ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 SSD Unboxing Review

AVerMedia ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 SSD delivers 14,000 MB/s (14 GB/s) of top-notch sequential read/write performance, with 1TB / 2TB / 4TB capacities to choose from, and the author's unboxing of the 2TB version comes with a five-year after-sales warranty and 1,480 Total Bit Watches (TBW). The 2TB version comes with a 5-year warranty and 1480 TBW (Total Bit Writes), and uses the InnoGrit IG5666 controller and Micron 232L 3D TLC chips with Samsung DDR4 SDRAM-2666 2GB physical DRAM Cache, and a double-layer aluminum alloy module with a miniature fan to create an active cooling system.

ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 2TB Solid State DriveSpecifications:

Interface: PCI-Express 5.0 x4
NVMe: 2.0
Interface format: M.2 2280
Continuous read speed: 14000 MB/s
Continuous Write Speed: 10000 MB/s
Capacity options: 1TB / 2TB / 4TB
Controller: InnoGrit IG5666
NAND Flash: Micron Micron 232L 3D TLC chips
Cache: Samsung samsung DDR4 SDRAM-2666 2GB (2 x 8Gb on both sides)
Dimensions: 80 x 24.2 x 17.9 mm
Warranty: 5-year limited warranty
TBW Durability: 1480 TB

LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 SSD Unboxing

LEGEND 970 PRO is the fastest M.2 SSD in the ADATA and XPG product lines of AVerMedia. It utilizes the PCI-Express 5.0 x4 transmission bandwidth interface, which is also known as PCIe Gen5 x4, and is available in 1TB / 2TB / 4TB capacities.

The 4TB version, which is the largest and the highest specification, has a continuous read/write performance of 14GB/s (14,000 MB/s) and 11GB/s (11,000 MB/s), while the 2TB version that I unboxed this time has a continuous read/write performance of 14GB/s (14,000 MB/s) and 10GB/s (10,000 MB/s), as indicated on the website. The official website indicates the sequential read/write performance is 14GB/s (14000 MB/s) and 10GB/s (10000 MB/s).

∆ ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 SSD.

∆ Key features of the product.

∆ Product information.

∆ The box contains only the SSD body.

 

The LEGEND 970 PRO is equipped with an active air-cooled heatsink as standard in order to stabilize the temperature of the main control at the high speed of 14GB/s. The heat is extracted through the upper and lower aluminum fins with thermal pads, and then a microfan draws in the cold air from the front side, and then discharges it through the left and right box air ducts to carry away the heat.

Because of the active cooling module, the entire SSD measures 80 x 24.2 x 17.9 mm, so you may need to pay attention to whether there will be any conflict in the motherboard slot installation, for example, some motherboard heatsinks may be incompatible due to the original design of the space and so on, so it is recommended to take a look at the motherboard before purchase, and at the same time, consider whether the color scheme will not be very abrupt.

∆ Positive fan display.

The ∆ SSD bottom cells also have aluminum cooling fins to assist with heat transfer.

Instead of installing additional cables, the ∆ Embedded Fan is powered directly from the M.2 SSD and will operate directly after powering on the device.

∆Heat sink height display.

 

The heatsink is held in place by small screws on all four sides, which are covered by a tamper-proof warranty, so trying to remove the small screws will cause someone to break the warranty.

∆ Through duct.

∆Personal Damage Warranty Sticker, the author does not recommend removing the screws.

∆ But I'm not afraid if I have to open the box!

∆ Double-sided thin thermal pads, the gray one is the thermal pad on the back of the main controller chip in the PCB area, it may be used for mechanical support to avoid bending or to assist in thermal conductivity, based on the marks, it can be confirmed that the main controller chip has actual contact.

 

The ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO 2TB uses InnoGrit's 12nm IG5666 main controller, which is labeled on the official website as supporting Pseudo Single-Level Cell (pSLC) caching algorithm and LDPC (Low Density Parity Check Code) error correction. It is listed on the website as supporting Pseudo Single-Level Cell (pSLC) cache algorithm and LDPC (Low Density Parity Check Code) error correction mechanism, TCG OPAL, etc.

The PCB is a double-sided die layout with a physical DRAM cache, with one Samsung samsung DDR4 SDRAM-2666 1GB (K4A8G165WC-BCTD 8Gb each) on the front and back, for a total of 2GB (16Gb) of physical DRAM cache.

The 3D NAND Flash die has ADATA 600799DG 2303221148 printed on it, and when viewed through the SSD utils software, you can see that it's a Micron 232L (232-layer) 3D TLC die, and the LEGEND 970 PRO 2TB comes with a 5-year warranty and a 1480 TB Tera Bytes Written (TBW) capacity. Tera Bytes Written (TBW).

The ∆ ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO utilizes the InnoGrit IG5666 host controller and comes with a Samsung samsung DDR4 SDRAM-2666 1GB (K4A8G165WC-BCTD) DRAM Cache on both the front and back sides.

ADATA 600799DG is printed on the ∆ NAND Flash die.

Only DRAM Cache and NAND Flash cells are on the back of the ∆.

∆ The ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO in my hands uses Micron Micron 232L (232-layer) 3D TLC chips.

 

ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 2TB SSD Performance Tests

The test platform uses an AMD Ryzen 9 7900 processor with a GIGABYTE B650I AORUS ULTRA motherboard and the ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO 2TB is installed in the first slot of the motherboard, M2B_CPU, which provides the full PCIE Gen5 x4 bandwidth from the processor's direct channel for the performance test. Please note that performance may vary depending on the firmware version of the SSD, system hardware configuration, and other factors, so these results are for reference only.

Testing Platform

Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (PBO AUTO)
Cooler: AMD Wraith Prism
Motherboard: GIGABYTE B650I AORUS ULTRA (BIOS version: F33b)
Memory:Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5 RGB 7200 MT/s 16GBx2
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition 8GB
Operating System: Windows 11 Professional 23H2
System Drive: Kingston A2000 NVMe PCIe SSD 500GB
Test Drive: ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 2TB (formatted empty)
Power supply:MONTECH TITAN PLA 1000W
Case: STREACOM BC1 Benchtable V2
Graphics driver: GeForce Game Ready 561.09

 

The first step was to use the CrystalDiskInfo software to view the basic information of the ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 2TB, which uses the PCIe 5.0 x4 transfer mode and NVM Express 2.0 standard, with support for features such as S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology), TRIM and VolatileWriteCache. Supported features include S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology), TRIM, and VolatileWriteCache, and the firmware version tested by the author is 0502050R.

∆ formatted and converted to different bit system units can use 1.86 TB.

∆ CrystalDiskInfo software view information.

 

Use with empty disk CrystalDiskMark The software was used to test the read/write performance of the ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 2TB in NVMe SSD configuration mode with the test file size set to 1GiB, and sequential read/write speeds of 14,068 MB/s and 11,112 MB/s were measured in the default profile.

The Q8T1 test result in the first column represents a thread with eight queue depths, which means that there are eight 1MB-sized accesses in the worklist waiting to be accessed. This corresponds to a real situation, such as reading or writing eight 1MB files from or to a hard disk at the same time, which is generally less likely to be done in general.

The random read/write performance of the RND4K Q32T16 project is 5445 MB/s and 3651 MB/s.

The RND4K Q32T16 operates with 16 queue depths out of 32 threads, and the file types are random access 4 KB size files written or read into the SSD.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, Sequential Read/Write and Random Read/Write test scores.

 

For daily use or for gamers, the QD1 to QD4 range is a good reference. If we switch the CrystalDiskMark profile to real-world performance, the first column will be Q1T1. Although the result will be a bit lower than the Q8T1, it will be more in line with the actual performance of the daily use experience.

The reason for this is that most of the daily operating systems use Q1T1, which is a queue-depth mode with one thread, so Q1T1 is more suitable for daily use than Q8T1. The read and write speeds of Q1T1 are 4342 MB/s and 8283 MB/s with the capacity of the test file set to 1GiB.

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Real World Mode 1GiB profile test results.

 

follow ATTO Disk Benchmark To test the continuous read/write performance and stability of different file sizes, the maximum values are 10.45 GB/s for writing and 13.19 GB/s for reading.

∆ ATTO Disk Benchmark.

 

Professional video multimedia file write and read performance testing using the AJA System Test In order to simulate the scenario test, the test was set to 5120×2700 5K RED format for 64GB and 1GB files, and the Codec Type was 10bit YUV by default, the final result was 9463 MB/s write and 10394 MB/s read for 1GB mode, and 9469 MB/s write and 10473 MB/s read for 64GB mode.

∆ AJA System Test 1GB.

∆ AJA System Test 64GB.

 

Next, through TxBENCH The test was conducted in the default test file 512MB mode and achieved 12104 MB/s for Read and 11053 MB/s for Write.

∆ TxBENCH Default test file 512MB mode results.

 

3DMark Storage BenchmarkingTested with game startup loading, copying game files, game archiving, installing games, and OBS game recording, the scenario mainly uses a number of games for actual testing, so that gamers can clearly refer to the performance of the hard disk in the use of the game, the above test process is recorded in units of time, but the final results are calculated using the bandwidth and the average access time, and the higher the final storage benchmark test score, the better.

∆ 3DMark Storage Benchmark Test.

 

3DMark DirectStorage Feature TestIt can help gamers understand the performance enhancement of PC game loading with Microsoft's DirectStorage technology, a technology introduced by Microsoft for Windows PCs equipped with PCIe SSDs, which reduces the amount of resources consumed when loading game data.

DirectStorage can bring more benefits through BypassIO, which reduces the CPU utilization of the game by minimizing the CPU load when transferring data. When DirectStorage is used in conjunction with GDeflate data compression technology, it can further reduce the game loading time, and GDeflate eventually decompresses game data to VRAM through the GPU, resulting in more transfer bandwidth for better game data transfer efficiency. GDeflate ultimately decompresses game data to VRAM through the GPU, bringing more bandwidth for better game data transfer efficiency.

At the end of the test, three scores are generated. The first is the performance difference between DirectStorage on and off, which is expressed as a percentage. Next is the average bandwidth of game data transfer from SSD to GPU memory (VRAM) with DirectStorage enabled, and finally the average bandwidth of game data transfer from SSD to GPU memory (VRAM) with DirectStorage disabled. The Disabled item score also represents the average bandwidth of standard Windows APIs in transferring game data. The deactivation score also represents the average bandwidth of the standard Windows API for transferring game data.

∆ 3DMark DirectStorage feature test on and off scores improved.

The ∆ 3DMark DirectStorage feature tests the average bandwidth comparison between on and off.

 

Finally, AIDA64 was used to conduct the Read Test Suite, Linear Read, and Linear Write tests. The Read Test Suite mainly uses Linear Read, Random Read, and Buffered Read to test the read performance of the hard disk through these three read methods.

∆ AIDA64 Read Test Suite reads the performance combination test.

 

AIDA64's Linear Read and Linear Write full disk read/write tests will read/write the hard disk's MAX capacity large files for users to observe its read/write stability. In the Linear Read test, the SSD stays stable at an average of 9409 MB/s until the end of the test.

In the Linear Write test, after the cache was exhausted at about 19%, the write speed dropped to about 5016 MB/s, and then rose to the peak at 45%, with ups and downs until the end, and the overall write speed averaged 8116 MB/s, which is multiplied by 19% with 1.86TB=1904GB. If a user writes a large file of more than 361.76 GB at one time, then the user can enjoy the maximum high-speed performance of 10192 MB/s for continuous writing.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Read.

∆ AIDA64 Linear Write.

 

LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 Solid State Drive Temperature Testing

The next part of the test was the cooling performance, the platform was mounted on a bare bracket so the actual cooling effect was a bit better than inside the case, during the test all the slots were set to run at full speed in the BIOS of the motherboard, and the test scene was a closed room at 21°C for the actual test, as the ambient temperature in a normal room is difficult to control, so it is just for reference.

The test software still uses CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, but manually adjust the number of times to 9; test file size setting to 64 GiB, some foreign media will set their own scripts to stress test, but the author personally think that Taiwanese gamers are more commonly used. CrystalDiskMark software to test your own M.2 SSDs, so it would be better to continue using the same software to reproduce the tests on your own.

Temperature logging is done by using HWinfo64 software to record the maximum temperature of the hard disk, and manually adjusting the polling cycle in the HWinfo64 software to record the temperature of the M.2 SSD itself in a more real-time manner by adjusting the following settings. Why don't we use CrystalDiskInfo software to record the temperature? Because when there are multiple temperature sensors on an M.2 SSD, CrystalDiskInfo only displays the first sensor in order; sometimes the drive manufacturer will adjust the sensor temperature order so that the master chip is not always first, resulting in viewing temperatures from other locations. Furthermore, CrystalDiskInfo is very slow in updating the temperature sensors, and the difference between the displayed temperature and the actual temperature can be as much as 5~10 °C due to the lack of real-time updating of the temperature sensors.

• Global:20 ms
• Disk SMART every 1 cycle
• Embedded Controller every 1 cycle

∆ CrystalDiskMark Settings:NVMe SSD / Profile:Default, but manually adjusted the number of tests to 9; the test file size setting was changed to 64 GiB, and the maximum temperature is 72 °C.

 

Conclusion

AVerMedia's ADATA LEGEND 970 PRO PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 2280 2TB SSD is one of the few PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 SSDs with sequential read/write performance of up to 14,000 MB/s in Taiwan's channel price hikes, and it's also the cheapest model, even cheaper than many of the competitors with a specification of 12,000 MB/s. It's even cheaper than many competitors with 12000 MB/s specs, but it's up to each individual to decide whether or not they are comfortable with the InnoGrit brand of SSDs.

The solution I unboxed uses InnoGrit's IG5666 controller chip and Micron's 232L (232-layer) 3D TLC chips. Currently, there are only ten competitors in Taiwan that also use IG5666, but the one that I unboxed uses YMTC's China Yangtze River TLC, so I would like to make a side-by-side comparison of the two. ADATA's advantage is that it is cheaper and uses Micron chips; the disadvantage is that the sequential write performance of the labeled specification is 800 MB/s lower.

In the actual test, the continuous read/write speeds measured in CrystalDiskMark are 14068 MB/s and 11112 MB/s, which are in line with the official specification and even a little bit higher, and the after-sales part provides five-year warranty and 1480TB TBW (Tera Bytes Written), the amount of data written per day (DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day) is calculated using 1.86 TB=1904 GB. DWPD_Drive Writes Per Day) uses 1.86 TB=1904 GB to convert, which means you have to write 810.959 GB to the SSD every day for five years to exceed the TBW value, which is basically impossible to exceed in normal use.

 

The pre-installed active air-cooling cooler does have its advantages, such as not needing to connect to other slots on the motherboard for power, but the maximum temperature of 72 °C in the author's more severe tests was still a bit high, and it seems that even with the IG5666 the temperature is still a bit too high, so let's see if there is a better way of optimizing it in the future.

The running sound is still quite noticeable on the barebones platform, and because of the use of an integrated dual-layer aluminum extruded fin cooling module, the cooling design on most motherboards may need to be adjusted (e.g., remove the bottom thermal pads, etc.), and due to the height of the motherboard's convenient M.2 mounting clips or clips basically can not be compatible with each other, and you can only use the traditional M.2 screws to fix the LEGEND 970 PRO. 970 PRO, I can only say that the matter of bringing its own cooling module is a double-edged sword.