The ADATA XPG SX8200 & GAMMIX S11 NVMe SSD Review: High Performance At All Sizes
by Billy Tallis on July 25, 2018 11:00 AM ESTConclusion
The ADATA XPG SX8200 and GAMMIX S11 provide more evidence that Silicon Motion's latest NVMe SSD controller is a winner. The excellent performance we got from the 1TB HP EX920 doesn't require that high of a capacity—the 480GB ADATA drives tested here are never far behind, and the 240GB SX8200 is a bit slower on several tests but is still very fast overall. ADATA made the right choice by not including a 120GB model in the SX8200 family. A 120GB model would not have been able to perform adequately for this class of product.
The SX8200 and GAMMIX S11 represent a huge advance over their predecessors. The SX8000, SX7000 and GAMMIX S10 used Silicon Motion's first NVMe controller, which proved to be inadequate for powering a high-end SSD, but it was the best option ADATA had at the time. With the new generation of SSD controllers and 3D NAND flash, ADATA is finally able to hit their performance goals and deliver a competitive premium NVMe SSD.
ADATA hasn't done much to differentiate the SX8200 and GAMMIX S11 from each other or from other SM2262 drives on the market. The heatspreaders provide mostly cosmetic value while the functional aspects of the drive sticks to Silicon Motion's reference design. The great results we've been getting from these reference designs calls into question Intel's custom firmware for the 760p. The 760p is by no means always slower than drives like the SX8200 or HP EX920, but overall the reference firmware seems to offer the better balance of performance for most users. Intel's close relationship with Silicon Motion sometimes gives them a distinct advantage, but in this case it seems like the 760p may have been released a little too early.
| NVMe SSD Price Comparison | |||
| 240-280GB | 480-512GB | 960GB-1TB | |
| ADATA XPG SX8200 | $91.93 (38¢/GB) |
$139.99 (29¢/GB) | $284.99 (30¢/GB) |
| ADATA XPG GAMMIX S11 | $84.99 (35¢/GB) |
$159.99 (33¢/GB) | $299.99 (31¢/GB) |
| ADATA XPG SX6000 | $62.99 (25¢/GB) | $114.99 (22¢/GB) | |
| ADATA XPG SX8000 | $94.99 (37¢/GB) |
$144.99 (28¢/GB) | $561.25 (55¢/GB) |
| ADATA XPG GAMMIX S10 | $74.99 (29¢/GB) |
$129.99 (25¢/GB) | $467.13 (46¢/GB) |
| HP EX920 | $108.89 (43¢/GB) | $179.95 (35¢/GB) | $297.96 (29¢/GB) |
| Intel SSD 760p | $84.99 (33¢/GB) |
$157.00 (31¢/GB) | $319.99 (31¢/GB) |
| MyDigitalSSD SBX | $69.99 (27¢/GB) | $139.99 (27¢/GB) | $299.99 (29¢/GB) |
| Western Digital WD Black (2018) | $99.99 (40¢/GB) |
$179.99 (36¢/GB) | $379.99 (38¢/GB) |
| Samsung 970 EVO | $106.99 (43¢/GB) | $197.97 (40¢/GB) | $389.99 (39¢/GB) |
| Samsung 970 PRO | |||
| Intel Optane SSD 900P | |||
| Intel Optane SSD 905P | |||
With few functional differences from other SM2262 drives on the market, ADATA has to compete almost solely on price. They seem to be doing a good job of that. The XPG GAMMIX S11 is generally a bit more expensive than the SX8200, but at the moment supplies of the 240GB SX8200 seem to be limited and the GAMMIX S11 is actually slightly cheaper. The HP EX920 is a slightly better value at 1TB, but for lower capacities either ADATA drive wins. The ADATA SX8200 is also barely more expensive than the MyDigitalSSD SBX, one of the more competitively-priced low-end NVMe SSDs. ADATA's own SX6000 low-end NVMe SSD is even cheaper and closer to SATA pricing, but it comes with pretty serious performance compromises and a relatively unproven Realtek controller.
With even the smallest SX8200 turning in some of the highest scores on our AnandTech Storage Bench tests of real-world I/O patterns, it's quite difficult to make a case for the more expensive drives like the Western Digital WD Black and the Samsung 970 EVO, let alone the 970 PRO. The WD Black still provides a unique combination of performance and power efficiency, but for desktop users its advantages aren't worth the price premium. The 970 EVO offers better performance on some real-world workloads, but for the vast majority of users who don't have a workload that's anywhere near as intense as The Destroyer, the 970 EVO's performance advantages won't be realized.
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Pewzor - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
FuzeDrive (aka Virtual SSD) is used by Dell EMC data center, people saying you lose FuzeDrive you lose everything is just full of it. FuzeDrive is just Virtual SSD (by Enmotus) rebranded for AMD use.It works like Intel Rapid Storage except VSSD is data center proven.
There's a very little chance for total catastrophic failure to happen, which could happen to IRST as well.
You will lose your data when multiple drives fail at the same time, which is true even for raid 1 and raid 5.
VSSD/FuzeDrive when it pushes data across different devices it creates a mirror in (duplicates in shadow file), and the duplicates are not purged until after the data is verified to complete copying to the new destination drive.
Only time this happens is when file is copied the destination drive fails the instant the copy is verified then the source device fails and breaks the shadow image.
Technically even a 3 drive raid 5 array could fail catastrophically if all 3 drives failed.
eddieobscurant - Thursday, July 26, 2018 - link
I think the drives deserved an award.Samus - Thursday, July 26, 2018 - link
Double sided :(Would be good for a notebook considering the power profile and price. The 980 EVO is just dangerous in a mobile device so I've been sticking to the WD Black, which is still pretty expensive.
wolve - Thursday, July 26, 2018 - link
FYI this SSD is on sale for $100 on Rakuten. Got it a few weeks ago when they had a similar deal.https://www.rakuten.com/shop/adata/product/ASX8200...
SanX - Saturday, July 28, 2018 - link
This drive was completely destroyed by the Destroyer still the author and the crowd sing the Dithyrambs to it.gglaw - Saturday, August 11, 2018 - link
the vast majority of home users could not even emulate the Destroyer tests if they tried and it has no bearing on the actual user experience. It is there mostly for academic purposes - did you even read the details of what the Destroyer test runs? For even an advanced home techie, this drive's price/performance is most likely the best that currently exists, especially when it goes on sale for $95 for the ~500GB model. That's not much higher than a budget SATA drive for identical performance to a 970 EVO or WD Black for home use. It's been on sale for $95-$100 3X now that I'm aware of, not only should the author give it a positive review, for the segment it addresses I feel it should be even given Editor's Choice. And yes I have 2 of these so not just making up opinions based on reading tests that I don't understand. There is absolutely no visible difference between this, the 960 EVO and 970 EVO which I have all running in the same LAN room.Wolfclaw - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Based on review, I purchased the 240GB SX8200 for new Ryzen build, it came yesterday, now just waiting for the motherboard ... running out of patience :(Wolfclaw - Saturday, August 4, 2018 - link
OK, got one for my x470 and it is fast, would I notice the difference to say a Samsung, I doubt it. 4 seconds form boot to W10 desktop, I have a large Outlook data footprint and it opens and is ready a lot quicker than my old SSD, Visual Studio is extremely responsive with it.a_pete - Friday, August 31, 2018 - link
I think there's an issue in the power consumption information for the Optane 800p.It's being listed here (and on other charts) as using 0.8W while active, but on the review page it was actually using 3.5W active. This is messing up all the Power efficiency charts.
Thanks!