Page 10 - Conclusion
With recent improvements in controller design, caching algorithms, and interface speed, was the XPG Atom 50 1TB actually a good performing NVMe PCIe 4.0-based budget drive to find DRAM so unnecessary as my friend would say? Based on our extensive testing, the Atom 50 was surprisingly competitive in the majority of the benchmarks despite its DRAM-less design and lower rated peak read and write speed compared to other PCIe 4.0-based drives. In fact, it delivered solid simulated real-world usage performance in PCMark 10 and 3DMark, scoring slightly higher than even the company's own flagship Gammix S70 Blade 1TB NVMe solid state drive. I also like the XPG Atom 50 1TB's included low profile aluminum heatsink and PlayStation 5 compatibility. Adding on the use of quality Micron-made flash memory for its excellent 650TBW write endurance and a 5-year warranty should anything go wrong, there is a lot to like about the Atom 50. Of course, DRAM-less designs are not perfect, so if you think you can buy this to snub your friends who own the Gammix S70 Blade or other performance NVMe drives like the WD_BLACK SN850 1TB or Kingston KC3000 1TB, I will hold that thought for a second. The Atom 50 was very slow in fast I/O medium workload tests like the database and file server simulations in PassMark PerformanceTest, showing you cannot completely get away with a DRAM-less design if you want maximum speed. That said, the XPG Atom 50 is very fast for most day-to-day applications. For about $120 at press time, if you are a casual user looking to unlock some NVMe PCIe 4.0 speed on a budget, the XPG Atom 50 1TB is a solid SSD to load into your latest build at an affordable price.
XPG provided this product to APH Networks for the purpose of evaluation.
APH equal.balance Award
Since April 30, 2007, Number Ratings have been dropped for all CPUs, motherboards, RAM, SSD/HDDs, and graphics cards. This is to ensure the most appropriate ratings are reflected without the inherent limits of using numbers. Everything else will continue using the Number Rating System.
More information in our Review Focus.
The XPG Atom 50 1TB is a surprisingly fast budget PCIe 4.0-based NVMe SSD in most day-to-day applications even though it has a DRAM-less design.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
7. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 10
8. Benchmark: PCMark 10
9. Benchmark: 3DMark
10. Conclusion
