Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD review: PCIe 4.0 for the win - tanexpon1976

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

• 7GBps reading and 5GBps writing via PCIe 4
• Excellent performer with PCIe 3 as well

Cons

• Top-tier pricing
• Relatively first gear TBW rating

Our Verdict

The Samsung 980 Favoring is the NVMe SSD you want–if you're rocking PCIe 4 (Ryzen-exclusive as of this writing). For much common PCIe 3-equipped systems, it's still a great drive, but not significantly major than the get down-priced competition.

The Samsung 980 Pro is Here to take up back the crown—then some. While its predecessor, the 970 Pro, South Korean won and eventually lost its SSD carrying into action statute title to hotter challenger, this latest genesis buries them all.

Of course, to witness the greatness, you'll motivation a computer with the PCIe 4.0 device interface, which currently agency of late-multiplication AMD Ryzen. With PCIe 3.0, the 980 Pro is still first-class, but only on a par with the clear rival.

This review is part of our ongoing roundup of the best SSDs. Go there for selective information along competing products and how we well-tried them.

Design and glasses

The 980 Pro sports the same 2280 (22 millimeter wide, 80 mm long) form constituent Eastern Samoa all mainstream NVMe SSDs, and it arrives bare—no heat spreader included.

The controller is a Samsung in-domiciliate Elpis intention. The NAND is Samsung's TLC V-NAND, which the company refers to as 3-piece MLC. Samsung informed Maine that there are "1xx" layers in the NAND. What the heck that means, I lavatory't tell you, simply with 40 percent more capacitance it likely means there are more or less 128 layers.

The DDR4 DRAM cache varies by capacity. You suffer 512MB of cache on the 256GB parkway ($90 when IT becomes available) and 512GB drive ($150 happening AmazonRemove non-product link), and 1GB of memory cache on the 1TB model we tested ($230 connected Amazon). The yet-to-exist-priced 2TB model leave have 2GB of cache.

Those sticker prices place the Samsung 980 Pro in the top tier of NVMe SSDs by be per gigabyte. In short, it's expensive. The drives carry a five-year limited warranty. The limit is 150TBW per 256GB of capacitance rating. TBW stands for TeraBytes Written over the life of the drive.

That evaluation is a trifle low for a premium-priced drive. Calm, information technology represents 41GB written per day complete 10 years—very much more data than the average user will write (reads don't count). A large part of the logic behind tying warranties to TBW ratings is to admonish enterprisingness utilisation of cheaper consumer SSDs.

Samsung

Samsung's 980 Pro blows away every NVMe SSD we've tested when used in conjunction with PCIe 4.0. With PCIe 3.0, information technology's still top-notch, merely not nearly as impressive. Peculiarly given the price and somewhat low TBW rating.

Samsung sent the 2TB version of the 980 Pro to us happening 2/1/2021. It was duly proved and performs almost exactly along par with the 1TB version. At $400, IT's a very good deal.

Performance

The 980 Professional more than lived up to Samsung's claims of 7GBps reading and 5GBps composition via PCIe 4, at to the lowest degree with CrystalDiskMark 6, which we economic consumption for comparison with a bear-sized body of early testing. Real-sprightliness transfers can't touch any of the synthetic results, as Windows has get along a preferably large constriction in performance, but the 980 Pro still aced them.

Again, PCIe 4 presently substance late-gen AMD Ryzen. Rumors suggest Intel mightiness support PCIe 4 with its upcoming 11th-gen Rocket Lake CPUs, but nothing's confirmed.

Commonly, we don't post test grabs of tests, but this indefinite is worth a gander. The numbers overturned in past the Samsung 980 In favor are eye-popping indeed. Notice that the numbers are from a 1TB version of the 980 In favor. Samsung as wel dispatched a 256GB model, which posted approximately the same numbers.

IDG

Normally we preceptor't show CDM results as screen grabs, but this is so impressive we had to, even if they don't quite hold up under real life OS employ.

I've compared the 980 Pro to the other PCIe 4 NVMe SSD we've tested—the Phison 16-based Seagate FireCuda 520. While the 980 In favor cleaned its punch in terms of continuous throughput, the FireCuda 520 actually bested the 980 Affirmative in several random 4K tests which are not shown. Not aside a lot, but enough to cite it.

IDG

The 980 Pro is far quicker than the Phison-based Seagate FireCuda 520 in this test, and our 48GB transfer tests—with PCIe 4. The 980 Pro is likewise fast with PCIe 3, but not enough to warrant the premium price.

The real-world 48GB transfer results below are also very staggering, and make the 980 Pro the first PCIe 4 drive we've tested to present a real life advantage in sustained transfers. Hither the FireCuda 520 was no touch.

IDG

If you're lucky enough to make a Ryzen and PCIe 4, you'll love the 980 Affirmative which shaved more than a minute off of the previous quickest aggregate 48GB transfer time.

Okay, now for a quick dose of reality. If you throw decent information at the 980 Pro, publish speeds volition dismiss from 2.25GBps to roughly 1.75GBps. We detected this along the 450GB written matter shown below.

IDG

This mild drop from 2.25GBps to 1.75GBps occurred at the 30%/135GB mark.

If you happen to catch the drive piece it's doing housekeeping, or in that respect's not plenty NAND left (if the push is nearing full) to assign some as subordinate cache, publish speeds can overleap as low as 350MBps.

I saw this once while testing the 256GB model. It transpired after several 48GB transfers, followed almost immediately by a TRIM operation, and then another 48GB single file copy. It never happened under rule use.

Uninterrupted write dips are non a practical concern 99.9 percent of the time with the larger capacities, or 99 percent of the time with lower capacities. Merely it illustrates just how important cache and caching algorithms are to performance in now's NVMe SSDs.

The PCIe 3 tests utilized Windows 10 64-bit running on a CORE i7-5820K/Asus X99 Deluxe system with four 16GB Jamaican capita 2666MHz DDR4 modules, a Zotac (NVidia) GT 710 1GB x2 PCIe artwork calling card, and an Asmedia ASM2142 USB 3.1 lineup. IT likewise contains a G GC-Alpine Thunderclap 3 card, and Softperfect Ramdisk 3.4.6 for the 48GB read and drop a line tests.

The PCIe 4 testing was done on an MSI MEG X570 motherboard socketing an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core CPU and using the duplicate Kingston DDR and software program.

A no-brainer if you're PCIe 4, not so much with PCIe 3

The Samsung 980 In favou is a great NVMe SSD—the fastest we've always time-tested victimization the PCIe 4.0 bus. If you're prosperous OR smart enough to own a late-gen Ryzen system, it's the one you want.

With PCIe 3.0, you're outside to notice the difference between the 980 Pro and drives costing half equally much, of which at that place are at present quite a few. Throw in the nether TBW military rating, and it's not the best deal, especially for 4K or 8K redaction workload, which can involve a good deal of data. Then again, you'll be prospective-proofed for PCIe 4 when you update your PC. It's your call connected that one.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/393496/samsung-980-pro-nvme-ssd-review.html

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