920 from scratch and did not just repurpose a fast drive with a PCIe interface. 

Adata has not announced pricing of its SE920 external SSDs with a USB4 interface, but we can assume that these drives are going to be premium products.

As spotted by Videocardz, Adata has taken the wraps off several new products in an online announcement today, including its first DDR5 memory modules, which will feature frequencies of up to 12600 MTps, making them the fastest DDR5 modules announced so far. The company also announced a host of other products including PCIe Gen4 SSDs, external SSDs, laptops, and SD card readers.

Adata showcased two DDR5 models at its event, one being its generic DDR5 module with a maximum operating frequency of 8400 MTps and a capacity of up to 64GB per DIMM operating at 1.1v. This is in line with the fastest DDR5 modules we've seen announced so far from any memory manufacturer including Samsung, SK Hynix, and Crucial.

But the next model is much faster. With a speed of up to 12,600 MTps, these are the fastest speeds announce so far for any DDR5 module. Adata will be targeting these modules toward gaming rigs and will brand them under the XPG umbrella.

Unfortunately this is all Adata had to say; there's no word on pricing, availability, or upcoming memory configurations for its new DDR5 modules.

It'll be interesting to see how quickly Adata can start producing its ultra-fast 12600 MTps memory models, as previous statements from SK Hynix suggest any high-speed kits approaching 8400MTps or beyond won't be available in the first wave of DDR5 adoption. Simply put, DDR5 needs to reach a certain maturity level before high-speed kits become a reality, at least at retail. Still, it's great to see ultra-high-speed DDR5 modules are in development and on the horizon.

Ragnar Locker has claimed another victim. BleepingComputer reported yesterday that the ransomware group forced Adata to take its systems offline in May. Even though Adata says it has since resumed normal operations, the group claims that it was able to steal 1.5TB of data before the company detected its attack.

It's not clear how the ransomware attack affected Adata's ability to manufacture its storage, memory, and power solutions. The company told BleepingComputer that "things are being moved toward the normal track, and business operations are not disrupted for corresponding contingency practices are effective." 

Ragnar Locker has reportedly claimed that it was able to "collect and exfiltrate proprietary business information, confidential files, schematics, financial data, Gitlab and SVN source code, legal documents, employee info, NDAs, and work folders" as part of this attack. But those files have not yet been shared with the public.

The ransomware group has been operating since at least November 2019. Sophos offered some insight into how the ransomware itself operated in May 2020, and the FBI said in November 2020 that it has targeted "cloud service providers, communication, construction, travel, and enterprise software companies."

It seems Ragnar Locker isn't bashful, either, with Threatpost reporting in November 2020 that it took out Facebook ads threatening to leak the 2TB of data it stole from Campari Group unless it was paid $15 million in Bitcoin. Other high-profile attacks have targeted Energias de Portugal (a Portuguese electric company) and Capcom.

Ransomware doesn't necessarily get as much attention as it used to, but attacks are still common, and they're still able to affect large companies like Adata or Quanta Computer. The attacks often follow the pattern set by Ragnar Locker by attempting to block access to data while simultaneously threatening to leak it to the public.

Attacks continue to target consumers, too, with a recent example being Android ransomware that masqueraded as a mobile version of Cyberpunk 2077 to find its victims. Companies have even started to sell their "self-defending" SSDs to consumers to ease concerns about being targeted by these kinds of attacks.

Adata told BleepingComputer that it is "determined to devote ourselves making the system protected than ever, and yes, this will be our endless practice while the company is moving forward to its future growth and achievements." Somebody's gotta make sure those efforts to capitalize on Chia aren't disrupted again.

When a product has the word "Xtreme" in its name, you can tell that it's not tailored towards the average consumer. Adata's XPG Spectrix D50 Xtreme memory is that kind of product. A simple glance at the memory's specifications is more than enough to tell you that Adata isn't marketing the Spectrix D50 Xtreme towards average joes. Unlike the vanilla Spectrix D50, the Xtreme version only comes in DDR4-4800 and DDR4-5000 flavors with a limited 16GB (2x8GB) capacity. The memory will likely not be on many radars unless you're a very hardcore enthusiast.

Adata borrowed the design from Spectrix D50 and took it to another level for the Spectrix D50 Xtreme. The heat spreader retains the elegant look with geometric lines. The difference is that the Xtreme variant features a polished, mirror-like heat spreader. The reflective finish looks stunning, but it's also a fingerprint and dust magnet, which is why Adata includes a microfiber cloth to tidy up.

The memory module measures 43.9mm (1.73 inches) so compatibility with big CPU air coolers is good. The Spectrix D50 Xtreme still has that RGB diffuser on the top of the memory module. Adata provides its own XPG RGB Sync application to control the lighting or if you prefer, you can use your motherboard's software. The Spectrix D50 Xtreme's RGB illumination is compatible with the ecosystems from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and ASRock.

Each Spectrix D50 Xtreme memory module is 8GB big and sticks to a conventional single-rank design. It features a black, eight-layer PCB and Hynix H5AN8G8NDJR-VKC (D-die) integrated circuits (ICs).

The default data rate and timings for the Spectrix D50 Xtreme are DDR4-2666 and 19-19-19-43, respectively. Adata equipped the memory with two XMP profiles with identical 19-28-28-46 timings. The primary profile corresponds to DDR4-5000, while the secondary profile sets the memory to DDR4-4800. Both data rates require a 1.6V DRAM voltage to function properly. For more on timings and frequency considerations, see our PC Memory 101 feature, as well as our How to Shop for RAM story.

Comparison Hardware

Our Intel platform simply can't handle the Spectrix D50 Xtreme DDR4-5000 memory kit. Neither our Core i7-10700K or Core i9-10900K sample has a strong IMC (integrated memory controller) for a memory kit.

The Ryzen 9 5900X, on the other hand, had no problems with the memory. The AMD test system leverages a Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master with the F13j firmware and aMSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Trio to run our RAM benchmarks.

Unfortunately, we ran into a small problem that prevented us from testing the Spectrix D50 Xtreme at its advertised frequency. One of the limitations with B550 motherboards is the inability to set memory timings above 27. The Spectrix D50 Xtreme requires 19-28-28-46 to run at DDR4-5000 properly. Despite brute-forcing the DRAM voltage, we simply couldn't get the Spectrix D50 Xtreme to run at 19-27-27-46. The only stable data rate with the aforementioned timings was DDR4-4866, which is what we used for testing.

AMD Performance

There's always a performance penalty when you break that 1:1 ratio with the Infinity Fabric Clock (FCLK) and memory clock on Ryzen processors. The Spectrix D50 Xtreme was just a hairline from surpassing the Xtreem ARGB memory kit where DDR4-3600 is basically the sweet spot for Ryzen.

It's important to bear in mind that the Spectrix D50 Xtreme was running at DDR4-4866. As small as it may seem, that 134 MHz difference should put Adata's offering really close to Crucial's Ballistix Max DDR4-5100, which is the highest-specced memory kit that has passed through our labs so far.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

Due to the motherboard limitation, we couldn't pursue overclocking on the Spectrix D50 Xtreme. However, in our experience, high-speed memory kits typically don't have much gas left in the tank. Furthermore, the Spectrix D50 Xtreme already requires 1.6V to hit DDR4-5000 so it's unlikely that we would have gotten anywhere without pushing insame amounts of volts into the memory

Lowest Stable Timings

At DDR4-4866, the Spectrix D50 Xtreme was cool operating with 19-27-27-46 timings. However, it wouldn't go lower regardless of the voltage that we crank into it. We'll revisit the overclocking portion of the review once we source a more capable processor and motherboard for the job.

Bottom Line

The Spectrix D50 Xtreme DDR4-5000 C19 won't offer you the best bang for your buck by any means. However, the memory will make your system look good and give you some bragging rights along the way. Just make sure you have a processor and motherboard that can tame the memory before pulling the trigger on a memory kit of this caliber.

With that said, the Spectrix D50 Xtreme DDR4-5000 C19 doesn't come cheap. The memory retails for $849.99 on Amazon. It's not like there are tons of DDR4-5000 memory kits out there, but the Spectrix D50 Xtreme is actually the cheapest of the lot. For the more budget-conscious consumers, however, you should probably stick to a DDR4-3600 or even DDR4-3800 memory kit with the lowest timings possible. In the end, the Spectrix D50 Xtreme is more luxury than necessity.

Memory maker Adata is preparing to release its first-ever DDR5 memory modules aimed at the gaming market, possibly adding a new tier to our list of Best RAM. Adata will release these new DDR5 modules under the new 'Caster' series branding. The kits will come in three capacities, including 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB configurations. Memory speeds will also be significantly higher than the JEDEC spec with 6000 MHz-7400 MHz configurations with a voltage of just 1.1V.

The Caster DDR5 memory modules will come in both RGB and non-RGB flavors, and just as you'd expect from gaming-flavored RAM, both variants come with a full heatsink cover.

The heatsinks feature a two-tone design with a matte black finish and an angled silver-metal finish in the middle that sports triangular shapes. Both variants feature the same design, but the RGB model is quite noticeably taller to make room for the additional RGB equipment necessary to light up the DIMM.

Without a doubt, this is the first major sign of DDR5 hitting the mainstream market sooner rather than later. We've already confirmed that Intel will use both DDR4 and DDR5 with its next-gen Alder Lake chips, and AMD is rumored to use DDR5 for its new AM5 Zen4 chips.

Altogether, this means we'll see a major change in memory adoption, from DDR4 to DDR5, over the 2022 to 2023 timeframe. This is good news, as DDR5's significantly higher memory bandwidth and other optimizations will allow both Intel and AMD to produce higher core count CPUs that will perform better without the current DDR4 bottlenecks. More memory bandwidth is also helping for feeding hungry graphics engines, which might ultimately result in faster integrated graphics, too. 

The ongoing Chia coin craze has already increased prices of high-capacity HDDs and SSDs in retail quite significantly. Since demand for storage devices is not going to get any lower, Taiwan-based makers of SSDs are developing special-purpose SSDs for Chia mining that they plan to sell directly to miners. Furthermore, drive makers expect Chia to consume considerable 3D NAND production capacities in the coming months. 

Adata, Apacer, Phison Electronics, and TeamGroup all reported significant increases of SSD orders in April when compared to March, according to DigiTimes. Adata said that demand for its SSDs increased by 400% – 500% sequentially last month, TeamGroup also saw an impressive increase and expressed optimism about the short-term Chia farming demand for SSDs. Other makers tend to agree that demand for SSDs will remain strong in the coming months.  

In a bid to meet demand and offer farmers the components they need to make the best Chia plotting PC builds, Adata, Phison, and TeamGroup have started developing  appropriate SSDs (or at least have created task forces). 

Since the majority of SSD makers have enterprise-grade drives designed for write-intensive workloads in their lineups, developing high-endurance Chia-optimized storage solutions should not pose a significant challenge for their engineering teams. Essentially, they will have to develop high-endurance SSDs based on consumer-grade 3D NAND (with loads of over-provisioning space) that do not have enterprise features. TeamGroup has already announced its first SSDs for Chia mining and expects to ship them in high volumes in Q3 2021. 

What is interesting is that Adata, Phison, and TeamGroup are looking at ways to ship their Chia farming SSDs directly to mining farms, so these drives may not end up in retail (just like we do not see many high-end HDDs and SSDs in retail). To some degree, this will ensure that large Chia farming operations will not get their drives from retail and inflate prices, which is good news. There is bad news too.  

High-capacity high-endurance SSDs for Chia mining will naturally increase demand for 3D NAND memory in general. Phison already told DigiTimes that Chia SSDs would "consume considerably all the available capacity" at 3D NAND makers. To that end, demand for both 3D NAND and SSD controller are set to increase, which will cause price hikes. 

XPG, Adata’s gaming sub-brand, didn’t stun us when it released its first laptop almost a year ago. That machine’s power was last-gen even at the time, and we went through multiple units with broken chassis during our review process. Now, XPG is back with a “gaming lifestyle” laptop that’s taking on the productivity space. The XPG Xenia Xe ($1,399 to start, $1,599 as tested) has a CPU that’s in line with Intel’s current generation this time around, but isn’t free from its own problems.

Like the Xenia 15, the Xenia Xe is also based on an Intel design, and while XPG has included a speedy custom SSD in this laptop, that prefab design does leave it feeling generic, which stings even more when you take into account this laptop’s price. 

Specifications

Design of the XPG Xenia Xe  

The XPG Xenia Xe’s design is plain and unassuming, which isn’t surprising given that it’s based on Intel’s NUC M15 Whitebook design that can be used by third-party manufacturers.  It has  a matte silver finish across the entire body, with vents on the back and underside and ports split across the left and right side of the laptops. Branding is minimal, with most of it reserved to a single XPG logo set off to one side of the lid. There are also vent holes just above the keyboard, which isn’t common in even the best ultrabooks, but is much appreciated here. The keyboard also has blue detailing on alternate functions, which helps them stand out and makes finding media control keys much easier.

All of this is aesthetically pleasing if a bit generic, although the laptop’s price leaves me wanting some kind of vanity feature. The chassis does a remarkable job of keeping fingerprints away, which helps keep it premium looking, although I’ve noticed it can also attract dust. 

The laptop  also has a light bar on its front, although this appears to be reserved for Alexa notifications. More on that later.

The Xenia Xe is also thin even for a productivity device. At 13.98 x 9.06 x 0.59 inches, it’s thinner than some 13 and 14 inch laptops we’ve reviewed, even if just barely. The MSI Prestige 14 Evo, for instance, is 12.6 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches, while the Razer Book 13 is 11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 4, which is also 15 inches, does beat the XPG Xenia Xe, though, coming in at 13.4 x 9.6 x 0.58 inches.

Port selection is varied and well-distributed. The laptop’s left side has a Thunderbolt 4 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port and an HDMI 2.0 port. The right side also houses both a Thunderbolt 4 port and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, as well as the 3.5mm combination microphone/headphone jack and a Kensington lock slot. 

Productivity Performance on the XPG Xenia Xe

The XPG Xenia Xe has an Intel Core i7-1165G7, which we tested against the similarly specced Razer Book 13 as well as against the MSI Prestige 14 Evo with an Intel Core i7-1185G7. We also threw the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 with a custom AMD Ryzen 7 4890U into our comparisons, to see how the Xenia stacks up against AMD.

In Geekbench 5, which is an synthetic benchmark for testing general performance, the Xenia Xe just barely squeaked ahead of both of its Intel competitors in single and multi-core performance but severely fell behind the Surface Laptop 4 on multi-core tests. Specifically, it earned a score of 1,583 on single core tests and 5,784 on multi-core tests. Meanwhile, the MSI Prestige 14 Evo scored 1,563/5,660 points, the Razer Book 13 scored 1,556/5,495 points and the Surface Laptop 4 hit 1,173/6,748 points.

Our file transfer benchmark, which gauges how quickly a laptop moves 25GB of files, saw the Xenia Xe pull far ahead of the pack. That’s not too surprising, since this laptop’s sole distinguishing hardware feature when compared to the Whitebook it’s based on its custom Adata SSD. It hit 1,211.9 MBps, while the Prestige 14 Evo came in second at 999.3 MBps. The RazerBook 13 lagged behind with 479 MBps, while the Surface Laptop 4 came in last with 372.49 MBps.

Our Handbrake video encoding test, which tracks how long it takes a laptop to transcode a video down from 4K to FHD, saw mostly even results among all competitors except the Surface Laptop 4. The Xenia Xe finished transcoding in 13:36, while the Prestige 14 Evo was slightly faster with a time of 12:27 and the Razer Book 13 was slightly slower with a time of 14:46. The Surface Laptop 4 cut these speeds almost in half, finishing its transcode in 8:21.

We also ran the XPG Xenia Xe through 20 consecutive Cinebench R23 runs to simulate an extended work session. The laptop averaged a score of 4423.79, while its CPU ran at an average clock speed of 3.19 GHz and hit average temperatures of 78.07 degrees Celsius (172.53 degrees Fahrenheit).

Display on the XPG Xenia Xe 

The XPG Xenia Xe comes with a 15.6 inch IPS touchscreen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, and while it’s bright and its colors are competitive, it’s marred by heavy glare.

I watched the Mortal Kombat trailer on the Xenia Xe, and while I was impressed by how deep its blacks were, I had difficulty making much else out. At mid-day with my curtains up, glare was so bad that I sometimes couldn’t see the screen clearly even when I was sitting directly in front of it. This also meant that viewing angles were restrictive, of course, so I wouldn’t recommend watching this laptop’s screen from the side.

That’s a shame, because the screen is otherwise bright, hitting an average of 436 nits.

The glare issue became a little less apparent when I drew my curtains and turned off all light sources in my office, and I was able to get watchable horizontal viewing angles up to about 60 degrees. But reflectivity became a noticeable problem in glare’s stead, as I could see my blouse reflected in such detail on screen that I could easily make out its patterns.

When I could see the image on the screen without issue, I found that colors appeared accurate but not vivid. Turning off my lights and drawing my curtains to reduce glare did help colors pop more, though.

Our testing put the Xenia Xe in last place on color gamut compared to the laptops we tested it against, though not by much. It has a 76.7% DCI-P3 rating, while the Surface Laptop 4 has a 77.8% DCI-P3 rating and the Prestige 14 Evo has a 78.9% rating. The Razer Book 13 fared best here, with a DCI-P3 color gamut of 80.7%.

Our brightness testing saw the Xenia Xe and Razer Book 13 tying, with a brightness average of 436 nits each. The Surface Laptop 4 was next up, with 334 nits, while the Prestige 14 Evo came in last at 284 nits.

Keyboard, Touchpad and Touchscreen on the XPG Xenia Xe 

The XPG Xenia Xe has a full-size membrane chiclet keyboard with a purported 1.2mm travel that feels much shorter than I’d like in practice and that led me to make plenty of typos during testing.

The keys tend to have a harsh, stiff feeling when finishing keystrokes, which when combined with their short travel, makes typing uncomfortable and makes touch typing feedback difficult to discern. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure when a keystroke had actually registered, leading me to move on to the next letter prematurely and causing me to make a typo.

The lack of feedback also seemed to slow down my typing. My usual 75 - 80 words per minute range on 10fastfingers.com was reduced to a 70 - 75 wpm range instead.

The large, 4.6 x 2.7-inch precision touchpad proved much more usable. My finger effortlessly glided across it and input multi-touch gestures with no issues, and you can even double tap the touchpad in the top left corner to toggle it on or off. That’s useful for people who prefer to use external mice or may use this for light gaming.

Audio on the XPG Xenia Xe 

The XPG Xenia Xe has two bottom firing speakers that produce clear, loud and almost tin-less audio.

I first tested the Xenia Xe’s speakers by listening to Levitating by Dua Lipa, and was easily able to fill my whole two bedroom apartment with sound at max volume. I found comfortable listening levels to be closer to 40% volume, and that volume did not affect fidelity.

Vocals were clear throughout the song, and while the bassline had less physical oomph in my chest than I got with my headphones, it was still audible and distinct. I also found that there wasn’t any echo or unnatural tinny quality to higher notes.

All of my listening was done using the music audio preset in the NUC Audio Studio app, although you can also swap to presets for “voice,” “gaming” and “movie” presets for other tasks. You can also adjust eq and postprocessing levels for details like bass and vocals individually, although I found that the presets gave me the best experience.

I also watched the Mortal Kombat trailer again using the “movie” preset. I heard voices clearly and the sound effects and backing soundtrack sounded properly epic without being overwhelming.

Neither Levitating nor Mortal Kombat sounded as believable in presets meant for other mediums.

Upgradeability of the XPG Xenia Xe 

To open the XPG Xenia Xe, just unscrew the seven Torx screws on the underside (we used a TR6 bit). After that, you’ll have access to the SSD and the networking chip, but the RAM is soldered in.

Battery Life on the XPG Xenia Xe 

 Even against other Intel Evo laptops, the XPG Xenia Xe has impressive battery life. In our battery benchmark test, which continually streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the Xenia Xe held out for 15:56. That’s over three hours longer than all of the competitors we tested, even the MSI Prestige 14 Evo. Evo platforms have to meet certain battery life standards for Intel to certify them, but the Prestige 14 Evo’s 12:25 battery life still falls well short of its colleague.

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 4, which uses an AMD processor, came in slightly behind the Prestige 14 Evo in our testing with a 12:04 battery life, while the Razer Book 13 brought up the rear with an 11:44 battery life.

Heat on the XPG Xenia Xe 

The XPG Xenia Xe’s surface temperatures remained cool during our temperature benchmark, where we streamed video for 15 minutes and then read how hot it was at certain key areas. 

The laptop’s touchpad registered 82.5 degrees Fahrenheit (28.05 degrees Celsius), while the center of its keyboard (in between the G and H keys) hit 87 degrees Fahrenheit (30.56 degrees Celsius). The laptop’s underside was significantly warmer, with most of its surface area registering at 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.44 degrees Celsius). The area near the underside vents was the hottest area on the laptop, hitting 110 degrees Fahrenheit (44.33 degrees Celsius). It never felt hot to the touch during use.

Webcam on the XPG Xenia Xe 

The XPG Xenia Xe has a 720p webcam that’s prone to artifacting and poor color accuracy.

During mid-day in my office, under what I would consider typical lighting conditions for most of my workday, the Xenia Xe’s webcam gave my face and even my hand an eerily rosy appearance. It was also prone to mild pixelation and unnaturally harsh edges.

The rosy color on my face disappeared in my more dimly lit hallway, but pixelation became much more noticeable. On the plus side, I do appear more well-lit in my photos than I actually was in real life.

When I saturated the Xenia Xe’s camera with light by standing directly in front of my office window, I seemed to get the best balance of color accuracy and low artifacting. Still, unnaturally harsh lines still persist around my head, and it’s probably not ideal to take video calls in front of a sheet of pure white light.

The XPG Xenia Xe’s webcam also has IR capabilities for use with Windows Hello, which worked flawlessly during my testing. 

Software and Warranty on the XPG Xenia Xe

XPG hasn’t included any of its own software on the Xenia Xe, although Intel’s Graphics Command Center, NUC Software Studio and NUC Audio Studio do give you some utility options. 

The Intel Graphics Command Center allows you to easily adjust your screen, set hotkeys for different display options and even record your screen. 

The NUC Software Studio lets you set up the PC to detect your presence based on the laptop’s webcam so that it can wake or sleep accordingly. It’s a nice touch, and while it works well, it overlaps a bit too much with pre-existing Windows features like Windows Hello and even sleeping to be that novel. It’s also worth noting that, at a minimum, you need to not be present for at least a minute for your laptop to auto-lock.

You can also use NUC Software Studio to allow Alexa to use the laptop’s light bar (located on the front of the laptop) for notifications. Plus, you can use this app to monitor memory, storage and CPU usage.

I covered NUC Audio Studio more deeply in this review’s audio section, but it gives you access to basic audio post processing presets and an equalizer to fine tune how your laptop sounds.

Typical Windows pre-installs like Spotify and Microsoft Solitaire Collection are also present here. 

The XPG Xenia Xe has a 1 year limited warranty.

XPG Xenia Xe Configurations

The XPG Xenia Xe comes in two configurations — one with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 and one with an Intel Core i7-1165G7. We reviewed the latter, which also has 16GB of LPDDR4x-4266 memory and a 1TB SSD. This configuration currently costs $1,599 at most retailers, after a price drop from the $1,699 MSRP.

The Core i5 model reduces the memory to 8GB but keeps the 1TB SSD. Both versions also have the same 15.6 inch 1920 x 1080 IPS touchscreen. The Core i5 model costs $1,399 at most retailers, also after a price drop from the $1,499 MSRP.

While the Xenia Xe is based on the Intel NUC M15 Whitebox, XPG has swapped out the storage for its own custom XPG Gammix S50 Lite Gen 4 SSD in the vast majority of units. XPG’s website says this drive “comes standard” with the Xenia Xe, although certain promotional units “may come with other XPG Gen4 SSDs” in certain regions.

Bottom Line

It’s hard to know what the audience is for the XPG Xenia Xe, since it calls itself a “gaming lifestyle notebook,” has gaming laptop style pricing, and has packaging that’s still sufficiently gamer-y, to the point of greeting you with a pop-up cutout of XPG’s anime girl mascot as soon as you open the box. That said, the laptop’s look and capabilities are far more in line with productivity notebooks, which represents a problem for it, as its par-for-the-course power and poor display/keyboard leave it feeling overpriced.

The only productivity benchmark we ran where the Xenia Xe stood out was our file transfer test, where it was much faster than all of the competing laptops we tested. That’s to be expected given XPG’s reputation for fast SSDs. But since every other productivity benchmark was roughly on par with other Intel laptops and far behind our sole AMD contender, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4, it’s hard to justify getting the Xenia Xe on these grounds alone.

Which is a shame, since it doesn’t stand out elsewhere. The screen is prone to heavy glare, and the short travel distance on the keyboard makes for an uncomfortable experience and led me to make plenty of typos. Battery life is longer than competitors, although it’s up to you whether you want longer battery life if it means more time spent with a mediocre screen and keyboard setup.

At $1,600, I’d expect a more premium experience from the Xenia Xe. But if that’s what you’re aiming for, and you don’t mind a 13-inch laptop, you might want to go for the Razer Book 13 instead. It’s a smaller take on this “gaming lifestyle” concept that actually maintains some gamer niceties, like a comfortable per-key RGB keyboard and a 16:10 screen that, while smaller, is far easier to see.