# NVME SSD - WD SN850X v Samsung 990 PRO v ???



## ORLY (Dec 14, 2022)

Hi there, I'd like to buy a 1 TB M.2 SSD, my specs are specified in the profile. Using latest Windows 10, don't wanna switch to Windows 11 ever.
PC usage: working with documents within a virtual machine (VMware Workstation or VirtualBox), playing 1st person shooters (CS:GO, BF V, etc.) with some microfreezes for whatever reason (I blame either CPU or RAM but who knows).
I know my mobo supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and those new M.2 SSDs are PCIe 4.0 x4, but it still looks quite a bit of an upgrade from my current SATA 860 EVO, doesn't it? Moreover, I might upgrade my CPU/mobo in a year and I would already have a PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD for it.

The SN850X starts from ~ 127.2$ (new year sale, a 5 years warranty from an old but mediocre online shop), may also find it for ~ 145.5$.
The 990 PRO starts from ~ 179.2$. Let's say this is within my budget.

Both SSDs have no heatsink, but seems like my motherboard does for its M.2_1 slot (which must be using the CPU's PCIe).
Checked some reviews, the 990 PRO wins at something, the SN850X wins at loading games times, not sure if it helps with microfreezes while _playing_.
No idea what to pick, so help pls, thank's in advance.


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## evernessince (Dec 14, 2022)

The 990 Pro is the best SSD on the market.  SN850X and SK Hynix P41 platinum are close seconds.

The difference between any of these is very small but the 990 pro will have very a slight edge in games due to it's lower latency and random read performance.  SN850X and SK Hynix P41 both have better sequential read performance but that's only good for reducing initial loading times by a fraction of a second.  The random read and latency are far more important for a smooth experience.

Whether that extremely small difference is worth it is up to you.  I'd personally lean towards saving the money given how close their performance is.


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## jesdals (Dec 14, 2022)

If your motherboard and cpu only support Pcie 3.0 I would consider a pcie 3 gen drive at 2 tb, those drives will give the same performance on your setup https://www.proshop.dk/SSD/Lexar-NM620/3025888


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## puma99dk| (Dec 14, 2022)

I use a Gigabyte M30 1TB with 2GB dram cache and I am happy in my current system.

Link: https://www.gigabyte.com/SSD/GIGABYTE-M30-SSD-1TB#kf


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## ORLY (Dec 14, 2022)

jesdals said:


> If your motherboard and cpu only support Pcie 3.0 I would consider a pcie 3 gen drive at 2 tb, those drives will give the same performance on your setup https://www.proshop.dk/SSD/Lexar-NM620/3025888


I kind of want to buy something top or nearly top performing since SSD prices are not as high as they were.
E.g. WD SN850 2TB w/o heatsink costs from ~ 271$ and higher here.



evernessince said:


> the 990 pro will have very a slight edge in games due to it's lower latency and random read performance.  SN850X and SK Hynix P41 both have better sequential read performance but that's only good for reducing initial loading times by a fraction of a second.  The random read and latency are far more important for a smooth experience.





Spoiler: Random Write Latency - 4KB QD 1














Spoiler: Random Write - 4KB QD 1










Please comment on the spoilers. Is it not important for games, taking into account that the NVME SSD will store a pagefile that games usually love to write to and then read from?
And also a question about "gaming SSD benchmarks" that PCMag refers to - do they not really measure what's truly important for a smooth gaming experience?


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## evernessince (Dec 14, 2022)

ORLY said:


> Spoiler: Random Write Latency - 4KB QD 1
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A majority of game writes come from the install / updates.  Online games write a tad more as you are constantly acquiring data in those games.  Shader files can be a decent size (1MB - 2GB) but that's are either complied on game launch or bit by bit over time.  Otherwise the game is just writing your save data and some temporary engine data.  Games are mostly consumptive so it's a lot of loading and little writing.  On top of all that, most writing is done before the game is launched or at times designated to not disrupt the game play experience.  Just as an example, I have a Kingston Renegade Fury 4TB SSD as a game drive and I have yet to write even 4TB to it despite the drive being 75% full and games constantly being updated and played on it.

Games have to work on HDDs so the developers are going to optimize the game with that in mind.  The primary benefit to an SSD is improved smoothness, reduced loading times, and less pop-in.

Mind you it would be a bad idea to burst write a lot of data all at once during gameplay.  This would spike CPU usage and impact frame-rate.  Even though save files are only a couple MB in most cases, games still take care on when the game or player can save.

A pagefile would indicate that you are lacking VRAM / RAM and thrashing to disk.  You want to avoid writing to the SSD in that scenario altogether by upgrading your memory capacity / video card.


Yes, most SSD gaming benchmarks do not measure what provides a smooth SSD experience.  Most reviews present game loading time as game performance when in reality that's only a single factor.  To be honest though, the benefit of anything faster than a decent PCIe 3.0 drive is essentially nothing.  Unless your drive has a bug or is dying, you are unlikely to see a difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0.

I have a 240 Hz monitor and the latest CPU architecture and even then the difference between a 3.0 and a top 5 4.0 drive was essentially nothing, might even be placebo what little difference I think I may have seen.

In the end I'd recommend just saving the money and going with the SN850X (or any other SSD that comes within earshot of it).  It's a shame you missed out on the Black Friday deal on the P41 Platinum, which had the 2TB variant for $140.  That was an absolute steal for a top drive.


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## mechtech (Dec 14, 2022)

ORLY said:


> Hi there, I'd like to buy a 1 TB M.2 SSD, my specs are specified in the profile. Using latest Windows 10, don't wanna switch to Windows 11 ever.
> PC usage: working with documents within a virtual machine (VMware Workstation or VirtualBox),* playing 1st person shooters (CS:GO, BF V, etc.) with some microfreezes for whatever reason (I blame either CPU or RAM but who knows).*
> I know my mobo supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and those new M.2 SSDs are PCIe 4.0 x4, but it still *looks quite a bit of an upgrade from my current SATA 860 EVO, doesn't it?* Moreover, I might upgrade my CPU/mobo in a year and I would already have a PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD for it.
> 
> ...


Don't forget about the Kingston KC3000








						Kingston KC3000 Review - Faster Than Samsung 980 Pro
					

The Kingston KC3000 is built using the Phison E18 controller and Micron's best 176-layer TLC NAND flash. In our performance testing, the drive can beat the Samsung 980 Pro and is the fastest SSD we ever tested. It shares that performance throne with the WD Black SN850.




					www.techpowerup.com
				




As for the bolded above............I remember reading about this awhile ago and in several rigs they traced it to the nvme drive, where as the sata ssd had no issues.  Now whether it was nvme driver or interrupts or something else I do not know.

nvme vs sata for gaming is negligible also








						Kingston KC3000 Review - Faster Than Samsung 980 Pro
					

The Kingston KC3000 is built using the Phison E18 controller and Micron's best 176-layer TLC NAND flash. In our performance testing, the drive can beat the Samsung 980 Pro and is the fastest SSD we ever tested. It shares that performance throne with the WD Black SN850.




					www.techpowerup.com


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## ORLY (Dec 15, 2022)

evernessince said:


> In the end I'd recommend just saving the money and going with the SN850X (or any other SSD that comes within earshot of it).


If it's not about the money - would you still recommend the 990 PRO as it's the best I can get for the price at things that matter when it comes to microfreezes in games, am I correct?


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## Mussels (Dec 15, 2022)

ORLY said:


> If it's not about the money - would you still recommend the 990 PRO as it's the best I can get for the price at things that matter when it comes to microfreezes in games, am I correct?


you wont have micro-stutter from even a budget SSD if the rest of the system is built correctly, the tiny differences between these top tier NVME's will not help or harm anything like that


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## evernessince (Dec 15, 2022)

ORLY said:


> If it's not about the money - would you still recommend the 990 PRO as it's the best I can get for the price at things that matter when it comes to microfreezes in games, am I correct?



No modern SSD experiences stuttering unless there is a firmware bug, the NAND is close to EOL, or the drive is failing.

The stuttering you are experiencing may or may not be due to your SSD.  Buying a new one may or may not fix your issue.  Hard to say without isolating variables.  In your situation I'd recommend buying one of the cheaper drives mentioned in this thread as they are all fantastic and you are essentially buying to troubleshoot.

If you are merely looking to fix your stuttering issue I'd recommend that you do what you can on your end first before spending a ton of money.  First of which is looking at the smart data for your current SSD, observing system behavior when gaming (monitoring temps and voltages with HWInfo, CPU / GPU usage, ect), and doing a clean windows install.

I'm not sure if you have done so already but you might have wanted to start a thread for troubleshooting your stuttering issue before starting a thread for buying parts that may or may not be the cause of the issue.  As it stands, troubleshooting is off-topic for this thread so I'll leave it at that.


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## Mussels (Dec 15, 2022)

We have a lot of threads on micro stutter which can have a lot of causes - some hardware, some software, and some even external (network related - not internet but local network)
Due to the thousands of possibilities there you'll only be able to get help with that making a new thread about it, with all the relevant information, not just bits and pieces

High speed storage can help with stuttter issues when you're completely out of system RAM, but they only make that loading stutter smaller and can never fix it - only more RAM can.
Other causes of stuttering are unrelated to NVME performance


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## bonehead123 (Dec 15, 2022)

My son had both of these drives in a recent 13th gen/RTX 3080ti gammr build, and they are excellent performers.....but we really couldn't tell much difference between them, so we returned the Sammy & put the $60 towards some other stuff 

However, the WD was noted as running about 8-10C cooler while gammin, with his mobo's heatsink installed.....


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## chrcoluk (Dec 19, 2022)

I have seen SSDs been too fast that can cause stutter in games that stream in textures.  When the data is loaded too quickly at the i/o level and then the CPU is overloaded processing the data.  The fix typically been to throttle the loading of data somehow.

FF7 remake the prime example (sure some are sick of mentioning the game now haha)

On sequential performance vs io/sec, latency, the latter would be something I prioritise unless the sequential performance differential is huge.


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