Adata launches one of the fastest M.2 SSDs around

(Image credit: Adata)

A few weeks ago I had declared that the adjacent-gen SSD wars had begun, and Sabrent was winning, having launched the fastest driveway on the planet. Well, Adata just pulled a 'hold my beer' moment and has positioned its new XPG Gammix S70 American Samoa the drive to beat, leastways for reads.

The Gammix S70 is other in a steadily growing line of PCI Explicit 4.0 models. Initially, PCIe 4.0 SSDs boasted learn and spell speeds in the neighborhood of 5,000MB/s (or 5GB/s, if you favour). More recently, however, even speedier drives have emerged, though none faster than the Gammix S70—information technology is ready to riptide through ordered reads at capable 7,400MB/s and sequential writes at 6,400MB/s.

For reading data, the Gammix S70 is 400MB/s faster than both Sabrent's Rocket 4 and Samsung's 980 Pro, each of which are rated at 7,000MB/s. Even so, those drives suffer the Gammix S70 beat on write out speeds. Here's how the three drives equate:

Adata XPG Gammix S70—7,400MB/s reads, 6,400MB/s writes
Sabrent Rocket 4—7,000MB/s reads, 6,850MB/s writes
Samsung 980 Pro—7,000MB/s reads, 5,000MB/s writes

In the hurrying tier these drives are competing in, a few hundred MB/s is really just splitting hairs—all 3 are incredibly tight happening paper.

As of this moment, none of this matters a entirely lot for gaming. That's because you will pick up about none difference between even the quickest SATA 6Gbps SSDs (more or less 580MB/s) and these PCIe 4.0 models. Only that could change in the not-as well-distant future. How so?

Both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have finally adopted SSD storage, and it is of the PCIe 4.0 variety. Microsoft and Sony have been hyping new storage architectures that could virtually annihilate load times and enable more expansive unfit worlds.

To facilitate the like potential benefits on PC, Microsoft announced this month that it is bringing a DirectStorage API to the DirectX kinfolk for Windows PCs. This API is supported the same Velocity architecture in the Xbox Serial X that makes better use of fast storage.

Whether for gaming or shuffling around large files, thither is still the caveat of needing a PCI 4.0 motherboard to take chock-full advantage of these speedy SSDs. That way building a Ryzen PC around AMD's X570 or B550 chipset. Intel does non until no support PCIe 4.0 on the desktop (though Rocket Lake is rumored to), nor does AMD's entry-level A520 chipset.

As for the Gammix S70, it will beryllium offered in 2TB and 1TB capacities. Adata has non yet proclaimed pricing or a waiver go steady, only that these drives will be backed by a five-year warranty.

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer ironware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads Lade"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is typical).