Question Samsung 970 Evo Plus vs 'better' Samsung SSDs

[mikeymikec]

It's been a while since I read the reviews for these products, but I don't see anything particularly compelling about the performance/specs of the 980 or 980 PRO. All three are TLC, and skimming through AT's review of the 980 PRO hasn't turned up anything particularly worthy of note, certainly nothing to warrant the massive price tag in comparison.

 

[CakeMonster]

I feel that the 970 Evo Plus is kind of a hidden gem. It had a decent performance boost over the non plus version and that got very little attention, in fact its puzzling that Samsung didn't do more to promote it or even give it a different name. And when you add the somewhat disappointing performance gains of the 980 series, the 970 Evo Plus shines even more.

The new ones do have PCIE4 and I guess that's a selling point, but that means very little for practical performance today. Some have speculated that it will make a difference when the console technologies that have direct GPU access make it to PC. But I read that that should work with PCIE3 too, so even the 970 Evo Plus should be covered there, so unless that is extremely reliant on pure burst sequential transfers that PCIE4 can give the 970 Evo Plus seems like a damn solid choice still.

 

[WilliamM2]

What disappointing gains of the 980 Pro?

970 Evo Plus:

Max Sequential Read	Up to 3500 MBps
Max Sequential Write	Up to 3300 MBps

4KB Random Read	QD32: Up to 480,000 IOPS QD1: Up to 19,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write	QD32: Up to 550,000 IOPS QD1: Up to 60,000 IOPS

980 Pro:

Max Sequential Read	Up to 7000 MBps
Max Sequential Write	Up to 5000 MBps

4KB Random Read	QD1: Up to 22,000 IOPS QD32: Up to 800,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write	QD1: Up to 22,000 IOPS QD32: Up to 1,000,000 IOPS

Seems like a very large improvement, I'm sure not disappointed with mine.

 

[mikeymikec]

@WilliamM2
You do understand that 'up to' is a pretty meaningless term, don't you?

 

[Pohemi]

I figured the major difference was the bus (gen4 vs gen3 pcie). There would be advancements in the ICs/TLC as well but it's not quite the same as jumping to a new generation or tech.

 

[WilliamM2]

@WilliamM2
You do understand that 'up to' is a pretty meaningless term, don't you?

You do understand that double the IOPs is not meaningless don't you? And of course the "up to" applies to both drives. The 980 Pro is faster, by a large margin.

 

[killster1]

It's been a while since I read the reviews for these products, but I don't see anything particularly compelling about the performance/specs of the 980 or 980 PRO. All three are TLC, and skimming through AT's review of the 980 PRO hasn't turned up anything particularly worthy of note, certainly nothing to warrant the massive price tag in comparison.

i think he forgot how to read reviews

The Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD Review: A Spirit of Hope

www.anandtech.com

for me powerusage and going faster? WOWOWOWO sign me up, but i guess it depends what you use it for and what else you have going on.

 

[mikeymikec]

i think he forgot how to read reviews

The Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD Review: A Spirit of Hope

www.anandtech.com

for me powerusage and going faster? WOWOWOWO sign me up, but i guess it depends what you use it for and what else you have going on.

I'm just wondering when I'd care about power usage: maybe if SSDs typically used 10x the power of a laptop HDD, then a new, more economical yet still high performance SSD would be remarkable. For the scenarios I use SSDs for though, a device whose usage is measured in milliwatts is not an area that I'm going to be looking for power savings in.

For me anyway the most compelling argument to buy Samsung PRO drives was MLC vs TLC, and the endurance/performance points that went with it. That argument no longer applies, and the 980 PRO under sustained loads does sail not out ahead of the 970 Evo Plus in a way that justifies its price tag (which in the UK IIRC is nearing double the 970 Evo Plus).

 

[dlerious]

The 980 PRO has cache memory (512K,1MB,2MB) and a different controller (elpis vs phoenix)