Review Samsung 970 EVO Plus Review

[UsandThem]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13761/the-samsung-970-evo-plus-ssd-review

For most purposes, the 970 EVO Plus can now be regarded as Samsung's flagship consumer SSD, and it deserves that title. Its primary competition comes from NVMe drives that are much cheaper but offer similar real-world performance with lower worst-case synthetic benchmark performance.

First mainstream SSD that uses 96-Layer 3D NAND.

Nothing really that exciting about this update. Small increases in performance in some areas, and still among the fastest NVMe drives available. That said, I really like (and have had very good luck) using Samsung drives for a very long time, but I'm finding myself not being able to justify spending that much more for a Samsung drive. A few bucks sure, but there's now so much solid competition that perform neck-and-neck with Samsung, and they generally are significantly cheaper (or go on sale a lot more often).

One interesting thing from the article was there was no update to the existing 970 PRO, so it looks like that won't happen until PCIe 4.0 hits.

 

[coercitiv]

That said, I really like (and have had very good luck) using Samsung drives for a very long time, but I'm finding myself not being able to justify spending that much more for a Samsung drive.

I'm in the same situation and have just bought a 512GB ADATA S11 Pro over a Samsung Evo.

Things are looking up though, the NVME price premium is mostly gone and we have quite a few decent options to choose from.

 

[StinkyPinky]

As you can see by my sig I prefer Samsung. Don't mind paying a premium for it because they're a trusted brand with good software and excellent performance.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I'm disappointed that they didn't include more drives in comparison testing, like the MyDigitalSSD SBX 1TB. It isn't that much faster than the older 970 EVO though, so I doubt many current owners of that drive will want to upgrade.

 

[UsandThem]

I'm disappointed that they didn't include more drives in comparison testing, like the MyDigitalSSD SBX 1TB. It isn't that much faster than the older 970 EVO though, so I doubt many current owners of that drive will want to upgrade.

I don't think Anandtech reviewed the BPX PRO at all. However, Tom's did and they even use the newest firmware update (12.1) which improves performance:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-970-evo-plus-ssd,5608.html

MyDigitalSSD’s BPX Pro also proves to be a worthy adversary for those not looking to break the bank. It outscored the 500GB EVO Plus in PCMark 8, and both capacities kept fairly close to the EVO Plus throughout the rest of the testing. It has other things going for it, too. The BPX Pro is significantly cheaper than the EVO Plus and comes with almost triple the endurance rating.

// Edit: //

I read your post too fast, as I missed SBX all together. However, the Tom's review has both the PRO and SBX.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@UsandThem either or. There are some good alternatives to the 970 Evo regardless. I got a 970 Evo on a Black Friday sale for my next PC and I kind of regret it since I could have look at some other drives (like the BPX Pro) that actually would have been a few dollars cheaper and performed just as well. The 970 Evo Plus doesn't much change that situation.

 

[UsandThem]

@UsandThem either or. There are some good alternatives to the 970 Evo regardless. I got a 970 Evo on a Black Friday sale for my next PC and I kind of regret it since I could have look at some other drives (like the BPX Pro) that actually would have been a few dollars cheaper and performed just as well. The 970 Evo Plus doesn't much change that situation.

I agree.

I will be buying a 500ish GB NVMe drive soon, and I'm trying to decide between the BPX PRO, 970 EVO, WD Black SN750, HP EX950, and the Corsair MP510. The cheapest is the BPX PRO at $100, the Samsung and WD are the most expensive at $130 right now, while the rest fall somewhere in the middle.

The nice thing now compared to the past was if a person didn't buy the Samsung, you could generally save money, but the drives weren't truly competitive. Now all the companies have very comparable high-performance NVMe drives (except Crucial for whatever reason who only has a QVL model at this point).

 

[UsandThem]

I will add one thing to my thoughts above (about which drive to buy) though.

1. The WD Black SN750 = same drive as the 2018 Black drive (same controller and NAND), only difference is the firmware version (which WD could have simply provided to current owners). Instead, they decided not to, and I personally find that kind of, well kind of crappy. So it would be unlikely that they offer any firmware updates to improve performance on this latest revision either.
2. The MyDigitalSSD BPX PRO = Provides a firmware update that improves performance (unlike WD), but installing it wipes all data off of the drive, so this would not be feasible say if the person had their OS installed on it. Plus, they offer no SSD utility like WD and Samsung do).
3. The HP EX950 = No support, no firmware updates, and the drive doesn't seem to exist on HP's website (if a person needed support). No utility offered either. Finally, it seems that had a manufacturing run of their previous gen drive (EX920) that had a temperature sensor bug which caused the SSD to report its temperature was always 54 Celsius. I wasn't able to find anything where they fixed this.

So right now, I'm leaning towards either the BPX PRO, 970 EVO Plus, or the MP510. I'll likely have to wait for a few weeks to see how the pricing plays out after the new 970 hits the retail channels. If it's like previous launches, the retailers will sell it over MSRP for a bit (early adopter tax). In that case, I will likely go with one of the other two drives.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Interesting note on the weird firmware support for non-Samsung drives. Personally I have never bothered with bundled drive utilities, support, firmware updates, or anything else with my SSDs (including the 512 GB BPX I'm using now), so I guess I'm not all that concerned that a vendor like WD might pull silly shenanigans with firmware support. That temp sensor bug is kinda ugly though.

Also, some drives - like my BPX - have a bad habit of overheating. Not sure if MyDigitalSSD still has that problem on their newer drives.

 

[UsandThem]

Also, some drives - like my BPX - have a bad habit of overheating. Not sure if MyDigitalSSD still has that problem on their newer drives.

From what I've read so far, the drives with the Phison E12 controller (like the BPX PRO) run much cooler than their older controllers. I have a SBX drive in my son's PC, and it seems to be decent with temperatures as well (although it is only a Gen3 x2 drive).