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TSSDR TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL
SSD testing at TSSDR differs slightly, depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise storage media. For our Samsung 980 Pro 4TB Gen 4 M.2 SSD testing today, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized and will reach top speeds possible.
We are using a fairly new ASRock X570 Creator Test Bench which is AMD based and contains the AMD Ryzen 3700x Gen 4 CPU. Our PC has been overclocked from 3600Mhz to 4300MHz and memory has been set at a XMP profile of 2667MHz,
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
The components of this Test Bench are detailed below. All hardware is linked for purchase and product sales may be reached by a simple click on the individual item. As well, the title is linked back to the individual build article where performance testing can be validated. Tons of credit to this Cougar Blazer Gaming Case paired with Corsair fans and Corsair iCue RGB software which make this our most attractive case to date
TSSDR ASROCK CREATOR GEN 4 X570 TEST BENCH (link)
| PC CHASSIS: | Cougar Blazer Open Frame Gaming Mid-Tower Case |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASRock X570 Creator PCIe 4.0 |
| CPU: | AMD Ryzen 3700x |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair Hydro H150i Pro RGB 360mm Liquid Cooling |
| POWER SUPPLY: | Corsair RM850x 80Plus |
| GRAPHICS: | MSI Armor Mk 2 Radeon RX570 OC |
| MEMORY: | Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3600MHz |
| STORAGE: | Intel Optane 905P 1.5TB SSD |
| KEYBOARD: | Corsair K57 Wireless Gaming |
| MOUSE: | Corsair Dark Core RGB SE Wireless BT Gaming |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit |
BENCHMARK SOFTWARE
The software in use for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of Crystal Disk Info, ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Mark, AS SSD, Anvil’s Storage Utilities, AJA, TxBench, PCMark 8, and we will be conducting true testing data transfer comparisons. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.
Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.
Crystal Disk Info validates that our SSD is running in PCIe 4.0 x4 (four lane), and also that NVMe 1.3 protocol is in use.
ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 512b to 65mb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.
Samsung shows very solid performance progression as sample sizes increase which is something we like to see from this benchmark specifically. It also falls just under specs with 6.38GB/s read and 5.10GB/s write but nothing to worry about.
Summer 2019 I installed two Samsung 250gb 970EVO Plus m2 sticks in my msi 390 z mpg board. Put them in raid0 to be used as the c drive. I7 8 core CPU. PC boots to win10 desktop in 5 seconds after the POST beep!
“and memory has been set at a XMP profile of 2667MHz”
What? The linked RAM kit listed should be XMP speed of 3600, not 2667.
Yes… you would be correct but we can see that that is not the memory in the system posted. We switch off so much for different testing that was inevitable at some point. Our mistake and will correct. Nice observation. It’s great to have readers that notice such.
Samsung still hasn’t released their driver for 980, so I assume that’s why at this moment this drive makes no sense (alternatives from Seagate and HP give even better results for cheaper price).
Ya that is a bit of a discussion that reviewers are having with Samsung as Samsung doesn’t appear to have plans to include that driver with the consumer release. Wait for it.
Which ones, specifically?
….telling my age also, but you can still find gum sticks at convenience stores and (in NYC) Bodegas. Just sometimes have to look for them 🙂
Hope to get a 2TB stick when available for me to get. When installing it, I will reflect back to the time I bought my first 40gig HD and felt that I would never need another drive except for migrating my old system to another drive. Now I’m “really telling my age”.
Yes I am right there with ya.
My computer with Z490 ACE with i7 10700k and 2TB m.2 970 EVO Plus boots in one second or less skiping post screen all together. You hit the boot button and it fully boots before your finger can leaves the button. CPU rarely hits 70 degrees even when overclocked and most the time it runs overclocked at 60 degrees. Upscaling 1080p to 4k and it looks great and I still get 90 to 120 FPS. Upscaling the game’s looks great for some games and takes up less GPU memory in my build. I’m using a 2080 super and loving it. I think I’ll wait for 5080TI to upgrade very likely unless others became super cheap. I’m going to wait for 980 Evo Plus to upgrade my m.2 drive. When buy a Z590 ACE and give my old set to my younger brother I’ll be upgrading RAM also my then when they will have the super fast RAM developed even if it would likely take a Z690 ACE upgrade to full benefit from it. Maybe persistent memory will be cheaper at that point so I can use two RAM spots for normal RAM and two for persistent memory. I don’t have a high HZ 4k screen to test native 4k next to 1080p upscaling but it looks very good on Alienware 27inch 1080p monitor.
I asking myself if it would look all that much better other then the clearly much greater color range on the new 1480p monitor or would upscaling 1480p to 4k just lower FPS maximum below my current 90 to 120 FPS range? Does native 4k actually just lower FPS so much over upscaling and take more GPU memory?
My 1986 PC Clone had a 30MB HD. It helped me launch my freelancing career as a software developer after leaving my IT job at the bank I worked for.
30MB RLL 3 kg hard drive. Yep, that one. Made update to that from 20MB.
Overall the 980 Pro is a great drive, it’s one of the best drives available on the market today, and while Samsung has done a good job improving performance for light and medium workloads, there are some situations where the 970 Pro is faster than the new 980 Pro. In the PCMark 8 benchmark, the 980 Pro scores around 670 MB/s in both capacities, but the old 970 Pro is scoring 840 MB/s in that benchmark even though it doesn’t have PCIe 4.0. I think this is because of the shift from TLC to MLC memory. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for, techniques like DRAM and SLC caching can cover most of the deficit of TLC memory, but not all of it.
Agree with you totally. As nice as TLC may be, there is a point where it simply cannot keep pace in data transfer or steady state transfer of very large packets of data. A bit amusing perhaps, when you look at pricing for older drives, one will see that they actually jump significantly in price as they use mlc, or even earlier TLC.