[SOLVED] Help me choose a 2TB M.2 Gen4 SSD ?

So it's time to get some storage. And I require 2TB for OS and games. And still running a 3tb spinning rust for movies. Realistically Gen3 is probably more than enough for my use as I don't do any work that involves large files and such, but might as well go Gen4 since it is cool. And for comparison the Samsung Gen3 970 EVO Plus is $225. So yeah paying about $75 more for Gen4.

Choices locally are:
$295: ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade
$340: Samsung 980 PRO
$290: GIGABYTE AORUS
$300: Corsair MP600 PRO

I'm learning towards Corsair. Black heatsink should blend fine.
 
Solution
Get the 970 Evo Plus. Anything faster than that is a total waste of money. Load times are identical above 2000mb/sec, at that speed you’re waiting for the rest of the system to catch up before you load the next asset anyway, so a faster drive doesn’t speed up the process.

If money is a joke to you, then get the 980 Pro.
Is it going in your computer in your sig? If so then get a Gen 3, your motherboard does not have a gen4 slot so buying a gen 4 m.2 will make it run at gen3 speeds.

You will be paying $75 more for Gen 4 only to say you have a Gen 4 m.2 while it runs at gen 3 speeds.
 

iTRiP

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If the Samsung 980 Pro really is $340 for 2Tb then I would suggest that, your going to be scoring big time compared to prices in other parts of the world.

Don't worry about overstepping your gen level, might come handy in the future when you upgrade mobo again.
 

sonofjesse

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WDSN 750 GEN 3
WDSN850 GEN 4
980 PRO GEN 4
Sabrent GEN 3 or 4
EVO 970

I think they all would work and serve your purpose. I have used quite a few different ones.


I don't' think its really worth the extra 75 bucks unless you plan to upgrade MB soon.
 

TommyTwoTone66

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Get the 970 Evo Plus. Anything faster than that is a total waste of money. Load times are identical above 2000mb/sec, at that speed you’re waiting for the rest of the system to catch up before you load the next asset anyway, so a faster drive doesn’t speed up the process.

If money is a joke to you, then get the 980 Pro.
 
Solution
Productivity aside, Gen 4 does not make any difference for gaming right now because games don't use the Microsoft Direct Storage API that can take advantage of it. That will change in the future it's just a question of when. Also the 7700K doesn't support PCI-E Gen 4 anyway so you wont get any benefit. With that being said you can transport it to another machine at a later date. I would go with either the ADATA XPG GAMMIX S70 to save money or the Samsung 980 for the best, though really any are going to be fine.
 

TommyTwoTone66

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Buying a Gen4 SSD now for hopeful performance increases down the line is silly. By the time you have a CPU capable of using it and games actually support the direct storage API, then a 5TB gen5 SSD will be $200.

Just get what makes the most sense for your current system, here and now, and let the future proof itself.
 
I don't know prices where you are. However here in the UK you can get a 2TB 970 Evo gen 3 and a 1TB 980 gen 4 for the same price as one 2TB 980. It's also worth noting that Direct Storage will work with gen 3 drives you just won't get as big a benefit. Up to you though, it's nice to have the best :)
 
Saw the video. Only surprise was how close the SATA speeds were to M.2 NVMe for game load times. But I'm also hoping maybe jumping to Gen4 I will get that feeling back of when I went from spinning rust to a SSD.
Also, I just saw Sabrent Gen4 on sale for $260. I'm gonna keep my eye on this one. In past years I get best deal on Fridays but gotta time it right. I can buy most things from Amazon and have it shopped abroad.

2016 Black Friday, I bought my 1tb EVO for $220. It had been going for $250-270, but once I saw the price drop I grabbed it. Worth it. Now its time to go big.
 
Going to Gen 4 will give you nothing like the performance gains of going from an HDD to SSD. I've never found any perceivable difference between a SATA SSD and NVME SSD for general use or anything related to games, only productivity related stuff. You'll have to wait for the software to catch up before you get the benefits. Not suggesting you shouldn't buy Gen 4 right now as it is more affordable than it was, but I don't think you'll see a major triple AAA title benefiting from it for a couple of years. The new consoles do benefit from the fast speeds of NVME drives, but PC games are still using an old storage API that was originally built for hard drives.
 

TommyTwoTone66

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Peak data rate alone is meaningless. It is literally just a number in a benchmarking tool and nothing more. The reason you got such a WOW factor moving to SSD from HDD is because the seek time and random IOPS is so much better on SSD than HDD. Seek time and random IOPS are the two biggest factors that impact user experience, along with peak data rate.

It does matter to an extent, but over a nominal figure of say, half a gigabyte per second, peak data rate stops making any difference. Random IOPS and seek time are pretty consistent no matter what interface you use. The drive controller and firmware is what makes the difference there, and those tend to be the exact same across SATA3, NVMe and Gen4 drives.

Intel are working hard to push PCIe gen4 and gen5 ssds as things people want and “need”, because if they don’t there’s literally no reason to buy a new CPU.
 

TommyTwoTone66

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Amazon has the 970 Evo for $200, but I hear mixed reviews. Original is good but then they changed the controller. So when is it worse or better?

From who? Every 970 Evo review I’ve ever seen has been full of praise. Yeah they changed the controller and they also update firmware every so often as well. It changes benchmarks but very little else.

Your PC will run like an oiled up pig in Alabama.
 

kanewolf

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Saw the video. Only surprise was how close the SATA speeds were to M.2 NVMe for game load times. But I'm also hoping maybe jumping to Gen4 I will get that feeling back of when I went from spinning rust to a SSD.
Also, I just saw Sabrent Gen4 on sale for $260. I'm gonna keep my eye on this one. In past years I get best deal on Fridays but gotta time it right. I can buy most things from Amazon and have it shopped abroad.

2016 Black Friday, I bought my 1tb EVO for $220. It had been going for $250-270, but once I saw the price drop I grabbed it. Worth it. Now its time to go big.
Not going to get that feeling again. You are on an asymptotic curve. You are way past the large improvements (HDD to SSD) and into the small improvements (SATA to PCIe).
 

USAFRet

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In somewhat realistic numbers.

Lets assume an HDD takes 10 secs to open an Excel file.
We double the performance with each generation and drive type. Halving the time it takes to open that same file.

cE7Xvkq.png


Most of us made the jump from line 2 to Line 5, SATA III SSD.
Huge change, immediately noticeable.

After that, not so much.
Line 6 to 8, or even 5 to 8.
Even though the time to perform is half the previous line, 0.6 sec to 0.15 sec is seen only in artificial benchmarks. You, the user, don't really notice.
The file is open before your finger stops moving from the click.
 

TommyTwoTone66

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In somewhat realistic numbers.

Lets assume an HDD takes 10 secs to open an Excel file.
We double the performance with each generation and drive type. Halving the time it takes to open that same file.

cE7Xvkq.png


Most of us made the jump from line 2 to Line 5, SATA III SSD.
Huge change, immediately noticeable.

After that, not so much.
Line 6 to 8, or even 5 to 8.
Even though the time to perform is half the previous line, 0.6 sec to 0.15 sec is seen only in artificial benchmarks. You, the user, don't really notice.
The file is open before your finger stops moving from the click.

And in fact with double the speed the load time is far from halved, since there is stuff going on in memory and CPU that is unrelated to the SSD speed.