When it comes to high speed SSD, most tech enthusiast will turn to NVMe SSD. These SSDs doesn't runs on the typical SATA protocol due to the SATA protocol speed limitation. NVMe runs on a higher speed protocol which is the PCIe, as of today in the typical consumer market the best you can go is the 4 lanes PCIe SSD.
Fast means it will comes with a great cost, most of the NVMe SSD could easily cost as much as double the price of the typical SATA SSD. The Samsung 970 Evo, one of the famous SSD at the point of this post is up cost around slightly under RM700 for a 500GB model.
What if you could enjoy the performance of a NVMe SSD with the half the cost of Samsung 970 Evo? No, we are not talking about sacrificing the speed by going for a 2 lanes PCIe SSD like the Kingston A1000. We are talking about the Adata SX8200 Pro SSD which runs on full 4 lanes PCIe protocol.
Like most premium SSD, the Adata SX8200 Pro comes in a paper box. Diving into the box, we will find the NVMe SSD stick and a XPG labelled heat spreader.
Fast means it will comes with a great cost, most of the NVMe SSD could easily cost as much as double the price of the typical SATA SSD. The Samsung 970 Evo, one of the famous SSD at the point of this post is up cost around slightly under RM700 for a 500GB model.
What if you could enjoy the performance of a NVMe SSD with the half the cost of Samsung 970 Evo? No, we are not talking about sacrificing the speed by going for a 2 lanes PCIe SSD like the Kingston A1000. We are talking about the Adata SX8200 Pro SSD which runs on full 4 lanes PCIe protocol.
Like most premium SSD, the Adata SX8200 Pro comes in a paper box. Diving into the box, we will find the NVMe SSD stick and a XPG labelled heat spreader.
The included heat spreader is made from a solid piece of metal but is not directly installed on the SSD which is quite appreciated as many enthusiast would prefer to use after market heat as usually the default heat spreader design is not efficient for the heat produced by the controller and NAND chip. It gets much more appreciated where Adata did not install it to the SSD when we take a closer look on the adhesive used under the heat spreader.
Adata uses the 3M 467MP transfer tape to attach the heat spreader to the SSD, which may not be ideal in transferring the heat from the chip to the metal heat spreader. Hence, in this review the heat spreader will not be installed.
On the box, Adata claims that it could perform up to 3,500MB/s read and 3,000MB/s write. Let's put that in the test. For our test machine, we are using a Dell Vostro 5481 which supports full 4 lanes PCIe M.2 slot.
Overall, it is quite promising for the price, for a laptop we are getting around 3,395MB/s sequential read and 2,330MB/s sequential write. It is not the listed speed on the packaging, however it is pretty decent considering it is half the price of a Samsung 970 Evo.
The SX8200 Pro comes with a utility tool that allows you to monitor, optimize and even perform a security erase when you want to sell of the SSD while preventing your buyer recover stealing you data previously stored in the SSD.
On specs, the SSD should able to perform decent with a maximum temperature of 70 degree Celsius. At idle, the SSD temps usually is around 38-45 degree Celsius, and peaks around 59 degree Celsius on benchmark. Do keep in mind that in this review we are using a Vostro 5481 which good breathing space is quite limited for the SSD.
Overall the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro NVMe SSD is a decent performer with an price that doesn't break your bank. The Gammix S11 Pro, which is has a more decent and beefier looking heat spreader which cost a little more than the SX8200 Pro on specification should perform similar as this so this would probably a better choice if you would prefer to have your own 3rd party heat spreader.
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