Tom's Hardware Verdict
The Adata XPG GAMMIX S11's strongest feature is the overall look of the drive. It costs more than the SX8200 that comes with the same components, but you pay a premium for a thin piece of red colored metal. At this price you should consider the 970 EVO with more endurance, or just get the SX8200 and pocket the difference.
Pros
- +
Still a decent value for an upper-level mainstream SSD
- +
Attractive design
- +
Acronis included
Cons
- -
Premium price for aesthetics alone
- -
Adata SSD Toolbox doesn't work with this drive yet
- -
Same performance as the SX8200
- -
Could use a firmware update to improve performance in heavy workloads
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Features and Specifications
The $189.99 480GB Adata XPG SX8200 is one of the best mainstream SSDs on the market. Adata used it as the foundation to build the XPG GAMMIX S11 but added a heat sink and raised the price up to $229.99.
The Adata GAMMIX S11 is yet another mainstream SSD that uses the Silicon Motion, Inc. (SMI) SM2262 controller and 64-layer flash. This potent combination of components has quickly swept the market and powers leading mainstream SSDs that offer a rare balance of high performance and low pricing.
Adata used the same controller and flash combination for the XPG SX8200 we've already tested. The new GAMMIX S11 uses the same design but pairs it with a preinstalled heat sink that the company promises will lower the operating temperature by 10C. The SMI SM2262 controller isn't prone to thermal throttling under normal desktop PC workloads, but the XPG GAMMIX S11 is designed for heavy lifting, like reading and writing a lot of sequential data in rapid succession.
The GAMMIX S11 provides up to 3,200 MB/s (3,150 MB/s for the 960GB) of sequential throughput and up to 1,700 MB/s (1,200 MB/s for the 240GB) of sequential write performance. The two high-capacity models deliver up to 310,000/280,000 random read/write IOPS, but performance scales with capacity.
Adata plans to release the GAMMIX S11 in three capacities, but currently only the 240GB and 480GB models are listed at Amazon. The company sent us a 960GB SX8200, so we suspect the larger GAMMIX S11 will come to market soon.
Specifications
| Product | GAMMIX S11 240GB | GAMMIX S11 480GB | GAMMIX S11 960GB |
| Pricing | $139.99 (Amazon) | $229.99 (Amazon) | Unknown |
| Capacity (User / Raw) | 240GB / 256GB | 480GB / 512GB | 960GB / 1024GB |
| Form Factor | M.2 2280 D5 | M.2 2280 D5 | M.2 2280 D5 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 |
| Controller | Silicon Motion, Inc. SM2262 | Silicon Motion, Inc. SM2262 | Silicon Motion, Inc. SM2262 |
| DRAM | NANYA DDR3 | NANYA DDR3 | NANYA DDR3 |
| Memory | Micron 64-Layer TLC | Micron 64-Layer TLC | Micron 64-Layer TLC |
| Sequential Read | 3,200 MB/s | 3,200 MB/s | 3,150 MB/s |
| Sequential Write | 1,200 MB/s | 1,700 MB/s | 1,700 MB/s |
| Random Read | 200,000 IOPS | 310,000 IOPS | 310,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 240,000 IOPS | 280,000 IOPS | 280,000 IOPS |
| Endurance | 160 TBW | 320 TBW | 640 TBW |
| Part Number | AGAMMIXS11-240GT-C | AGAMMIXS11-480GT-C | AGAMMIXS11-960GT-C |
| Warranty | 5-Years | 5-Years | 5-Years |
Software
The Adata SSD Toolbox allows you to manage and monitor the drive. At the time of writing, the Toolbox software didn't support the GAMMIX S11, but it should after the next update. Adata also provides a custom version of Acronis so you can clone your existing data to the drive.
Pricing, Warranty, And Endurance
We only have pricing details for the 240GB and 480GB models. Both sell at Amazon today for $139.99 and $229.99, respectively.
| Adata Gammix S11 | 240GB | 480GB | 960GB |
| Endurance - TBW (Terabytes Written) | 160 TBW | 320 TBW | 640TBW |
The series ships with a five-year limited warranty. Adata warranties the 240GB drive for up to 160 terabytes of write data. Endurance doubles with each capacity increase.
A Closer Look
Adata didn't bother cramming the components on one side of the circuit board. Instead, the company chose to use the available space on the other side of the PCB to split the flash into more packages, which increases performance.
The GAMMIX S11 comes with a pre-attached red piece of metal, but it doesn't serve as an effective heat sink. A heat sink allows heat to spread over a much larger surface area to facilitate dissipation, but the heatsink needs to make good contact with the heat source to maximize thermal transfer.
The GAMMIX S11's heatsink doesn't mate well with the controller, and it is also within a few millimeters of the controller. This prevents air from flowing over the controller, thus potentially trapping heat near it.
Adata wasn't shy about the origins of this product. The underside of the printed circuit board clearly shows the SX8200 model number. The SX8200 comes with a full-contact heatsink, but it isn't pre-attached like the S11.
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