Samsung 970 EVO SSD Review: The 64-Layer Refresh

[Guest]

Samsung has an answer to competitor's 64-layer flash. Today we see if Samsung can take back the mainstream NVMe performance lead.

Samsung 970 EVO SSD Review: The 64-Layer Refresh : Read more

 

[WINTERLORD]

id assume if you already have a 960 evo, then its not yet worth the upgrade meaning you wouldnt notice a difference in real world performance?

 

[CRamseyer]

Correct.

 

[rinosaur]

So whats next? PCI x8? I just got a SM2262 drive and it outbenches my old SATA SSD 5 times over but I can't really tell even on boot up. I wish there was a Battlefield 1 benchmark since BF3 is pretty old and the maps will be tiny in comparison. At the same time I don't know what the bottleneck is when loading multiplayer maps. Even small games like HotS could not possibly be utilizing the old 500MB/s drive to the max since it takes like 15 seconds to get to 100% with low CPU/memory usage.

 

[Co BIY]

In the Application Storage Bandwidth chart the Samsung 970 EVO is mislabeled as a Plextor product.

 

[modeonoff]

When can we buy it? Can' find it listed in major online stores.

 

[ern88]

Worth upgrading from a 850 pro the the newer 970 evo?

 

[modeonoff]

I cannot find it in major online stores in North America yet. Don't know about availability. When it becomes available, will the current SSD prices drop?

 

[ATI9800Pro]

Where can I get that Plextor 970 EVO 2TB in the Application Storage Bandwidth chart ?

 

[mikeynavy1976]

Similar question to ERN88. I currently have a 850 EVO (M.2) in a desktop (i7-7700k w/ 16GB RAM) and I don't notice any real world difference from a Dell XPS 13 w/ older NVMe drive. Benchmarks, obviously, show the NVMe considerable faster. Is it still only worth upgrading from SATA to NVMe (SSD of course) with specific workloads?

 

[Darkbreeze]

I wouldn't exactly call the MX500's read/write speeds of 560/510 MB/s and 95/90k IOPS "catching up". It surprised me when I read that so I went to double check. The MX500 is not even as fast as the 960 EVO (Actually, it's less than half as fast) much less the 970, and it's more expensive, at 121.99 being the least expensive I could find one for, although the double storage space is nice, users looking for fast drives are more worried about performance than they are about doubling the capacity of a much slower drive.

Unless you can show conclusive performance versus pricing, with links, I'm afraid I can't agree with the validity of some of the information shown here.

 

[BoredErica]

This review tempts me to buy a ex920 and pray I never have to write any data onto my SSD, trying to milk the low qd random reads (burst).

 

[CRamseyer]

Worth upgrading from a 850 pro the the newer 970 evo?

I wouldn't exactly call the MX500's read/write speeds of 560/510 MB/s and 95/90k IOPS "catching up". It surprised me when I read that so I went to double check. The MX500 is not even as fast as the 960 EVO (Actually, it's less than half as fast) much less the 970, and it's more expensive, at 121.99 being the least expensive I could find one for, although the double storage space is nice, users looking for fast drives are more worried about performance than they are about doubling the capacity of a much slower drive.

Unless you can show conclusive performance versus pricing, with links, I'm afraid I can't agree with the validity of some of the information shown here.

Catching up refers to the flash, not so much the MX500 on the heels of the 970 EVO, but on the 850/860 EVO.

The same flash on the PCIe NVMe side is in the HP EX920 that was in the charts today next to, often above the 970 EVO.

Also, the conclusion was written with the 500GB and 250GB pages in mind. The two missing pages will come online soon.

 

[CRamseyer]

This review tempts me to buy a ex920 and pray I never have to write any data onto my SSD, trying to milk the low qd random reads (burst).

I don't think you will have an issue with the EX920 endurance. It's artificially low for warranty purposes but also allows HP to hit the low price point.

 

[CRamseyer]

Similar question to ERN88. I currently have a 850 EVO (M.2) in a desktop (i7-7700k w/ 16GB RAM) and I don't notice any real world difference from a Dell XPS 13 w/ older NVMe drive. Benchmarks, obviously, show the NVMe considerable faster. Is it still only worth upgrading from SATA to NVMe (SSD of course) with specific workloads?

"I don't notice any real world difference from a Dell XPS 13 w/ older NVMe drive."

That just means you don't move a lot of sequential data or when you do, the 400-500 MB/s performance is good enough. You need to look for high random reads (at low queue depths) and high random mixed workload performance. The 970 EVO would increase your perception of speed but there are other products that cost less that do the same. Check those two charts and the PCM8 results.

 

[BoredErica]

Is it normal for 2tb drives to be slower than their 1tb versions? Seems to be the case with Samsung and Mx500.

 

[logainofhades]

I would probably consider a Western Digital Black NVME over a 970 evo, if I were looking to get such a drive.

 

[modeonoff]

Is the Western Digital Black NVME better than the 960 EVO, older brother of the 970?

 

[Darkbreeze]

No, it's not. Especially not when it comes to random read/write speed. Those operations are significantly slower than the 960 EVO, at least on paper. As far as sequential speeds, it's slower as well, but not by enough that you'll likely notice it overmuch. Still, if the prices are the same or within a reasonable distance of each other I'd easily choose the 960 over the WD Black.

 

[logainofhades]

At the more common 25xGB/5xxGB level, WD Blacks are typically $30 cheaper. The performance difference, for most users, isn't worth the that $30 premium.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I know what you mean, but for me, the difference of 1150/1000 MB/s sustained and 160000/196000, between one and the other, is more than worth 30 dollars. The 960 EVO is almost double the speed in practically every regard, based on sustained and 4k random read/write speeds at qd32. The 970 EVO even more so.

Still, I am FAR more interested in the upcoming NVME PCI drives based on the Phison E12 controller, that initial estimates seem to give better than Intel Optane random read/write speeds at low or high queue depths, than these drives. I had it in mind for some time to get one of the Samsung PCI NVME drives until I saw the article about the E12 controller which unlike Optane will be usable on practically any motherboard with an M.2 x4 slot.

 

[logainofhades]

I am no SSD expert, but I didn't think it performed badly. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-black-nvme-ssd-review,5530-2.html

Also the WD black has a better warranty than a 960 evo. 5yr vs 3yr.

 

[modeonoff]

When choosing components, do we expect that Samsung SSD will fail in 3 years?

 

[Giroro]

How accurate are their "user" capacity claims?

I don't just mean the fact companies can still legally redefine a Gigabyte from 2^30 to "1 billion bytes" - forcing computer scientists to use the stupid-sounding baby-talk "Gibibyte (Gib)". Windows still very much needs to fix their acronym, by the way. So I expect windows to recognize that "1 TB totally available to the user guys, we promise" as about 931GB.

I've been noticing a trend in SD cards where the raw capacity of the card (by reading the CSD meaning BS claims about "formatting" don't apply) fails to even meet the redefined claims on the package. I've actually yet to find a single 1GB SD card with a raw capacity of 1,000,000,000 bytes - they usually come in closer to 950,000,000 (and it's very inconsistent between brands).

So even after all the normal misleading claims about "formatting", marketing BS, and legal loopholes allowing them to redefine units of measurement... SD makers are STILL ripping everybody off by about 5% In a way I feel is legally actionable.
So, I'm just wondering if the same applies to the over provisioning of SSDs as well.

 

[Darkbreeze]

On all of my Samsung drives, 840 EVO, 850 EVO, etc., overprovisioning was left entirely to the user as far as how much you wanted to allocate, through the Magician software. There was no amount pre-overprovisioned that I can recall, unless I'm off the mark in what you're asking. All the space allocated to overprovisioning to offset future block failure was either set through Magician or didn't exist, which is a bad idea to leave that way.