Model: ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 Solid State Drive
Manufacturer: ADATA Technology
Provided By: ADATA Technology (USA)

ADATA Technology is one of the world's leading manufacturers of high performance memory modules and data storage solutions. Founded in 2001 with a staff of 20, this Taiwanese company set itself apart from the competition early on thanks to its professionalism, industry know-how and eye-catching product designs. Today, ADATA continues to lead the way through constant innovation and development of products that exceed customer expectations. Backed by technical expertise, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and premium customer service, ADATA currently offers a variety of products including DRAM modules, USB flash drives, memory cards, solid state drives and portable hard drives.

One of the latest additions to ADATA's line of solid state drives is the XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade. Designed to meet the demands of gaming, graphics processing and 5G applications, this M.2 form factor drive is powered by Innogrit's Rainier (IG5236) controller and is available with up to 2TB of 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash. The GAMMIX S70 Blade also utilizes dynamic SLC caching and a DRAM cache buffer to improve read and write performance as well as Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) code technology, End-To-End (E2E) data protection, a RAID engine and AES 256-bit encryption to ensure data security and integrity. To top it all off, the GAMMIX S70 Blade is equipped with a robust, yet slim, aluminum heatsink as well as an ultra-fast PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe 1.4 interface to deliver up to 7,400 MB/s read and 6,800 MB/s write speeds.

The GAMMIX S70 Blade is available in 1TB and 2TB capacities. For this review, ADATA sent us the 1TB version of the drive which is capable of delivering up to 7,400 MB/s sequential read and 5,500 MB/s sequential write speeds as well as up to 740,000 random read and write IOPS.

   ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 Solid State Drive
General Specifications
Part Number AGAMMIXS70B-1T-CS
Capacity 1TB
NAND Flash Micron 176-Layer 3D TLC
Controller Innogrit Rainier IG5236
Form Factor M.2 (2280)
Interface PCIe Gen 4.0 x4, NVMe 1.4

Performance
Sequential Read 7,400 MB/s Max
Sequential Write 5,500 MB/s Max
Random Read IOPS 740,000 Max
Random Write IOPS 740,000 Max

Reliability
MTBF 2,000,000 hours
Endurance (TBW) 740TB

Environmental
Operating Temperature 0°C ~ 70°C
Storage Temperature -40°C ~ 85°C
Shock 1500G/0.5ms

Dimensions and Weight
Dimensions 80 x 22 x 3.3 mm
Weight 7g

Other Features
SLC Caching and DRAM cache buffer
Advanced LDPC ECC Technology
End-to-End (E2E) Data Protection and RAID Engine
AES 256-bit encryption support
Five year warranty

Needless to say, this is only a taste of what the GAMMIX S70 Blade has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a closer look at ADATA's new PCIe 4.0 SSD and then see how well it performs. Does the GAMMIX S70 Blade have what it takes? Can it deliver the value and performance we've come to expect from ADATA? Keep reading as we find out.



 

The GAMMIX S70 Blade comes in a small red box. Along with a picture of the drive, the front advertises a number of its key features including its 1TB capacity, PCIe 4.0 interface, 3D NAND, support for NVMe 1.4, SLC caching and optional heatsink. The back of the box provides a bit more information regarding the GAMMIX S70 Blade's features and performance. Inside, you'll find the SSD as well as a black, aluminum heatsink that can be attached to the drive.

Physical Features:

The GAMMIX S70 Blade uses the 2280 form factor for M.2 (NGFF) SSDs. It measures 80 x 22 x 3.3 mm and weighs in at 7g. The drive also has an "M key" edge connector which provides PCIe SSDs with up to 4x lanes of bandwidth.

Like the GAMMIX S70, the GAMMIX S70 Blade uses Innogrit's Rainier (IG5236) controller. Designed for the high-end client and entry-level datacenter markets, this PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe 1.4 controller has 8 NAND channels that can run at up to 1200MT/s. The GAMMIX S70 Blade also supports MLC, TLC and QLC NAND and features multiple data encryption and protection schemes including AES, ECC and end-to-end data protection.

For the 1TB version of the GAMMIX S70 Blade, ADATA has opted to use its own Micron manufactured 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash. Looking at the picture above, you can see that there are two 256GB NAND flash packages on either side of the PCB. The drive also has a pair of 512MB Samsung DDR4 DRAM memory chips that are used for caching.

The aluminum heatsink included with the GAMMIX S70 Blade is simple, yet functional. It attaches to the top of the drive using thermal adhesive and does have a small, yet measurable, impact on temperature. I found that with the heatsink installed, the GAMMIX S70 Blade's temps dropped by a few degrees during idle periods and heavy workloads.


Like ADATA's other SSDs, the XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade works with their SSD Toolbox. This free downloadable utility is an easy way for users to obtain information about their drives and change various system settings. Additionally, it can be used to speed up your SSD and even improve the endurance of a drive.

When you run ADATA SSD Toolbox, the main screen displays information about your drives. From here, users can view information like the capacity, used space, temperature, health and lifespan of each drive. By clicking on the tabs, you'll also find information like the model name, firmware version and serial number and connection speed.

The SSD Toolbox offers two different diagnostic scans. The quick diagnostics scan runs a basic test on free space and is usually completed in under two minutes. The full diagnostics scan runs a read test on all used space and a write test on all free space of the selected drive. Needless to say, the full scan takes much longer to complete.

ADATA's SSD Toolbox also includes a number of utilities. Along with the ability to do a secure erase, users can update a drive's firmware, upgrade the software and export a log file containing information about your system and drives.

The System Optimization option gives users the ability to run a TRIM command on a selected SSD. Users also have the ability optimize their OS by enabling features like superfetch, prefetch and automatic defragmentation.

SSD Toolbox can also be used to view information about your system. The utility displays a number of things including the operating system, CPU, amount of usable RAM and the model and BIOS version of your motherboard. There are also links to get help, download a user manual and register your SSD.


The test system used in this review is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 3700x CPU, MSI B550 GAMING PLUS motherboard, 16GB (8GB x 2) of Crucial Ballistix 3200 MHz DDR4 memory, Crucial P5 1TB SSD and a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card. For the operating system, I used the latest version of Windows 10 Pro.

To test the performance of ADATA's XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade SSD, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, HD Tach RW, ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS SSD, HD Tune Pro, Anvil's Storage Utilities, Iometer and PCMark. For comparison, I've also included test results from the Crucial P5 Plus, Plextor M10PY, ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70, Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, WD_BLACK SN850, Silicon Power US70, ADATA XPG GAMMIX S50 Lite, Samsung 980, Silicon-Power UD70, Crucial P2, SK hynix Gold P31, Crucial P5, ADATA SWORDFISH, ADATA FALCON, Lexar NM610, Silicon Power P34A60, Patriot P300, Plextor M9PG Plus, Plextor M9PY Plus, ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro, Western Digital WD_BLACK SN750, Lexar NQ100, Samsung 970 EVO Plus, ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro, Crucial P1, ADATA XPG SX8200, Western Digital WD_BLACK NVMe, Samsung 970 EVO, Samsung 970 PRO, Plextor M9Pe, Plextor M8Se, Patriot Hellfire, ADATA XPG SX8000, Samsung 960 PRO, Toshiba OCZ RD400, Samsung 950 PRO, Samsung 870 EVO, Samsung 870 QVO, Silicon Power PC60 and SK hynix Gold S31.

As I mentioned earlier, the GAMMIX S70 Blade uses Innogrit's Rainier (IG5236) controller chip. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that it performs equally well with both incompressible (0%) and compressible (100%) data.

CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential and random read and write speeds. For this test, we're using the peak and real world profiles.

According to ADATA, the 1TB GAMMIX S70 Blade is capable of reading at 7,400 MB/s and writing at 5,500 MB/s. As you can see, the drive had no problems reaching these speeds in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read and write tests.

As you'd expect, the GAMMIX S70 Blade wasn't as fast when tested with the "real world" profile which uses a single thread and a much lower queue depth. Nevertheless, it was still able to read at 3,685 MB/s and write at more than 5,400 MB/s.

HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:

Next, I used HD Tach to test the GAMMIX S70 Blade's read, write and burst speeds as well as its random access time and CPU usage.

Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that the GAMMIX S70 had average read and write speeds of 2806.0 MB/s and 1691.0 MB/s respectively, as well as a burst speed of 3532.9 MB/s. The screenshot also shows that, like most other TLC-based SSDs, the GAMMIX S70 Blade uses some sort of SLC caching. The drive starts writing at about 2,800 MB/s and then drops to about 2,000 MB/s when the write operation exceeds the size of the cache. The GAMMIX S70 Blade is able to maintain this speed for a short time before its write speed drops again, down to 950 MB/s.

ATTO Disk Benchmark 4.01:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the GAMMIX S70 Blade's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 512B to 64 MB and the total length set to 256MB.


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB
 
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB

When tested with ATTO, the GAMMIX S70 Blade's read speeds topped out at about 7.01 GB/s and its write speeds at 6.03 GB/s.


AS SSD:

AS SSD is a benchmark designed specifically for solid state drives. The application contains five synthetic tests used to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of a drive.


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB
 
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB

AS SSD also includes a copy benchmark. This test copies an ISO (two large files), program (many small files) and game (small and large files), returning the speed and duration of each.


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB
 
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB

HD Tune Pro 5.75:

Next, I ran a series of tests using HD Tune Pro. This hard disk utility measures a drive's performance by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its access time, burst rate and CPU usage. For this review, I'm also going to use it to benchmark the GAMMIX S70 Blade's random read and write speeds, random access times and the number of operations per second.


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB - Read Benchmark
 
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB - Read Benchmark


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB - Write Benchmark
 
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB - Write Benchmark

The GAMMIX S70 Blade performed relatively well when benchmarked with HD Tune. The drive had average read and write speeds of 6030.2 MB/s and 2664.2 MB/s, respectively.


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB - Random Access Read
 
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB - Random Access Read


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB - Random Access Write
 
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB - Random Access Write

When writing 4KB blocks, the GAMMIX S70 Blade reached 51,101 IOPS and had an average speed of 199.614 MB/s. The drive was even faster when reading, reaching 53,728 IOPS with an average speed of 209.878 MB/s.


Anvil's Storage Utilities:

Anvil's Storage Utilities is another benchmark designed with SSDs in mind. The standard storage benchmark measures a drive's performance by testing its transfer speeds, access times and IOPS.

Iometer:

Lastly, I ran a series of tests using Iometer. This tool can be configured to benchmark a number of things. In this case, I used it to measure the GAMMIX S70 Blade's read and write speeds and the number of operations per second. The tests were run using random bytes and a queue depth of 3.

The GAMMIX S70 Blade's performance was very similar to what we saw in our other tests. The drive was able to read at 7098.11 MB/s and write at 6116.38 MB/s.

The GAMMIX S70 Blade also performed fairly well when doing random reads and writes. In our tests, the drive was able to read at 443.53 MB/s and write at 641.80 MB/s.

According to ADATA, the 1TB GAMMIX S70 Blade is capable of 740,000 IOPS when reading and writing 4K blocks. With two threads and a queue depth of three, the drive reached 113,544 random read IOPS and 164,300 random write IOPS.

As with most drives, the GAMMIX S70 Blade performed better with more threads and at higher queue depths. With sixteen threads and the queue depth set to 32, it reached 765,629 random read IOPS and 610,207 random write IOPS. 


PCMark 8 - Storage Test:

PCMark 8 is a complete benchmark for Windows. It includes five benchmark tests, each designed around a specific scenario. The storage benchmark measures drive performance using real-world traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of popular games.

PCMark 8 also includes a consistency test which measures the performance consistency and degradation tendency of a storage system. The test reports the performance level at the start, the degraded steady-state and the recovered state as well as the number of iterations required to reach the degraded state and the recovered state. For this test, we are focusing on the Adobe Photoshop (Heavy) trace and will look at both the bandwidth and latency of the drive.

The GAMMIX S70 Blade did quite well throughout PCMark's consistency test. The average bandwidth stayed above 1000 MB/s throughout most of the degradation and steady state phases and peaked at 1110 MB/s during the recovery phase.

PCMark 10 - Full System Drive Benchmark:

PCMark 10's Full System Drive Benchmark uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to fully test the performance of the fastest modern drives. This benchmark produces an overall score as a measure of drive performance. Comparing devices is as simple as comparing scores. The tests also measure and report the bandwidth and average access time performance for the drive.

Thanks to its high bandwidth and low latency, the GAMMIX S70 Blade did quite well in PCMark 10's Full System Drive Benchmark. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to top the Plextor M10PY or the WD_BLACK SN850.


TRIM Performance:

While SSD's offer many benefits, there are some downsides to using flash memory. One of the biggest issues people run into is performance degradation. Over time, an SSD will run out of fresh blocks and will have to write over data the file system has marked as deleted. This procedure is very complicated and can slow an SSD's write speeds considerably.

To fix this problem, most manufacturers have added TRIM support to their SSDs. The TRIM command allows an operating system, such as Windows 10, to tell an SSD which data blocks are no longer in use. Using this information, the drive pro-actively erases these blocks and adds them to the free block pool.

To test the GAMMIX S70 Blade's TRIM and garbage collection functions, I first put the drive in a "dirty" state. I used Iometer to fill 80% of the drive and then ran a random write test for 30 minutes. Looking at the screenshot below, you can see that the GAMMIX S70 Blade's average read and write speeds dropped to 1344.26 MB/s and 697.45 MB/s, respectively.


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade - Dirty

To see how well the GAMMIX S70 Blade could recover, I let the computer sit for about 30 minutes and then reran the test. The drive's average write speed climbed up to 5542.69 MB/s. However, its read speed lagged behind, averaging out at only 4303.52 MB/s.


ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade - After TRIM

Lastly, I used Parted Magic to perform a secure erase on the GAMMIX S70 Blade. With the drive wiped clean, it had average read and write speeds of 5655.37 MB/s and 5704.83 MB/s, respectively.

 
ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade- Secure Erased


Heatsink Performance:

While faster than their SATA-based SSDs, PCIe drives like the GAMMIX S70 Blade tend to generate more heat. In fact, if your computer doesn't have enough airflow or a large video card covering your M.2 slots, they can get quite hot. To prevent themselves from overheating, most SSDs have implemented a mechanism called thermal throttling which automatically reduces a drive's performance when it reaches a certain temperature.

If you're someone looking to get the most out of your SSD, this is something that you don't want to happen so companies like ADATA have begun to include an optional, stick-on heatsink with many of their PCIe SSDs.

Without the heatsink, the GAMMIX S70 Blade idled at around 51 ºC. When pushed hard, the drive reached temperatures as high as 66 ºC when reading and 72 ºC when writing. These temperatures had no impact on the GAMMIX S70 Blade's read speeds. However, when it would exceed 71 ºC, thermal throttling would kick in and slow the drive's sequential write speed.

With the heatsink installed, the GAMMIX S70 Blade's temperature dropped by a few degrees while idle and when reading. The drive still thermal throttled when writing. However, it took longer to reach this point and the drop in performance did not seem nearly as pronounced.

Final Thoughts:

At first glance, the XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade may seem to be nothing more than the GAMMIX S70 without its massive CoolArmor heat spreader. However, ADATA's engineers have made a number of improvements to reduce temperatures and squeeze even more performance out of the drive. This compact, M.2 form factor SSD is powered by Innogrit's Rainier (IG5236) controller and is available with up to 2TB of 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash. Combine this with a large DRAM cache and an ultra-fast PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe 1.4 interface and you have one of the fastest consumer NVMe SSDs on the market today. The 1TB version of the GAMMIX S70 Blade flew through our sequential transfer rate tests, reading at speeds as high as 7,462 MB/s and writing at more than 6,400 MB/s. It also did fairly well in our random write tests, producing more than 164,000 IOPS at low queue depths.

Of course, fast read and write speeds aren't the only things the GAMMIX S70 Blade has to offer. In addition to a good looking, aluminum heatsink, the drive uses dynamic SLC caching and a DRAM cache buffer to improve read and write performance. The GAMMIX S70 Blade also employs LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check) error correction, End-To-End (E2E) data protection and a RAID engine to ensure data integrity as well as AES 256-bit encryption for data security. To top it all off, the drive works with ADATA's SSD Toolbox software and is backed by a 5 year warranty.

The XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade is available now in 1TB and 2TB capacities and can be purchased through retailers like Amazon for $160 and $330, respectively.

Highs:

  • Available in 1TB and 2TB capacities
  • PCIe 4.0 x4 interface with NVMe protocol
  • Innogrit Rainier (IG5236) controller
  • Equipped with 176-layer 3D TLC NAND
  • Excellent sequential read and write speeds
  • Good random read and write performance
  • Small M.2 2280 form factor
  • Dynamic SLC caching and DRAM cache buffer
  • Advanced LDPC ECC technology
  • End-to-End (E2E) data protection and RAID engine
  • Includes optional aluminum heatsink
  • AES 256-bit encryption
  • Works with ADATA's SSD Toolbox software
  • Reasonably priced
  • 5 year warranty

Lows:

  • Write speed drops when SLC cache is full