[SOLVED] 970 EVO plus must be more expensive than 980 PRO to make

Pextaxmx

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evidence #1: Samsung swapped 970 EVO plus controller to 980 Pro controller
evidence #2: look at the Dell OEM PCIE3 SSD sticker below. They are supplying PM9A1 as PCIE3 drive. I guess they are limiting it only up to PCIE3.
sRmkKQc.jpg
 
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No. Not from that direction. Dell rarely uses full aftermarket parts. Instead they'll contact OEMs and buy up all the B product or failed parts.

In this case, Samsung put together a 980Pro and tested it, but the silicon didn't cut it for 980Pro standards. So Samsung sells it to Dell as a Gen3 970 Evo Plus, which it does pass.

Dell has been doing that for years, and not just with Samsung. If you got an ATI x800 in your Dell 8400, the standard card was 256bit memory buss. The Dell version was 192bit. Same ATI card, but one of the chips failed, so traces were deliberately cut. X800 in name, X800 drivers, X800 bios, X800 everything except performance.

It's not that the 980Pro is cheaper to manufacture, it's that a failed 980Pro can't...

Lutfij

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Dell are a brand like any other company out there who would want to make a profit using the least amount of resources. In this case, they're asking the makers of the SSD to water down some features in order to meet a price point and a profit scale. SKY Hynix have a number of drives that are watered down which can be found on Dell laptop's/prebuilts.
 

Pextaxmx

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Dell are a brand like any other company out there who would want to make a profit using the least amount of resources. In this case, they're asking the makers of the SSD to water down some features in order to meet a price point and a profit scale. SKY Hynix have a number of drives that are watered down which can be found on Dell laptop's/prebuilts.
Exactly my point.
Watered down PM9A1 (980 PRO family) must be cheaper than PM981a (970 EVO Plus)
 

Karadjgne

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No. Not from that direction. Dell rarely uses full aftermarket parts. Instead they'll contact OEMs and buy up all the B product or failed parts.

In this case, Samsung put together a 980Pro and tested it, but the silicon didn't cut it for 980Pro standards. So Samsung sells it to Dell as a Gen3 970 Evo Plus, which it does pass.

Dell has been doing that for years, and not just with Samsung. If you got an ATI x800 in your Dell 8400, the standard card was 256bit memory buss. The Dell version was 192bit. Same ATI card, but one of the chips failed, so traces were deliberately cut. X800 in name, X800 drivers, X800 bios, X800 everything except performance.

It's not that the 980Pro is cheaper to manufacture, it's that a failed 980Pro can't then be sold to the public, but a company like Dell can buy a watered down 980Pro - 970 Evo Plus because it's not for individual sale purposes.
 
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Pextaxmx

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Jun 15, 2020
418
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No. Not from that direction. Dell rarely uses full aftermarket parts. Instead they'll contact OEMs and buy up all the B product or failed parts.

In this case, Samsung put together a 980Pro and tested it, but the silicon didn't cut it for 980Pro standards. So Samsung sells it to Dell as a Gen3 970 Evo Plus, which it does pass.

Dell has been doing that for years, and not just with Samsung. If you got an ATI x800 in your Dell 8400, the standard card was 256bit memory buss. The Dell version was 192bit. Same ATI card, but one of the chips failed, so traces were deliberately cut. X800 in name, X800 drivers, X800 bios, X800 everything except performance.

It's not that the 980Pro is cheaper to manufacture, it's that a failed 980Pro can't then be sold to the public, but a company like Dell can buy a watered down 980Pro - 970 Evo Plus because it's not for individual sale purposes.
interesting... thanks for enlightening me :) Is Dell only suspect of such practice or OEMs like HP or Lenovo do that as well?
 
interesting... thanks for enlightening me :) Is Dell only suspect of such practice or OEMs like HP or Lenovo do that as well?
All are doing sneaky things like that to cut costs, Using second grade components, mark them with own designation to cover up or order them modified enough to become proprietary. With shortage of chips and supply even some SSD manufacturers are doing dastardly things like changing control and memory chips to inferior ones but without SKU change so until checked properly you don't know exactly what you actually get.
 
interesting... thanks for enlightening me :) Is Dell only suspect of such practice or OEMs like HP or Lenovo do that as well?
This is a widespread practice called binning. Semiconductor manufacturing doesn't produce a 100% yield rate. There will be defects, but not every defect causes the part to become utterly useless. Sometimes this means you have to disable sections of the part. Sometimes this means it can't be clocked as high. Rather than just toss parts that still work, they'll just get shuffled into another product. This may be put into the hands of customers through retail channels, like video cards (practically all of the high/top end video cards sold to consumers are defective, as they have something disabled), or system builders contract hardware manufacturers to make some product for them to meet a pricing goal.
 

Karadjgne

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Evga has been doing it for years. The Evga FTW DT is a perfect example. Evga builds an FTW that by all rights should result in FTW performance, but when tested, fails. Can fail to hit power targets, clock speeds, anything. If it fails to meet FTW minimum standards for anything, instead of tearing it apart and trying to diagnose exactly why it failed, it's downclocked to XC standards with the DT (XC) vbios and if it passes those standards, you get an FTW DT. It looks like a FTW, has the same cooling as an FTW, same custom PCB, same everything, but is an XC at heart.