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The SSD Review uses PCMark 8’s Storage test suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience. With 10 traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of popular games, it covers some of the most popular light to heavy workloads. Unlike synthetic storage tests, the PCMark 8 Storage benchmark highlights real-world performance differences between storage devices. After an initial break-in cycle and three rounds of the testing, we are given a file score and bandwidth amount. The higher the score/bandwidth, the better the drive performs.
A bit lower than expected and we are going to call it a compatibility issue, which happens with different benchmark programs from time to time. AS we can see with the other PCIe 4.0 drives put through this test as well, results can be rather unexpected.
REAL WORLD FILE TRANSFER COMPARISON
For our Real World File Transfer Comparison of the world’s top M.2 NVMe SSDs, we have included several of the top Gen 3 SSDs tested to date, along with the PCIe 4.0 Corsair MP600, Seagate FireCuda 520, Sabrent Rocket. and the Silicon Power US70. This test is conducted through the transfer of data from one spot on the test drive to another to give us the truest of transfer speed results for that device.
We were very impressed at the transfer speeds we saw in video, music and photographs, but just a bit confused with respect to the result of OS transfer.
REVIEW ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
The announcement of the Samsung 980 Pro is rather well timed, considering Phison will make its newest E18 7GB/s NVMe controller available anytime now. This new SSD generation is showing itself to have a rather unexpected rivalry between Samsung, a very well established and proven SSD manufacturer, and Sabrent, a company that could only be described as just a bit off the cuff and willing to take risks. Where Samsung has a reputation of being rather reserved and only bringing to market that of which is guaranteed to sell in large numbers, Sabrent has done exactly the opposite, marketing SSD capacities to 8TB which most would never have expected. And their gamble appears to be paying off.
There is nobody happier than AMD in all of this though, and the fact that Samsung has marketed their first PCIe 4.0 SSD based on the AMD chipset is cause for celebration. Looking back not so long ago, AMD was struggling against the Goliath that is Intel until they introduced PCIe 4.0 in their Ryzen chipset which saw market share change hands just a bit.
As for the Samsung 980 Pro, it’s performance (for the most part) is as advertised and it has shown its sheer speed not only in typical benchmarks, but also in our data transfer testing of media and OS samples. It moves data up to 7GB/s, has a 5-year warranty and it has yet another quality that we never expected; it is much cooler than the competition.
Pricing is what we have come to expect with Samsung and, as much as it is above that of its competitors, we have to reiterate that you aren’t going to pull off 7GB/s on your PC anywhere for under $100…except with the Samsung 980 Pro. If only we had 2TB availability. Are we alone in that we cannot set up our main systems with anything less than 2TB anymore?
Great SSD Samsung!
Check Samsung 980 Pro pricing at Amazon (link).
There have been problems reported with the use of earlier Samsung PCIe SSD drives and Dell XPS 8920 desktops that won’t boot in the AHCI mode. This has been reported in the Dell.com User Forums. The 8920 only recognize the Samsung drives in RAID mode. Any word on this with the latest Samsung PCIe drives?
Hey Richard and thanks for writing. I was not familiar with that issue so dug this up. I hope it helps, but unfortunately cannot comment on that and newer drives:
https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8920-will-not-reboot-from-SSD/td-p/7551974
Having said that, I don’t believe the issue will be with the SSD so much as the system bios and setup. SSDs all follow the NVMe protocol to minimize configurability issues. Any SSD should work, or cause that same problem. I could be wrong.
Dear Mr.Tokar,
Thank you very much for your detailed review on the Samsung 980 Pro. could you please make a review about the new “AORUS Gen4 AIC SSD 2TB ” from Gigabyte. it is claimed to reach 15GB/s in read speed and 9.5 GB/s in write speed. it has the capacity to include 4 NVMe M.2 SSD’s and get connected to a PCIe Gen 4.0 slot on a motherboard. the link to this product is:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Solid-State-Drive/AORUS-Gen4-AIC-SSD-2TB#kf
it would be interesting to see it’s performance against those single SSD’s in the article table.
best regards.
I would love nothing more than to test that SSD, as would a number of reviewers but the opportunity hasn’t presented itself. Ig you have any contacts…please let them know!
If you could review the new drives such as the Adata XPG Gammix S70 which are based on the Phison E-18 it would be appreciated. Thanks.
Les, For those lowly mortals still on PCIE 3 (or even 2!) can you include some benchmarks comparing PCIE 4 ssd’s at these lower speeds, also does PCIE x 8 give the same performance as 4 x 4? Thanks.
would be nice to have this PCIe 4.0 / 3.0 Spec mentioned in the real world overview graph (note very body has this directly in mind when reading the names of the devices)
In addition would be awesome to always have the winner of The PC Mark Standard benchmark also in this graph, just to compare new exppensive memory technology (xpoint) to the evolution of nand…
Many thanks for all your great work!
With the price of the 970 Pro 1TB dropped to $270 on Amazon it becomes an interesting comparison with the 980 Pro which is only $40 less.
Simple choice between mlc and tlc memory. I have always been one to also push getting the right SSD for your needs so, unless you are getting the 980 Pro for PCIe 4…