ADATA XPG Atom 50 2 TB

[W1zzard]

The ADATA XPG Atom 50 is now available in a 2 TB variant. Unlike the 1 TB model, which used an Innogrit controller, the 2 TB version is built using Silicon Motion's new SM2269 XT controller, which supports PCI-Express 4.0, and DRAM-less operation.

Show full review

 

[MachineLearning]

From the original Atom 50 1TB review:

What's very important to mention, and I confirmed this personally with ADATA, is that they guarantee that the Atom 50 will always come with the components that we tested: Innogrit IG5220 controller paired with 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash from Micron. This will ensure peace of mind for many customers who've been burnt by various component-level changes on other SSDs.

Oh sure, the capacities released at that time might still have the IG5220 if you bought them today.

But they broke their promise, clearly, for the 2TB capacity. This is an outright lie at worst and disingenuous at best. If performance were better for this SM model, I wouldn't care; but this crap?

W1z, thank you for this review.

 

[Space Lynx]

@W1zzard I know you don't really test this, but do you have any recommendations for a 2TB gen4 drive that the Playstation 5 would accept? My guess is I don't need a premium SN850 level drive, since the PS5 saturates its gen4 speeds around the 5500 read/write mark if I remember correctly.

 

[W1zzard]

Cheapest Phison E18 you can find, or SN850, 980 Pro if they are cheaper. Maybe also consider SN770 is it's significantly cheaper.

 

[jonup]

1TB KC3000 with Phison E18 is $90 directly form Kingston at the moment. I know @CallandorWoT said but 2TB but I figured I mention that since it is top performing E18 drive and probably the cheapest E18 I have seen.

 

[W1zzard]

and probably the cheapest E18 I have seen.

Depends on the region. In the US I've seen the Silicon Power XS70 for $200, but the KC3000 through Kingston USA is $205. With such a small price difference I'd probably go for Kingston because bigger brand.

 

[jonup]

Yeah, the current sale is only on 1TB. but even $205 for 2TB is a decent price. That used to be the price of 1TB E16s when they came out.

 

[mechtech]

"The 2 TB version uses the new SM2269XT from Silicon Motion, whereas the 1 TB version is built using the Innogrit IG5220. The NAND chips are the same 176-layer 3D TLC from Micron on both capacities. As expected, a DRAM cache is not available, for cost reasons."

I don't know if that controller is capable of using a DRAM cache or not.........BUT.........if I can get 16GB of ddr4-2133 for $70 ish CAD$ on a pcb in a box, I'd gladly shell out $4 for 1GB cache, maybe even $8 for 2GB of cache. Probably a lot cheaper for a single ram chip also.

 

[Space Lynx]

@jonup I am waiting for a 2tb sale on black friday/cyber monday to upgrade my playstation 5 with. I just wanted to see what I should keep my eye on when that day comes. I wouldn't be surprised if I get something for $149 at 2TB during that sale, if I am fast enough. I'll make sure I have my top 3 picks on refresh that day. lol

 

[jonup]

@jonup I am waiting for a 2tb sale on black friday/cyber monday to upgrade my playstation 5 with. I just wanted to see what I should keep my eye on when that day comes. I wouldn't be surprised if I get something for $149 at 2TB during that sale, if I am fast enough. I'll make sure I have my top 3 picks on refresh that day. lol

Keep an eye on Innogrit IG5236 "Rainier" drives like Gammix S70 (blade) as they tend to run cooler as that is a problem with PS5 and have as close as it makes no difference the same performance as the ones Wizzard mentioned.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Great advert for the 1TB model. Why is it that so-called budget models are still too close to superior performance models in price?

 

[Space Lynx]

Great advert for the 1TB model. Why is it that so-called budget models are still too close to superior performance models in price?

prices will keep coming down, just be patient. this is imo

 

[kingkongtol]

this https://www.techpowerup.com/review/silicon-power-ud90-1-tb/ missing from the chart boss

 

[Wooden Law - Black]

I don't know if that controller is capable of using a DRAM cache or not

No, both of them are DRAM-less. Keep in mind that all SMI's XT controllers are DRAM-less.

 

[W1zzard]

this https://www.techpowerup.com/review/silicon-power-ud90-1-tb/ missing from the chart boss

Good idea, it's a new controller that I haven't tested before, charts have been updated

 

[Frick]

A thought: is it possible for you to add other games (specifically Stellaris or Crusader Kings 3) to test loading times, and maybe throw a HDD in there for reference?

 

[W1zzard]

and maybe throw a HDD in there for reference?

HDD numbers are in the test descriptions, charting them would break the scale

is it possible for you to add other games (specifically Stellaris or Crusader Kings 3) to test loading times

Yeah next rebench will have AOE4, Cyberpunk, f1 2022 (maybe), far cry 6, forza, wd:legion.

crusader kings 3 is too old. are stellaris load time due to cpu or due to storage? reboot, load a savegame, measure time, screenshot task manager drive throughput, now restart stellaris, everything will come out of disk cache, same time? not disk speed dependent

 

[Frick]

HDD numbers are in the test descriptions, charting them would break the scale


Yeah next rebench will have AOE4, Cyberpunk, f1 2022 (maybe), far cry 6, forza, wd:legion.

crusader kings 3 is too old. are stellaris load time due to cpu or due to storage? reboot, load a savegame, measure time, screenshot task manager drive throughput, now restart stellaris, everything will come out of disk cache, same time? not disk speed dependent

CK3 is from 2020, Stellaris I've assumed is storage. It used to take a whole bunch of minutes to load when on HDD (unmodded, fresh Windows and fresh game), now I timed it to 50 seconds on the WD Black SN750, with 100MB/s peak reads. Just restarting the game has always been fast. Maybe CPU comes into it as well when you have it on an SSD; I know the load times did not improve when I went from a Haswell i3 to the Ryzen 2600x, with the game on a HDD. But I did some light googling and it's probably not a very good game to include. Someone mentioned various handshakes with servers could also take quite some time (Iron man games require cloud saves), so it would require to run in an offline mode. Plus PDX patch their games like no tomorrow, so todays result might be completely wrong in six months. Which isn't a problem if you just don't update and if one takes the result as just another statistic (which is should be), but still. Probably not worth it, even if it would be interesting IMO. The same would go for CK3 really, but the performance of that game is solid enough so I don't think they will work on it much.

 

[W1zzard]

a whole bunch of minutes to load when on HDD

HDDs get huge penalties for disk seeks, while SSDs get no penalty, so basing test selection off HDD performance results won't work

require to run in an offline mode

I only test games that support offline and keep the game version constant for the lifetime of the test platform