Adata XPG GAMMIX S10 SSD Review

Conclusion

Some might say that the Adata XPG GAMMIX S10 is a dressed-up Intel 600p, but there are some slight differences between the two products. We can't say the same about the Adata SX7000. Under the hood, the XPG GAMMIX S10 is secretly Adata's entry-level 7000-series NVMe SSD, and your device manager will even identify it as such.

The Adata GAMMIX S10 512GB will deliver a pleasant experience for most users, but the delta between good and sluggish is closer than you would find on a higher-end model like the Samsung 960 EVO (with TLC memory) or the MyDigitalSSD BPX (MLC).

Most users rarely write a lot of data to the drive in one setting, aside from during the initial system setup. Most desktop PC users write less than a few gigabytes a day after they've installed Office, games, and other applications. If you are honest with yourself about your workload, an entry-level SSD could be a solid solution for your needs. For most PC users, these drives perform better than similarly-priced SATA models.

The Adata XPG GAMMIX S10 doesn't provide class-leading performance. The heatsink makes it look the part, but it's largely ineffective at combating thermal throttling. Not to get side-tracked, but the thermal tape off to the side of the controller was a bad move.

The SSD does give you a decent SLC buffer window that's long enough to absorb common write workloads. The S10's sequential performance for both reads and writes is higher than SATA can deliver even with the best flash and controller. The Adata XPG GAMMIX S10 is exactly the kind of product DIY'ers look for. It's a budget drive that delivers better performance than some higher-priced products.

The drive also gives me a weird feeling inside because, like the Intel 600p, it has award potential. This drive is an excellent value for most users, delivers better-than-SATA performance, and looks good doing it. This is a good drive for many people, but at the same time, it's a really bad drive for the rest of us. The distance between a good user experience and a bad one is fairly small. You're literally a Blu-Ray ISO transfer away from being in a latent hell. You can pocket the savings and live with the poor performance on the rare occasions when you write a lot of data, or you could pay more and have a much larger gap between the two drive states.

When it comes to performance, the difference between the good and bad state is extreme. When you cross that threshold, you will wish your shopping cart had an 850 EVO in it. The XPG GAMMIX S10 doesn't stutter, in our experience, but it gets right up to that point. You can feel the latency after heavy workloads when your windows slow after a double-click. It took a lot for us to get the drive in that condition, but once it was there, we knew something didn’t feel right.

We had a much easier time with our Intel 600p recommendation. The real issue is pricing. Personally, the Adata XPG GAMMIX S10 512GB would be a really good fit for many of my computers. There are some systems where it wouldn't, but for many, this drive would work very well and save them some money.

Adata XPG GAMMIX S10 (512GB)

Pros

• Low cost
• Better than SATA performance until you push it
• Attractive design
• A strong general-use SSD

Cons

• Low delta to degraded performance state
• The low performance is noticeable when pushed
• Ineffective heatsink design

Verdict

The Adata XPG Gammix S10 is a blessing for users with light workloads. The S10's performance is better than what SATA can deliver, and for many, the low performance state will never come into play. We really like this drive's price point, but it's only for systems with light workloads.

$279.99Amazon

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