Introduction

ADATA is Taiwan's largest manufacturer of flash storage and DRAM memory for computers. They have been at the forefront of SSD development for many years, bringing us famous SSDs like the SX8200, SX900, and S510.

XPG is one of ADATA's sub-brands and creates products optimized for the needs of gamers.



With the Gammix S70, ADATA XPG uses a controller vendor we rarely see. Innogrit has been building SSD chips with a focus on the value segment for a long time. Now, they've released the IG5236 "Rainier" controller with support for PCI-Express 4.0. Besides the controller, 3D TLC chips are used. They have been rebranded by ADATA; I suspect these are Intel/Micron B27 TLC. Two 1 GB DDR4-3200 DRAM chips provide 2 GB of storage for the mapping tables of the SSD.

The XPG Gammix S70 is available in capacities of 1 TB ($200) or 2 TB ($400). Endurance for these models is set to 740 TBW and 1480 TBW respectively. ADATA provides a five-year warranty for the S70.

Packaging

The Drive

The drive uses the M.2 2280 form factor, which makes it 22 mm wide and 80 mm long.


While most other M.2 NVMe SSDs transfer data over the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, the XPG Gammix S70 connects to the host system over a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 interface, which doubles the theoretical bandwidth.


On the PCB, you'll find the controller, four flash chips, and two DRAM chips.


ADATA created a large heatsink that can soak up quite some heat.


The mounting mechanism is also quite elaborate and much better than just a sticky thermal pad.

Chip Component Analysis

The Innogrit IG5236 is the company's first controller to support PCI-Express 4.0. It uses eight channels to maximize transfer rates and is fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC Taiwan.


The four flash chips seem to be Intel/Micron 96-layer 3D TLC NAND; they have been rebranded by ADATA. Each chip has a capacity of 512 GB.


Two Hynix DDR4-3200 chips provide a total of 2 GB of fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables.

Test Setup