Review ADATA XPG Gammix S50: Lightning-fast SSD for gamers!

ADATA XPG Gammix S50 is a new SSD that uses the latest PCI Express 4.0 interface. That's exciting because it can theoretically reach unprecedented speeds in the world of SSD drives for consumers: read speeds of 5000 MB per second and write speeds of 4400 MB/s. XPG Gammix S50 is ADATA's flagship drive for users who want the maximum performance possible. Read our review, find out what it has to offer in real life and whether it is a great purchase for your PC equipped with the latest generation AMD Ryzen processor.

ADATA XPG Gammix S50: Who is it good for?

The ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD is an excellent choice for:

• Gamers and other users who want spectacular performance
• People who own a motherboard with the AMD X570 chipset, and a third-generation AMD Ryzen processor
• Users who appreciate devices with beautiful designs

Pros and cons

There are plenty of good things to say about the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD:

• Formidable read and write speeds
• Support for the latest PCI Express 4.0 interface
• Built with 3D TLC NAND Flash, which is more efficient and reliable than 2D Flash
• Cooled by a good-looking heat sink
• Fair price for its performance
• Five-year warranty
• Useful bundled software

There are no negatives about the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD that we could identify.

Verdict

The ADATA XPG Gammix S50 solid-state drive is one of the best consumer drives on the market. If you are building a new PC that is based on the latest generation of AMD Ryzen processors, and you want ultimate performance, you should consider buying this SSD. We recommend it to anyone who is interested in performance, from gamers to professionals who want fast storage. For maximum speed, you should use this solid-state drive on an AMD motherboard with an X570 chipset that has support for PCI Express 4.0. You won't regret your purchase!

Unboxing the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD

The ADATA XPG Gammix S50 solid-state drive arrives in a small rectangular box made of hardened cardboard. It is all painted black, and the few details about the SSD and its specs are printed in white. On the back of the box, you see more information about the solid-state drive's specifications. Opening the box reveals the solid-state drive sitting on a plastic support. There's nothing else bundled with it, but if you look carefully, you can see that the user manual is printed on the interior of the box. Unboxing the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 solid-state drive is quick and painless. There is nothing bundled with it, so all you have to do is plug it into your PC.

Design and hardware specifications

The XPG Gammix S50 is one of the fastest solid-state drives made by ADATA. It uses the PCI Express Generation 4 x4 interface and the NVMe 1.3 standard, offering incredibly fast data read and write speeds. It can theoretically reach sustained speeds of 5000 MB per second when reading data and 4400 MB/s when writing data. The random read and write speeds are also impressive, both at 750K IOPS (Input Output Operations Per Second). ADATA chose to mount a heatsink on the SSD. It's said to be inspired by sports cars, which is a common trend in the gaming world. The heat sink is made of black and grey aluminum and has a somewhat aerodynamic shape. It looks good and should keep the temperature of the SSD under control. This being a PCIe 4.0 x4 drive with very fast speeds, excellent heat dissipation is vital for its operation. ADATA also tells us that the XPG Gammix S50 solid-state drive is built using 3D TLC Flash, which is associated with a higher storage capacity in a smaller volume, power efficiency, and enhanced durability. It also benefits from SLC Caching, a DRAM cache buffer, E2E (End-to-End) Data Protection, and LDPC ECC (Low-Density Parity-Check Error Correcting Code). All these translate into better detection and repairing of data errors, more accurate data transfers, and longer SSD lifespan. The ADATA XPG Gammix S50 uses the common M.2 2280 form factor, which means that it has a physical length of 80 mm (about 3 inches) and a width of 22 mm (about ¾ of an inch). As for its weight, you could say that it's negligible: 12g / 0.42 oz. ADATA manufactures and sells this drive in two versions with different storage capacities: 1 TB (Part No. AGAMMIXS50-1TT-C) and 2 TB (Part No. AGAMMIXS50-2TT-C). If you would like to know more about the specifications of this product, go to ADATA XPG Gammix S50 Pro SSD. Thanks to its support for PCIe 4.0 x4, the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 is a blazing fast solid-state drive. This storage drive is made for gamers and other types of users who need very high storage performance (video editing, CAD applications, etc.).

Performance in benchmarks

To test the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD, we used a desktop computer with the following configuration:

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi)
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
• Memory: HyperX Predator DDR4 RGB Memory (2 x 8GB, 3600MHz)
• Graphics Card: ASUS ROG STRIX GTX 1660 Ti GAMING OC
• Monitor: ASUS ROG Strix XG32VQ Curved Gaming Monitor (32-inch WQHD 2560 x 1440, 144Hz)
• Power Supply Unit: ASUS ROG Thor 850W Platinum
• Operating System: Windows 10 Pro x64 with November 2019 Update

As you can see in the screenshot below, the real storage capacity of this solid-state drive is 930 GB, as reported by Windows 10. We checked how fast our computer is at booting Windows 10. Using BootRacer to measure the boot times, we found out that Windows 10 needed about 30 seconds to start and finish loading all its drivers and startup programs. The first benchmark that we used to test the speed of this solid-state drive was CrystalDiskMark. It can measure the random and sequential performance of the SSD both at data reading and writing. The results we got were excellent and close to the ones advertised by ADATA. PassMark develops one of the best benchmarking suites for computers these days. It's called PerformanceTest 9.0 and, because it can also test solid-state drives, we decided to use it too. Not only does it allow you to evaluate your drive, but it also shows you comparisons between its performance and others. It's no surprise that the results we got were outstanding. For more in-depth results regarding the drive performance in the real world, PassMark PerformanceTest includes a tool called Drive Performance. Here are the measurements it made on the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD and the excellent results we got: Next, we used DiskMark, which is another popular benchmark app for storage drives. It measures the drive's performance by calculating the average speed when writing and reading data on and from the drive. As you can see in the screenshot below, the Write Performance and especially the Read Performance of the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 solid-state drive were impressive. After we finished running all the benchmarks, their results and our subjective opinion matched. ADATA XPG Gammix S50 is a lightning-fast solid-state drive that offers first-class performance.

Bundled software

To check and manage your XPG Gammix S50 solid-state drive, ADATA offers you an app called ADATA SSD ToolBox. With it, you can verify the health of the SSD drive, view information about it, update its firmware, erase the data on it in a secure manner, and more. You also get a free license for Acronis True Image HD, an application you can use to clone other drives onto your ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD and create rescue media in case you need to recover your computer. With the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD, you also get the tools to manage it and create or restore backups, which is excellent.

Do you like the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 SSD?

We were impressed by how fast the ADATA XPG Gammix S50 solid-state drive is. If you are building a new PC with the latest generation of AMD Ryzen processors, you should consider buying it. Before closing this review, tell us your opinion about this drive, in a comment below.