Question Samsung SSD PCIe Gen Question

bobdylansram

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May 8, 2023
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I'm deciding on what 2TB SSD to get for my personal computer aiming to increase drive speeds from my standard hard drives; I have a B450 Tomahawk as my motherboard and its specifications support PCI-E 2/3. From my understanding, using a SSD with Gen 4 PCI-E is still possible but will be bottlenecked to Gen2/3 speeds.

I am aiming for a Samsung SSD and this question is up purely in terms of Samsung. I noticed pricing, and a 980 Pro is the same price as a 970 EVO Plus and a 990 Pro is only $15 more. I'm likely going to keep this SSD for when I eventually upgrade my build. In the short term, I don't see a reason to choose a 970 EVO Plus over a 980/990 when the price is nearly identical and less advantageous for a build upgrade. Will the 970 Evo Plus perform better since it is fully supported by my motherboard or is there some advantage to to it or am I misunderstanding something?

PCPartPicker Prices
 
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Solution
do you think they are not significant enough to consider and I should aim for a Gen4 even it may be years until I upgrade?
If you're gonna upgrade in 2-3 years, the SSD would be fine. (unless you use it for *intense* file copying or smth)

What purpose will you be using the SSD for? Storing large files? Games?
You should check out the lifespans of these SSDs with a quick google search, and figure out if it will still be good for your use after 2-3 years under the workloads you subject it to.

Do you know of any benefits the specific SSDs have over each other (that may make 970 evo worth in short run)
And no, according to benchmarks and tests online, the 990 & 980 outperforms the 970 almost all the time, and if they are...
From my understanding, using a SSD with Gen 4 PCI-E is still possible but will be bottlenecked to Gen2/3 speeds.
Yes, you are right.

Since you are not going to upgrade the SSD in a future build, I suggest not going with the 970 EVO Plus cause its Gen-3.
The other 2 are both Gen-4, so your future builds (if the mobo is gonna be Gen-4) will benefit for the Gen-4 speeds.

Talking about the 990 and 980, their speeds are almost equally similar, the difference of the 990 being a teeny tiny bit faster is negligible. Since the 970 is the same price as 980 (according to you), its totally worth going for the 980, than a generation lower.

Hope this helps!
 
Yes, you are right.

Since you are not going to upgrade the SSD in a future build, I suggest not going with the 970 EVO Plus cause its Gen-3.
The other 2 are both Gen-4, so your future builds (if the mobo is gonna be Gen-4) will benefit for the Gen-4 speeds.

Talking about the 990 and 980, their speeds are almost equally similar, the difference of the 990 being a teeny tiny bit faster is negligible. Since the 970 is the same price as 980 (according to you), its totally worth going for the 980, than a generation lower.

Hope this helps!
Hi, this does help a lot as it lets me know im not lost. I do plan on getting a gen 4 motherboard upgrade in the future, however, im not sure when. Do you know of any benefits the specific SSDs have over each other (that may make 970 evo worth in short run) or do you think they are not significant enough to consider and I should aim for a Gen4 even it may be years until I upgrade?
 
do you think they are not significant enough to consider and I should aim for a Gen4 even it may be years until I upgrade?
If you're gonna upgrade in 2-3 years, the SSD would be fine. (unless you use it for *intense* file copying or smth)

What purpose will you be using the SSD for? Storing large files? Games?
You should check out the lifespans of these SSDs with a quick google search, and figure out if it will still be good for your use after 2-3 years under the workloads you subject it to.

Do you know of any benefits the specific SSDs have over each other (that may make 970 evo worth in short run)
And no, according to benchmarks and tests online, the 990 & 980 outperforms the 970 almost all the time, and if they are not, still, that difference would be negligible.
 
Solution
If you're gonna upgrade in 2-3 years, the SSD would be fine. (unless you use it for *intense* file copying or smth)

What purpose will you be using the SSD for? Storing large files? Games?
You should check out the lifespans of these SSDs with a quick google search, and figure out if it will still be good for your use after 2-3 years under the workloads you subject it to.


And no, according to benchmarks and tests online, the 990 & 980 outperforms the 970 almost all the time, and if they are not, still, that difference would be negligible.
Very good advice, I wasn't considering how usage can change lifetime and the difference in lifetimes. So far, it looks to me that 980 Pro is the best option with a longer lifetime.
 
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