Adata is rolling out a PCIe 4.0 SSD family for "mainstream" users, which is usually code for slower and cheaper than an enthusiast-branded product. As such, its new Gammix S50 Lite is rated to deliver up to 3,900MB/s of sequential read performance and up to 3,200MB/s of sequential writes.
In a vacuum, those are impressively fast speeds. But in the land of PCIe 4.0 storage, the Gammix S50 Lite is, as rated, the slowest line I'm aware of. Hence the mainstream designation.
"With the launch of the S50 Lite, we have now extended our PCIe 4.0 SSD offering to meet not only the demands of early adopters but also mainstream users, whether for work or play," said Ibsen Chen (via TechPowerUp), director of product marketing at Adata.
The advent of PCIe 4.0 SSDs has introduced blistering fast read and write speeds that initially checked in at around 5,000MB/s, followed by a spattering of newer models that crank the dial to 7,000MB/s (compared to SATA models that top out at around 580MB/s).
None of them are cheap—the least expensive PCIe 4.0 SSD on Newegg is a 512GB Gigabyte Aorus model for $100 (nearly $0.20 per gigabyte), while 1TB models start at $160 ($0.16 per gigabyte).
SSD and RAM pricing have actually come down in recent weeks, but there is still room to wiggle in a more affordable PCIe 4.0 series, which it appears Adata is trying to do. There will be two capacities offered, 2TB for $300 and 1TB for $150, both of which work out to $0.15 per gigabyte. I'm told these will be available on Newegg and eBay (presumably through Adata) around September 25, and on Amazon around October 1.
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Both the 2TB and 1TB models are powered by a Silicon Motion SM2267 controller and are rated to deliver random read and write performance of up to 490,000 IOPS and 540,000 IOPS, respectively.
As for durability, Adata is claiming 1,480 TBW (terabytes written), and backs these drives with a 5-year warranty. For reference, Samsung's 970 Evo Plus is rated for 600 TBW on the 1TB model and 1,200 TWB on the 2TB model.
Those drives are also backed by a 5-year warranty, and sport similar performance ratings (3,500MB/s seq. reads and 3,300MB/s seq. writes). On Newegg, the 970 Evo Plus costs $180 for the 1TB model ($0.18 per gigabyte) and $350 for the 2TB model (nearly $0.18 per gigabyte). Assuming vendors stick to the MSRP, Adata's Gammix S50 Lite will be less expensive at launch.
