Adata XPG SX8200 Pro Review: Go Pro on a Budget (2TB Update)

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Adata’s combination of Micron's 64-Layer flash and Silicon Motion’s SM2262 controller scored a home run in the SX8200 and GAMMIX S11 SSDs that were among the best high-performance NVMe SSDs of 2018. The SX8200 takes that rich tradition and builds on it.

The  Silicon Motion SM2262EN makes Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro a fierce competitor, as, at publication time, it had remained in the top spot on our best SSDs page for several months. 

Based on our testing, we’re quite impressed. The SX8200 Pro easily served up 3.5 GBps of read throughput and 3 GBps write speeds, even as the workload intensified. This professional-class SSD even trades blows with Samsung’s 970 series and often outperforms most SM2262-based SSDs.

Perhaps most importantly, the SX8200 Pro outperforms every other flash-based SSD in real-world tests. The drive excelled in SYSmark and loaded game levels faster than any drive we’ve tested. It also notched an average bandwidth of 765MB/s, second only to the Samsung 970 PRO, which costs more than twice as much,  and over 200 MBps faster than the GAMMIX S11.

Not only do we see strong performance under load, but we also see fantastic efficiency. We measured 189 MBps per watt, which is almost 50% better than any other SSD in its class. That's impressive for a TLC SSD with less overprovisioning than competing models.

The SX8200 Pro does have a few downsides, though. While it boasts a five-year warranty, it has the same endurance rating as the Adata's non-Pro equivalents. If you're after an alternative to the high-endurance Samsung 970 PRO, the SX8200 Pro is not the best option: The drive’s endurance ratings are one-third that of Phison E12 powered SSDs like the Corsair Force MP510 and MyDigitalSSD BPX Pro. This is a concern for professional use-cases, but the endurance rating is enough for enthusiasts.

Adata prices the XPG SX8200 Pro at ~$0.11-0.13 per GB (at press time), which makes it an absolute steal. Even If you're searching for a new high-performance NVMe SSD and don't require workstation-class endurance, the SX8200 Pro is probably your best choice.

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Sean Webster
Sean Webster
Storage Reviewer

Sean is a Contributing Editor at Tom’s Hardware US, covering storage hardware.

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20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • popatim
    Did you run into any issues witht he drive being detected on restarts like several forum users reported?
    Reply
  • Khadijahp
    Though an limited edition, for comparision purposes the Intel's Ryzen killer Core i9 9900KS should had been included, instead of, or beyond the overclocked 9900K.
    Reply
  • Mezoxin
    popatim said:
    Did you run into any issues witht he drive being detected on restarts like several forum users reported?
    had the drive for quite a while on my system as my main drive never experienced such issues
    Reply
  • mac_angel
    I thought you did a review of this drive a long time ago.
    Reply
  • Mezoxin
    mac_angel said:
    I thought you did a review of this drive a long time ago.
    yes this is an old review from feburary-april i think , it got somehow reposted , i know this because i read this review before buying mine
    Reply
  • mac_angel
    lol, same. I have the 1tb one and I love it.
    Reply
  • Gillerer
    "Pro" is just a word. You can't draw conclusions from Samsung's use of it to mean "MLC" / "more consistent performance", and apply it to other manufacturers. (You could just as well draw conclusions from AMD's past use of it to mean "partially disabled silicon".)

    This simply has an updated controller and firmware compared to the original SX8200, so different - but not necessarily better in all cases - performance characteristics. It's not a different class of product to SX8200 (non-Pro), but rather a later revision that replaces it.
    Reply
  • AlistairAB
    popatim said:
    Did you run into any issues witht he drive being detected on restarts like several forum users reported?

    Have bought several of these, never had issues showing up in the BIOS. I did have that problem with the Intel equivalent once (the Intel 760p or whatever it was called). Anyways that stuff is motherboard dependent, and has nothing to do with the SSD.
    Reply
  • plotinusredux
    SM2262EN drives are showing significant slowdowns off the x570 chipset compared to the off the CPU, though we're having trouble getting a response on it. For me (3700x MSI ACE x570 ADATA SX8200PNP) even at Q=1, sequential read is dropping from 2794 MB/s to 2422 MB/s in Crystal. Random read performance is only dropping a little, but random writes are also affected (226 MB/s to 199 MB/s at Q=1, 1451 MB/s to 1041 MB/s at Q=32).

    This seems to only be happening with the SM2262EN--see "X570 + SM2262(EN) NVMe Drives" reddit thread where people have tested specifically SM2262EN drives and ones with other controllers in the same system.

    If you could test the ADATA and one with another controller on an x570 motherboard, maybe we could get SMI or AMD's attention.
    Reply
  • Zpxkma
    Anyone else receive one of these ssds with different dram and nand? My first sx8200 pro had micron/nanya and the second one I ordered came with Unic²/Samsung(sec).

    a/XujJcFnView: https://imgur.com/a/XujJcFn
    Reply