In testing the Addlink G55H, we used our latest testbed PC, designed specifically for benchmarking PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs. It is built around an ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard with an AMD X670 chipset, 32GB of DDR5 memory, one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot (with lanes that have direct access to the CPU), and three PCIe 4.0 slots. The system sports an AMD Ryzen 9 7900 CPU using an AMD stock cooler; a GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card with 8GB of GDDR6 SDRAM; and a Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 Snow 750-watt power supply. The boot drive is an ADATA Legend 850 PCIe 4.0 SSD. (The reviewed SSD is tested as a secondary data drive.)

We put the Addlink drive through our usual slate of internal solid-state drive benchmarks: Crystal DiskMark 6.0, UL’s PCMark 10 Storage, and UL’s 3DMark Storage benchmark. The last measures a drive’s performance in a number of gaming-related load and launch tasks.

Crystal DiskMark’s sequential speed tests provide a traditional measure of drive throughput, simulating best-case, straight-line transfers of large files. We use this test largely to see if our tested speeds are in line with the manufacturer’s rated speeds.

Speed-wise, the G55H’s rated and tested sequential read results put it on the lower tier of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, along with the Gigabyte Aorus 10000, ADATA Legend 970, and Seagate Firecuda 540, whose read speeds all hover around 10,000MBps. Its sequential write speed is the lowest of any Gen 5 SSD we’ve tested. Both its sequential read and write speeds are lower than the other DRAM-less PCIe 5 SSD we have tested, the Crucial P510.

In 4K read testing, while the WD Black SN8100 posted a score that was 31% higher than the Addlink drive, the G55H’s read results were in the middle of a fairly tight range of scores occupied by the rest of the PCI Express 5 drives as well as the two PCIe 4 SSDs in our comparison group. As for 4K write testing, the G55H was toward the top of a tight grouping of scores from the PCIe 5.0 drives, with the two PCIe 4.0 sticks considerably lagging the pack. (Good 4K write performance is especially important for an SSD used as a boot drive, though we test them as secondary drives.)

The PCMark 10 Overall Storage test measures a drive’s speed in performing a variety of routine tasks such as launching Windows, loading games and creative apps, and copying both small and large files. The G55H’s Overall score was near the bottom of the pack, though it did edge the DRAM-less Crucial P510. While it performed better than one of the two Gen 4 SSDs in our comparison group, the WD SN850X, it was beaten by the other, Crucial’s T500, in this test. In the individual tests that, when aggregated, make up the PCMark 10 Overall Storage score, the G55H’s scores ranged from subpar to middling.

Finally, in the gaming-centric 3DMark Storage benchmark, the G55H’s scores were third from last, ahead of the Crucial P510 and Lexar NP1090 Pro but behind our two Gen 4 comparison drives.