ADATA XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB SSD Review - 14,000 MB/s on the Cheap

TweakTown Rating: 96%

Our Verdict

ADATA's XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB SSD price to performance ratio is among the best we've encountered.

Pros

• Pricing
• Sequential throughput performance
• Real-world performance

Cons

• Double-sided design

Should you buy it?

AvoidConsiderShortlistBuy

Introduction & Drive Details

ADATA's XPG Mars 980 Blade is the latest in a string of Silicon Motion SM2508-controlled SSDs to cross our bench. The most powerful and most expensive of them come arrayed with BiCS 8 flash, while the more economical versions come arrayed with Micron B58R flash. To date, in retail form, this will be the second SM2508-controlled SSD we've encountered being arrayed with B58R. The first we encountered was Acer's Predator GM9000 2TB.

Although it was less powerful than its BiCS 8 arrayed competition, the Predator GM9000 2TB at $215 offered a nearly unmatched value proposition for truly efficient 14 GB/s throughput. We also like the fact that the B58R arrayed offering is a single-sided design. Well fast forward to today, and we've got an even better value proposition in the XPG Mars 980 Blade.

ADATA's newest offers a better price of entry than the Predator GM9000 but does so by forgoing a single-sided design. Being double sided is generally a more cost-effective route to take because stacking flash dies 4 high is easier and yields more finished product than does stacking them 8 high. However, taking this route does exclude the XPG Mars Blade from finding a home inside most laptops.

So, in general, the 2TB XPG Mars 980 Blade is basically a Desktop or PlayStation 5 focused SSD. If this is what you are looking for, then this SSD right here offers a great value proposition that is not to be missed. The Mars 980 Blade 2TB runs nice and cool while pumping away at 14,000 MB/s - in fact, it generates no more heat than does an average PCIe Gen4 SSD while delivering double the throughput. The price is right, the performance is breathtaking, and its overall efficiency is currently best-in-class.

Okay, now let's dive in and see what ADATA's XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB can do for you by the numbers.

Drive Details

42

Current price points and endurance are excellent, as is its 5-year limited warranty.

Further SSD Reading – Our Latest Reviews

• Biwin Black Opal X570 Pro 2TB SSD Review - Powerful and efficient single-sided goodness
• PNY CS3250 2TB SSD Review - An Ultra Elite Enthusiast SSD
• PNY CS2150 2TB SSD Review - An Elite Mainstream SSD

42

42

42

The XPG Mars 980 Blade, like all ADATA SSDs, is fully compatible with the ADATA SSD ToolBox which even does cloning for you, making it the most feature-rich toolbox in the industry. Best of all, it's absolutely free.

Jon's Test System Specifications

Intel Test System

AMD Test System

Because we at TweakTown like to be first at everything whenever we can, we will present our storage performance results for the test subject on both Intel Core Ultra 200 Series and 9000 Series AMD platforms going forward for the foreseeable future. Because Intel still delivers the best real-world storage performance, our running chart will continue to be Intel-based until AMD can deliver better real-world storage performance than its rival.

Please note that we have completely retested all the 50 SSDs that comprise our comparison products using our new Intel Ultra Core 9 285K test platform. Results going forward cannot be compared with our previous 14th Gen Intel results or previous AMD results, as we've updated there as well. We believe it is important to keep our platforms current in terms of the latest hardware and operating system versions. We have also updated our OS to Windows 11 Pro 24H2. Overall, the pecking order has remained the same just at roughly 5% lower real-world performance than before.

Best Deals: XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 2TB SSD

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$172.99 USD	$149.99 USD	$149.99 USD	Buy
	$219.99 CAD	$238.87 CAD	$199.99 CAD	Buy
	£187.99	£169.95	£135	Buy
	$172.99 USD	$149.99 USD	$149.99 USD	Buy
	$219 AUD	$219 AUD	-	Buy
* Prices last scanned 12/3/2025 at 11:50 pm CST - prices may be inaccurate. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. We earn affiliate commission from any Newegg or PCCG sales.

Sony PlayStation 5 - M.2 Storage Expansion

PS5 Read Performance

With Sony's wildly popular PlayStation 5 console now enabled for M.2 NVMe SSDs to be used as fast storage expansion, we are including results for PS5-compatible SSDs we test as a part of our reviews going forward.

42

42

For SSDs that don't have an adequately sized PS5 compatible heatsink or other SSDs where the heatsink provided doesn't fit right and can be removed, we both use and recommend Sabrent's unparalleled PS5 heatsink available HERE.

42

42

We only chart SSDs that can deliver a minimum of 5,500 MB/s read, which is Sony's original recommendation.

42

Here we see the XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB as one of the best options going for PS5 fast storage expansion.

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM, Max IOPS, ATTO

CrystalDiskMark

42

42

42

42

42

We employ CDM as our standard measurement for both sequential throughput and Q1T1 random read. In terms of sequential throughput, the drive delivers exactly as advertised and then some, even in our more demanding user state. Excellent.

Sequential read checks in as the second-best we've achieved to date. Impressive. Sequential write comes in significantly better than advertised and is in fact the third best throughput rate we've experienced to date. Both are significantly better than what we were able to extract from the Predator GM9000 which is likely a biproduct of four flash packages vs. two.

Max IOPS

42

42

42

42

Max random read performance for our test subject checks in at 2 million IOPS and we have no problem exceeding this quoted performance metric. The same goes for its max random write factory spec of 1.65 million IOPS. Impressive.

ATTO

42

42

42

42

ATTO gives us a clear picture of what transfer sizes a particular SSD favors in terms of QD4 sequential throughput. We chart 128K transfers. At a queue depth of four, the Mars 980 Blade 2TB favors sequential transfers of 1MB or larger when serving data to the host (reading) and 128KB or larger when programming (writing) data.

Real-World Testing: Transfers, 3DMark SSD Gaming Test, PCM10 Storage

Transfer Rates

42

42

42

Our 100GB data transfer test is not your ordinary 100GB of data, ours is a crushing mix composed of more than 62K files. Write performance random or sequential is an infrequent operation and such, we do not consider it to be an important performance metric in the consumer space. An example being how many times a game is installed vs. how many times it's played. We would like to see a bit more here.

42

42

42

Unlike programming (writing) data, serving data to the host (reading) is typically an important performance metric as it relates to the consumer space. This is where transfer rates matter most, and we like what we see from our test subject. Excellent.

3DMark SSD Gaming Test

UL's newest 3DMark SSD Gaming Test is the most comprehensive SSD gaming test ever devised. We consider it superior to testing against games themselves because, as a trace, it is much more consistent than variations that will occur between runs on the actual game itself. This test is the same as running the actual game, just without the inconsistencies inherent to application testing. In short, we believe that this is the world's best way to test an SSDs gaming prowess and accurately compare it against competing SSDs. The 3DMark SSD Gaming Test measures and scores the following:

• Loading Battlefield V from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Call of Duty Black Ops 4 from launch to the main menu.
• Loading Overwatch from launch to the main menu.
• Recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) while playing Overwatch.
• Installing The Outer Worlds from the Epic Games Launcher.
• Saving game progress in The Outer Worlds.
• Copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike Global Offensive from an external SSD to the system drive.

42

42

42

Gaming is a performance metric that matters to most DIY consumers, especially for the enthusiast crowd that TweakTown caters to. Now we've reached the point where results start to matter as they are a direct reflection of user experience.

We consider a score of 6,000 here to be a milestone achievement, and our test subject delivers that and a bit more. Again, the Mars 980 Blade gets the better of the GM9000.

PCM10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 Storage Test is the most advanced and most accurate real-world consumer storage test ever made. There are four different tests you can choose from; we run two of them. The Full System Drive Benchmark and the Quick System Drive Benchmark. The Full System Drive Benchmark writes 204 GB of data over the duration of the test. These tests directly correlate with mainstream user experience.

PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark

This test writes 204GB of data and covers a broad range of common consumer tasks, including booting Windows 10, file transfers, Adobe and Office applications, and startup times for games such as Battlefield V, COD Black Ops 4, and Overwatch. Unlike synthetic numbers, this is comprehensive real-world data, which is why we use it to rank SSDs in terms of user experience.

42

42

42

Exactly like the previous test, we consider a score of 6,000 here to be a milestone achievement, and our test subject indeed delivers that to us and more, once again delivering just a bit more than the GM9000.

PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark

The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23 GB of data over the duration of the test.

42

42

42

Of all the benchmarks we run, it can be argued that this one offers the best reflection of a typical consumer use case scenario. Again, just a bit more than the GM9000 can muster.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the real-world performance on offer from the nicely priced XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB is quite gratifying. It's just a bit more powerful than the GM9000 and for a better price, too. 14,000 MB/s while only consuming around 8 watts of power is absolutely elite efficiency that is currently only attainable by SM2508-controlled SSDs. It's cool under fire at 14 GB/s. Amazing.

42

We rank SSDs in terms of overall user experience (performance where it matters most) as expressed by PCMark 10 storage and 3DMark gaming storage tests. Currently, we consider a user experience score of 17K or more to verify an SSD as a TweakTown Elite performer.

42

Massive performance, unparalleled efficiency, and a great price point have earned the ADATA-made XPG Mars 980 Blade 2TB our Best Value Award.