Samsung Announces the 960 Pro and 960 EVO Series M.2 NVMe SSDs

[Ferrum Master]

Watercooling? You may have heard of it? It's something enthusiasts do to keep their PCs cool. You should google it sometime.

Space is at a premium on mini ITX. The M.2 slot is typically on the bottom of the board, and any additional height could make the drive not fit properly in cases, depending on which case you have. You are talking about adding new screws to hold this heatsink, where are you going to put them? What are you going to take off the mini ITX board so that you can put screws there? If it were that simple, somebody would have already done it.

Could you get reasonable? You told yourself the market(as a whole). Now you are talking about a relatively small niche. Even all enthusiasts won't take it, they are not so fond of sacrificing flow for a such device. Server tasks will make their own custom as they wish usually. The whole thing also may be only combined with bridge or VRM heatsink looking same as thermal armor etc likeness. That is possible.

A simple copper heatsink around 2mm a top the card won't exceed PCIE connector height and will prevent the average throttle.

Continuing with mATX. Are you understanding my idea? Even a copper foil... imagine a sticker set. As 950 Pro owner I know well how it acts and how to tame the heat. And as an engineer and mobile phone technician seeing methods of cooling down performance ARM's even in a smaller envelope... there are no hurdles to implement it at all. It is just pure lack of attention, actually pure lack of any standards lately at all. They will be reasonably hot forever on silicon, you cannot change the physics, it is designed to heat up and perform so. They could make a cold and slow performing hard brick, but none needs that.

 

[GhostRyder]

FINALLY!!! I have been waiting for these for such a long time. Hello Samsung 960 Pro 1tb!!!

 

[alucasa]

M.2 and mini ITX are indeed an issue because M.2 socket is usually on the back where there is very little, if any, air flow at all.

One way to get around that issue is letting it install vertically...?

 

[ironwolf]

No people noticing/commenting/complaining over the massive reduction in warranty length? 5/3 years on the 960 Pro/EVO vs 10/5 on the 850 Pro/EVO. Or is this not even worthy of a comparison/discussion?

 

[R-T-B]

I find it ironic they still have not fullfilled their promise of an edrive/opal firmware update "after launch" for the 950 pro, and it's successor has already launched.

 

[Disparia]

No people noticing/commenting/complaining over the massive reduction in warranty length? 5/3 years on the 960 Pro/EVO vs 10/5 on the 850 Pro/EVO. Or is this not even worthy of a comparison/discussion?

Can't say it really bothers me. I'm more interested in the performance, capacity, and even color before the warranty becomes a factor. With so few problems experienced in my time I value warranties less and less -- within the scope of computers and electronics of course, vehicles are another matter.

 

[Slizzo]

As usual, no mention of random 4k QD1 performance... I was really curious what this new controller can do.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Allyn Malvantano gleans about these SSDs.

 

[Blueberries]

No people noticing/commenting/complaining over the massive reduction in warranty length? 5/3 years on the 960 Pro/EVO vs 10/5 on the 850 Pro/EVO. Or is this not even worthy of a comparison/discussion?

Samsung's NANDs are the most reliable in the industry. It's the same 48-layer style NAND that's used on the 850 Pro. I would be worrying about the warranty if it was Toshiba or Micron for example, but not these.

 

[compvter2]

No people noticing/commenting/complaining over the massive reduction in warranty length? 5/3 years on the 960 Pro/EVO vs 10/5 on the 850 Pro/EVO. Or is this not even worthy of a comparison/discussion?

I think 5 years for enthusiast and 3 years for "mainstream" is good enough. It is not like your m.2 "drive" will explode right after the warranty. Plus, no-one should really trusts anything important on one drive anyway. I had five Seagate drives in raid 5 array and they all blew up before warranty... and this was BEFORE they dropped most consumer drives to 1 year warranty (not sure what they are now, don't really trust that brand anymore). Don't get me wrong, 10 years warranty was awesome and "the thing" that made me buy Samsung PRO drive instead of non-pro one, but unless Intel decides to offer 10 year warranty with reasonable price for their drives i would probably go for Samsung drive again. I have bought both brands and none of them have failed (unlike those Seagate Hdd:s)

 

[Prima.Vera]

I see that for almost 1 year now, the prices for bigger SSDs refuses to go down. Quite the opposite in fact....

 

[lorraine walsh]

Well I would like to know price of 1Tb 960 Evo, that looks like a good drive for most gaming desktops. Also I hope this drive wont put out as much heat as the 950 Pro.

 

[bug]

Well I would like to know price of 1Tb 960 Evo, that looks like a good drive for most gaming desktops. Also I hope this drive wont put out as much heat as the 950 Pro.

$479

And it will probably put out more heat, but supposedly it will dissipate it better.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

i've got only one question. do they go into read-only mode after failure?

 

[Dethroy]

Looks like the SM961 is still far more attractive than the 960 Evo. The 960 Pro is too pricey for my liking - just like its predecessor.

 

[bug]

Looks like the SM961 is still far more attractive than the 960 Evo. The 960 Pro is too pricey for my liking - just like its predecessor.

Why do you say that?
I mean, SM961 is MLC, not TLC, so yes, it's expecting it will perform better. On the other hand, it's not available at or near MSRP, so...

 

[Dethroy]

Why do you say that?
I mean, SM961 is MLC, not TLC, so yes, it's expecting it will perform better. On the other hand, it's not available at or near MSRP, so...

The price for the SM961 /w 512GB is around 190€. Launch MSRP for the 960 Evo /w 500GB is $249 - so probably around 280-300€.

 

[bug]

The price for the SM961 /w 512GB is around 190€. Launch MSRP for the 960 Evo /w 500GB is $249 - so probably around 280-300€.

Amazon.de says SM961 is over €300. It's over $300 even on amazon.com.
But yes, if you could get it cheaper then the 960 EVO, it would certainly be the better deal.

 

[ManofGod]

figures...right after I picked up a deal on a 512GB 950pro like last week...

glad to see the performance steadily increasing though, pretty soon we'll have rigs that finish booting before we can get our fingers off the power button, and apps that launch before we even move the cursor

Perhaps in 10 to 15 years, I agree. However, at least for now, the underlying infrastructure of a PC is just far to slow for that. You will notice that for day to day stuff, a PCIe SSD will make little to know discernible difference for now.