[SOLVED] 970 Pro vs Evo Plus

[ioannis2015v]

Hi, I was wondering which one is worthier to buy for my future pc build. I am interested on gaming but since I want to have an nvme ssd, I had chosen in the beginning the 970 Pro. But now I saw that the Evo plus costs about 40€ less and it's newer. So, is the Pro considered more professional and for bigger transfers while the newer evo plus has better write speeds (3300mb/s)? And lastly, isn't it better to save 40€? On the other hand in the Userbenchmark it shows the 970 pro much better (8th place). What do you suggest me?

 

[Eximo]

Are you planning on large volume data transfers constantly, or just installing and loading games?

You can certainly put your OS on a Pro drive, still somewhat pointless but they are still the most reliable drives. I would have to double check, but I think the Pro drives are still using MLC and not TLC or QLC NAND flash. Durability goes down the more bits per cell, but density goes up. Which is why you can get a Samsung QVO drive at 2TB for about $200.

If all you are doing is loading games and then loading, the QLC or TLC (the Evo drives) is fine.

 

[ioannis2015v]

Are you planning on large volume data transfers constantly, or just installing and loading games?

You can certainly put your OS on a Pro drive, still somewhat pointless but they are still the most reliable drives. I would have to double check, but I think the Pro drives are still using MLC and not TLC or QLC NAND flash. Durability goes down the more bits per cell, but density goes up. Which is why you can get a Samsung QVO drive at 2TB for about $200.

If all you are doing is loading games and then loading, the QLC or TLC (the Evo drives) is fine.

I am probably mostly play games but I want an nvme ssd. I want 500Gbs since I want to pay about 100-150€. I will also probably get an hdd of 1 or 2tbs or an 860 evo 500gb as a 2nd hard drive. All in all won't I be just fine with the 970 Evo plus 500Gb?

 

[fry178]

Nvme (pci) will not improve anything for you, maybe decrease loading stuff by a couple of seconds. Nvmes usually drop to sata ssd speeds once caches are saturated,
and there are good ssd that can equal/surpass most nvme on sustained read/writes.

I would go with a large 860 evo which is mlc based, but you dont pay for the pro part,
speeds are good enough, and a sata drive with 1tb should perform close/better than a nvme at half the capacity.
For the OS i would go with something like crucial mx500, which has built-in power protection so it can finish writing cache to nand in case of (power) issues with os/pc.

Not even talking about sata based nvme, which are usually identical in speed to their 2.5/3.5 in sata counterparts

 

[geofelt]

The big difference between PRO and EVO is that PRO will have longer endurance.
Today, endurance is no longer the issue it once was.
Unless you are in a server environment updating the ssd heavily, the evo will be just as good.

Both will be long obsolete before they wear out.
Think 15 vs. 20 years in a normal desktop environment.


Do not be much swayed by vendor synthetic SSD benchmarks.
They are done with apps that push the SSD to it's maximum using queue lengths of 30 or so.
Most desktop users will do one or two things at a time, so they will see queue lengths of one or two.
What really counts is the response times, particularly for small random I/O. That is what the os does mostly.
For that, the response times of current SSD's are remarkably similar. And quick. They will be 50X faster than a hard drive.
In sequential operations, they will be 2x faster than a hard drive, perhaps 3x if you have a sata3 interface.
6X with a pcie interface.
Larger SSD's are preferable. They have more nand chips that can be accessed in parallel. Sort of an internal raid-0 if you will.
Also, a SSD will slow down as it approaches full. That is because it will have a harder time finding free nand blocks
to do an update without a read/write operation.
Larger ssd devices have more endurance.

 

[mdd1963]

The Pro's write endurance is of little consequence for most gamers...(although if you anticipate 500 GB of writes daily, by all means, go for the Pro, but my own EVO has only 18 TB of writes in 25 months)

The 970 EVO Plus is the current 'must have' performance champ (in PCI-e 3.0 drives, anyway)

Even the Intel 660P, although of 'only' a PCI-e 3.0 X2 lanes/half speed by comparison (~1700 MB/sec reads/writes), offers incredible value for it's 1 and 2 TB versions, with prices rivaling ordinary SATA drives...

 

[ioannis2015v]

The big difference between PRO and EVO is that PRO will have longer endurance.
Today, endurance is no longer the issue it once was.
Unless you are in a server environment updating the ssd heavily, the evo will be just as good.

Both will be long obsolete before they wear out.
Think 15 vs. 20 years in a normal desktop environment.


Do not be much swayed by vendor synthetic SSD benchmarks.
They are done with apps that push the SSD to it's maximum using queue lengths of 30 or so.
Most desktop users will do one or two things at a time, so they will see queue lengths of one or two.
What really counts is the response times, particularly for small random I/O. That is what the os does mostly.
For that, the response times of current SSD's are remarkably similar. And quick. They will be 50X faster than a hard drive.
In sequential operations, they will be 2x faster than a hard drive, perhaps 3x if you have a sata3 interface.
6X with a pcie interface.
Larger SSD's are preferable. They have more nand chips that can be accessed in parallel. Sort of an internal raid-0 if you will.
Also, a SSD will slow down as it approaches full. That is because it will have a harder time finding free nand blocks
to do an update without a read/write operation.
Larger ssd devices have more endurance.

Thank you for your help. So, I will surely won't buy the 970 Pro 500Gb because it costs ~160€. But, I am probably thinking about an 970 Evo Plus 500Gb which costs 100€ where I will put the Windows 10, some light apps, and 2 games (about 30Gb each one). So I will probably be ok. Also, what's better next: a barracuda 1/2 Tb (30/50€) or an 860 Evo 500Gb (75€). In the 1st option I get 2tb or even 1 cheaply but it's Hdd, and on the 2nd option I will have a 2nd good ssd (total 1tb with the nvme). Which option do you suggest me?

 

[ioannis2015v]

The Pro's write endurance is of little consequence for most gamers...(although if you anticipate 500 GB of writes daily, by all means, go for the Pro, but my own EVO has only 18 TB of writes in 25 months)

The 970 EVO Plus is the current 'must have' performance champ (in PCI-e 3.0 drives, anyway)

Even the Intel 660P, although of 'only' a PCI-e 3.0 X2 lanes/half speed by comparison (~1700 MB/sec reads/writes), offers incredible value for it's 1 and 2 TB versions, with prices rivaling ordinary SATA drives...

When we say writes for the endurance what it means? Does it include the whole use of using pc, loading etc or only when I download or update something?

 

[guanyu210379]

SSD has a theoretical age while hdd should live forever but in the reality my SSDs lived longer than HDD so far.
MY first SSD, Crucial m4 128GB since 5-6 years ago is still kicking ass while I broke already 3 7200rpm 3.5" HDDs in the last 4 years.

The pro should have faster writing speed and longer life(higher write cycles).
For normal consumer, these usually do not play a big role.
Just try not to fill the SSD over 90% if you want the SSD to live long.

As for normal SATA or NVMe SSDs, speed-wise, for normal users, this is also not a big issue. The user is the usual bottleneck (like me) under normal conditions.
For normal users, just get the EVO.
If you do edit/render a lot, getting a pro would be quite helpful for your work.
One more thing, NVME m.2 SSDs bring however also another benefit aside from speed...less cables in the case compared to SATA SSD.

 

[vwcrusher]

Interesting thread....

So from what I believe I am reading, it is preferable to install a larger capacity NVMe SSD than a theoretically faster smaller capacity drive?

For example: if one is building a system for photo editing with a large image catalog, but also does some gaming - the balance between cost and performance might be a 1TB Intel 660 for OS and applications - (as opposed to a 500GB Samsung 970), and a faster 1TB Samsung 970 for data?

 

[geofelt]

Intel 660 is cheap but performance is a bit lower.
I would better opt for a 1/2 tb Samsung 860 device for everything; either a normal 2.5" drive or a m.2 format.

 

[vwcrusher]

Intel 660 is cheap but performance is a bit lower.
I would better opt for a 1/2 tb Samsung 860 device for everything; either a normal 2.5" drive or a m.2 format.

Interesting....so not NVMe PCIe? I was under the impression that they were markedly faster than the SATA versions. May I ask why?

 

[geofelt]

NVME pcie is better, but also more costly.
On newegg,
A 1tb Samsung 970 EVO is $170.
the sata version 1tb Samsung 860 m.2 evo is $155.
For that difference, I would buy the 970.

The 2tb drives show a bigger relative difference.
Certainly some comparison shopping is in order.

I say Samsung because they seem to be the most reliable and best performers.
Usually they have a better warranty.
Others may be OK but be careful, quality varies.

 

[vwcrusher]

NVME pcie is better, but also more costly.
On newegg,
A 1tb Samsung 970 EVO is $170.
the sata version 1tb Samsung 860 m.2 evo is $155.
For that difference, I would buy the 970.

The 2tb drives show a bigger relative difference.
Certainly some comparison shopping is in order.

I say Samsung because they seem to be the most reliable and best performers.
Usually they have a better warranty.
Others may be OK but be careful, quality varies.

Ah, thanks very much as you just validated the storage side of my new build....I have two NVMe PCIe SSDs specified as above. Both Samsung 970 (not plus) . A 500G for W10 and Apps, and a 1TB for data.

Again, Thanks, and sorry for adopting this thread.

 

[Eximo]

SSD has a theoretical age while hdd should live forever but in the reality my SSDs lived longer than HDD so far.

Not sure where you got that information. HDD are far less reliable, on average, then flash storage. You can't endlessly re-write to a hard drive platter, eventually the grains the data is stored with will fail. Not to mention you have moving parts. The spindle motor and read-write heads will also wear out. You also can't permanently store data on a hard drive, they do have a shelf life.

Now both storage types have mitigation techniques. HDD will attempt to recover data from bad sectors and move them to new ones, then truncate the bad sectors so they aren't re-used. SSDs will remove bad flash cells if possible, drives that are over-provisioned are best at this. Both SSD and hard drives will do wear leveling. Any bit that is used too often will be ignored/data moved so that it isn't always getting burdened.

But good MLC SSDs durability can be measured in decades of normal use. TLC drives can be measured in many years. QLC is still pretty new, but it has much less endurance, but still on the order of years.

Some hard drives can last a really long time, though the older the drive, the more likely that is (larger grain size, lower platter density) With recent hard drives, they are using 2-4 grains per bit, and using shingling (where the writes are larger than the sensitivity of the read head, so they write data, and the next bit partially overwrites it, but it can still be read. No idea what the lifespan of a HAMR drive is, which is when they have to heat the platter to do writes.

Now there are the exceptions of archival drives, designed for long term offline storage, but I don't know much about what makes them better.