The ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro 1TB SSD Review: Realtek's Entry-level NVMe Solution
by Billy Tallis on December 18, 2019 12:30 PM ESTMixed Random Performance
Our test of mixed random reads and writes covers mixes varying from pure reads to pure writes at 10% increments. Each mix is tested for up to 1 minute or 32GB of data transferred. The test is conducted with a queue depth of 4, and is limited to a 64GB span of the drive. In between each mix, the drive is given idle time of up to one minute so that the overall duty cycle is 50%.
The DRAMless SSDs all perform poorly on the mixed random IO test, but the ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro is by far the fastest of them, and the only one that outperforms the Crucial MX500 mainstream SATA SSD. The Mushkin Helix-L manages to be slower than even the ADATA SU750 DRAMless SATA SSD.
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| Power Efficiency in MB/s/W | Average Power in W | ||||||||
Unsurprisingly, the SX6000 Pro and other DRAMless SSDs turn in the worst power efficiency numbers for the mixed random IO test. Most of them don't draw all that much power, but they're so much slower than the high-end drives that their efficiency scores are several times smaller.
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The performance of the SX6000 Pro grows slowly as the workload mix shifts from read-heavy to write-heavy. Toward the end, performance drops and power consumption spikes, indicating that the SLC cache ran out, but the SX6000 Pro almost made it to the end of the test without slowing down. The other DRAMless NVMe drives have fairly flat performance across the entire test, and definitely don't handle the write-heavy half anywhere near as well as the SX6000 Pro.
Mixed Sequential Performance
Our test of mixed sequential reads and writes differs from the mixed random I/O test by performing 128kB sequential accesses rather than 4kB accesses at random locations, and the sequential test is conducted at queue depth 1. The range of mixes tested is the same, and the timing and limits on data transfers are also the same as above.
The ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro may have turned in respectable results for the individual sequential read and write tests, but on the mixed sequential IO test it is the slowest NVMe drive in the bunch.
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| Power Efficiency in MB/s/W | Average Power in W | ||||||||
In addition to being at least a bit slower than competing low-end NVMe drives, the SX6000 Pro draws substantially more power than the other DRAMless SSDs, so it has a relatively low efficiency score while the Toshiba BG4 tops the charts and the Mushkin Helix-L scores about par.
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The sequential read speed of the SX6000 Pro is fine, but performance drops steeply as soon as any writes are added to the mix. Through the rest of the mixed sequential IO test, performance increases very slowly, and the SX6000 Pro doesn't get the typical performance spike at the end when the workload shifts to pure writes.
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Samus - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
I don’t think you are being critical enough of this drive. It is appallingly bad. It’s basically outclassed by SATA drives from years ago in almost every metric except sequential performance (where NVMe will naturally excel)But real world performance is terrible, power usage is high (and it has broken devsleep) and it isn’t very cheap. When you consider reliability is a total u known I’m struggling to imagine a single person who would consider this.
Billy Tallis - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
Let me make it a bit clearer for you: https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2533?vs=22...The MX500 beats the SX6000 Pro on just ONE of those performance metrics. The picture's not that different if you compare against a Samsung SATA drive. Overall performance is clearly much better than a SATA SSD. It's not appallingly bad. It just isn't a high-end NVMe drive.
DPUser - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
Appallingly Clearer. : )Alistair - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
haha nice :)JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
Based Billy Tallis *dabbing* on the n00bs in the comments section. FACTS don't care about your feelings, Samus. It's times like this I'm glad you can't edit your comments, since moments like these are eternalized forever.MFinn3333 - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
To be fair, the Samsung 850 Pro does beat it in the sustained random read/writes, power efficiency of said read/writes and uses a lot less power while active idle.https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2310?vs=25...
(Blue is Samsung and Orange is ADATA because Samsung is blue in my mind).
To be fairer, the Samsung is at least five years old, costs three times as much if you can get it, and has an idle response that is 15X worse than the ADATA. The ADATA is clearly the better drive for 99% of the population.
The_Assimilator - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
It's absolutely appallingly bad. You can't simply excuse broken power management with "the other vendors messed it up too", the point is that none of those other vendors have messed it up NOW. Realtek failed to learn from and avoid their competitors' mistake, and by doing so have introduced their controller with a handicap versus the same competitors. It's also both unproven, slower, and more expensive than older controllers that do have a known track record, so that's four strikes against the RTS5763DL.In contrast, drives using the two-year-old SM2263XT are faster, cheaper, and to be blunt, just better. There is thus no reason why anybody would ever choose a drive using RTS5763DL, and its complete failure to compete is only going to become more apparent once the next-gen SMI and Phison controllers arrive (and E12 products go EOL and get huge discounts).
In short, while not as bad as Realtek's attempt at a SATA SSD controller, the RTS5763DL is just a plain bad product that simply cannot be recommended in any way shape or form.
milli - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
Well look at this one again then: https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph15139/sus...I've learned from real-life usage that this test is one of the most important metrics that you will notice in your day to day usage. The Realtek is by far the fastest cacheless NVMe controller out there in this test.
Also while the drive lacks DEVSLP, statements like "broken power management" are just false. The graphs clearly show that it cuts power in half in each state. Lacking DEVSLP does not equal broken power management. ADATA even clearly states this on their website.
gregassagraf - Wednesday, July 21, 2021 - link
well... I installed the xpg Gammix s41 which is based in the same microcontroller! I lost more than an hour of battery life in my laptop and now sleep mode is basically useless. One big mistake in my part was caring only about read and write speeds. I can't wait to replace this drive, its driving me mad!mark625 - Wednesday, December 18, 2019 - link
The HP EX950 1TB has been my favorite value/$ drive for a while, and it costs a whole $7 more than the SX6000 Pro. It whomps the XPG drive in almost every test, and in many tests it is more than twice as fast.In what possible scenario would the XPG drive be a smarter purchase than the HP? None that I can see. This review is way too forgiving.