Question Choosing 970 EVO Plus 1Tb vs 980 Pro 1Tb

[b4u]

Hi,

I'm in the process of choosing between these 2 SSD NVMe drives, to add more storage to my desktop computer.

My motherboard only has 1 m.2 pcie3.0 connector, already filled with a 970 EVO 500Mb with OS. So the idea was to add a PCIe m.2 adapter to add a new SSD drive.

Now, I know that I will have no more performance than PCIe3.0, but I'm thinking that:

1. Given that the 980 Pro is quicker and, if what I've read is true that the 970 EVO Plus revised version is a bit slower than the previous non-revised version, I could potentially have more performance from the 980 Pro, that is, achieve a performance much closer to the PCIe3.0 theoretical speed;
2. The 980 Pro is a newer model, so I would be safer to bet it's a more future proof product (if such think really exists nowadays);
3. I've read about problems regarding 970 EVO Plus dying sooner than expected (6months to 2years) under minimal or normal usage, which worries me, and I didn't found any evidence that a firmware update solves or minimizes these problems;
4. I can get 970 EVO Plus 1Tb for 60€ and a 980 Pro 1Tb for 80€, I could ignore the price difference if the 980 Pro would bring higher benefits, or else I could save the money and buy a PCIe4.0 model when I have hardware to support it;
5. With a 908 Pro, I would have higher performance if latter on I upgrade the computer motherboard (not something I do often, though, maybe this sounds as an excuse to a higher model ).

What are your thoughts about this?

Should I stay clear from a buggy 970 EVO Plus model? Would the price difference justify the upgrade?
Or this is just a case of some bad units or firmware that caused these problems reported on the internet?


Thank you for your opinion.

 

[igor_kavinski]

DP

 

[igor_kavinski]

Don't think. Don't wait. Just grab this ASAP: https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD_BLACK-SN850X-Gaming-Heatsink-speed/dp/B0B7CKVCCV/

Only 1 left. Seriously, don't waste any more time contemplating.

 

[kschendel]

People have had success with both units, so I'm inclined to think it's more about certain production runs. Anyway, why just those two? If you simply need more storage, and aren't doing anything I/O intensive such as heavy duty content creation, pick up a Team MP34 and declare victory. (Or, get one of the SN850X's mentioned above, although you won't get your money's worth from a PCIe 3.0 setup.)

 

[Tech Junky]

aren't doing anything I/O intensive such as heavy duty content creation

This hits the nail on the head.

SS is overpriced and on a downhill trajectory for performance and quality.

WD is just as good and less cost. I use an 850 for boot and 770 for storage. Though the 770 is dram less it uses the system ram to make up for it. In testing the 770 performs better on my TB enclosure.

Either way any nvme drive will hit 10 second boot times. For gaming they're all the same once it loaded into the GPU.

 

[CakeMonster]

The 970 Evo Plus holds up exceptionally well against newer drives in benchmarks, even the new revision of it. I haven't heard anything about bugs with it, its got a pretty much stellar reputation. The 980 Pro had a firmware problem, but I wouldn't consider that a showstopper either.

You'll just have to find out how much the extra performance of 980Pro, or as suggested the SN850X, is worth to you and your budget. A 1TB drive is something you'll probably not keep for a very long time (not more than 3-5 years) given the size of applications and particularly games, so if you're tight on money the premium for the more expensive ones might not be worth it.

 

[tavosoft]

The 970 Evo Plus holds up exceptionally well against newer drives in benchmarks, even the new revision of it. I haven't heard anything about bugs with it, its got a pretty much stellar reputation. The 980 Pro had a firmware problem, but I wouldn't consider that a showstopper either.

You'll just have to find out how much the extra performance of 980Pro, or as suggested the SN850X, is worth to you and your budget. A 1TB drive is something you'll probably not keep for a very long time (not more than 3-5 years) given the size of applications and particularly games, so if you're tight on money the premium for the more expensive ones might not be worth it.

 

[tavosoft]

Friend, what SSD disks do you have?

 

[Super Spartan]

Don't think. Don't wait. Just grab this ASAP: https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD_BLACK-SN850X-Gaming-Heatsink-speed/dp/B0B7CKVCCV/

Only 1 left. Seriously, don't waste any more time contemplating.

That's what I have in my laptop, a 2TB and 4TB. The SN850X has excellent real world performance, doesn't overheat and has 0 issues. also the WD SSD Dashboard is much better IMO than Samsung Magician for doing firmware updates on the fly even for the OS drive, monitoring temps and SSD health, enabling automatic TRIM, etc.