ADATA XPG Atom 50 Review: A Speedy Gen 4 SSD For Gamers

Many new NVMe M.2 solid state drives are being introduced at various price points and performance levels, which is fueling the growth of the industry. Consumer and gaming workloads have been the focus of a continual stream of high-end drives aimed at enthusiasts, as well as more economical DRAM-less options. For example, the ADATA XPG Atom 50 we’re going to show you today comes into this latter type. The ADATA XPG Atom 50 is a low-cost option with good specs, including a native PCIe Gen 4 interface and sequential transfer speeds north of 5GB/s.

A look at the ADATA XPG Atom 50’s key features and specs is provided in the next section. A few benchmarks follow, so you can see how she does and if, in light of the many other fantastic options now on the market, you should pay for one of these more cheap solid state drives.

The ADATA XPG Atom 50 SSD adheres to the standard M.2 2280 (80mm) “gum stick” form factor, just like the vast majority of other existing M.2 SSDs. The Atom 50 has a dark-colored PCB with components packed exclusively on one side, like many other ADATA XPG-branded SSDs. Both sides of the M.2 card are covered by a sticker, and either the provided heat-spreader or your motherboard’s inbuilt M.2 cooling gear will cover them.

An InnoGrit IG5220 controller and Micron’s 176-Layer 3D TLC NAND Flash memory power the ADATA XPG Atom 50. The NVMe 1.4 standard is supported by the PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface.

With a PC, the ADATA XPG Atom 50 can transfer up to 5GB/s per second reads and 4.5GB/s per second writes, respectively, while with a PS5, it can transmit up to 5GB/s. With simply a simple, flat heat spreader, the PS5’s storage expansion will fit well in this drive’s compact form factor. Because of its high endurance (650TBW), this drive is only available in 1TB capacity for the time being.

The ADATA XPG Atom 50 comes with support for the SSD Toolbox programme, which can be used to keep track of, manage, and update the hard drive. Although the tool’s UI is a bit gaudy and out of date, the functionality and feature set it offers are acceptable. For those who desire it, ADATA offers an XPG-branded aluminum heat-spreader. If you choose to utilize the provided heat spreader, you can do so, but if you prefer to use a heatsink that comes with many enthusiast motherboards, you can attach it straight to the SSD without an additional layer.