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

[ORLY]

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.

 

[evernessince]

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.

 

[jesdals]

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

 

[Shou Miko]

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

 

[ORLY]

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.

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?

 

[evernessince]

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?

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.

 

[mechtech]

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.

Don't forget about the Kingston KC3000

Kingston KC3000 2 TB 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 2 TB 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

 

[ORLY]

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?

 

[Mussels]

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

 

[evernessince]

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.

 

[Mussels]

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

 

[bonehead123]

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.....

 

[chrcoluk]

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.

 

[Lovec1990]

I know its alittle late, but i wonder is it worth paying 25% more for 990 PRO 2tb or SN850X 2tb is great too. Im just wondering becouse i bought SN850X becouse of price and reviews of it were convincing.

 

[Psychoholic]

I'd be willing to bet you wouldnt notice any real world difference between any NVME drive on the market.

 

[Lovec1990]

im aware off that but im more intrested in relability and that its stable. Despite having great experience with Samsung 850 EVO and great experience with WDs internal and external HDDs i went with WD becouse of emerging potential 990 degredation issues

 

[ThrashZone]

im aware off that but im more intrested in relability and that its stable. Despite having great experience with Samsung 850 EVO and great experience with WDs internal and external HDDs i went with WD becouse of emerging potential 990 degredation issues

Hi,
Yeah 980 pro was nothing to tell mom about either
I've lost faith in sammy frankly not sure what's going on with their firmware department but they need to clean house.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

SN750 is what you should get for PCI-E gen 3. (If getting one from Western Digital)

 

[Mussels]

SN750 is what you should get for PCI-E gen 3. (If getting one from Western Digital)

I have the OEM SN730's and honestly cant complain for budget OEM drives

 

[Frozoken]

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.

Nope actually gaming is the one thing the wd is better at. We gotta give credit where it's due, and i cant believe im saying this but their gaming marketing holds up, while it performs like a normal high end pcie 4 drive it is consistently like 25% ahead in game read speeds compared to the other drives, as such it was also pretty significantly ahead in load times. Now that was before the 990 pro but even with it, in forspoken which as far I'm aware is the first direct storage game the sn 850x was consistently a chart topper in fps and load times with the 990 pro close behind. The 990 pro is the better drive overall but gaming is the one thing the sn 850x is actually better and there isn't a single consumer drive that can touch it. Between the slightly better game related performances and the cheaper price I'd pick it any day. Also the wd wins in writes, idk why but the 990 pro seems to have pretty poor write speeds. In toms hardware tests, the 990 pro falls to its sustained write speeds of 1.4GBs after only roughly 30 seconds? Almost every high end drive including the 980 pro beats it there idk what samsung did. The 850x takes about 90 seconds and falls to about 1.8GBs for comparison. Like that quick and hard of a fall off could absolutely be noticeable when transferring large games from drives.

 

[evernessince]

Nope actually gaming is the one thing the wd is better at. We gotta give credit where it's due, and i cant believe im saying this but their gaming marketing holds up, while it performs like a normal high end pcie 4 drive it is consistently like 25% ahead in game read speeds compared to the other drives, as such it was also pretty significantly ahead in load times. Now that was before the 990 pro but even with it, in forspoken which as far I'm aware is the first direct storage game the sn 850x was consistently a chart topper in fps and load times with the 990 pro close behind. The 990 pro is the better drive overall but gaming is the one thing the sn 850x is actually better and there isn't a single consumer drive that can touch it. Between the slightly better game related performances and the cheaper price I'd pick it any day. Also the wd wins in writes, idk why but the 990 pro seems to have pretty poor write speeds. In toms hardware tests, the 990 pro falls to its sustained write speeds of 1.4GBs after only roughly 30 seconds? Almost every high end drive including the 980 pro beats it there idk what samsung did. The 850x takes about 90 seconds and falls to about 1.8GBs for comparison. Like that quick and hard of a fall off could absolutely be noticeable when transferring large games from drives.

Let me just stop you right there, no in fact the 990 Pro is ahead of the WD Black in gaming benchmarks across the net:

That's far and away from your claim that the 990 Pro cannot touch it. There are multiple other drives that beat the SN850X as well.

In regards to forspoken performance, where exactly did you get your numbers from? According to what I see, the 990 Pro is on par with yet to be released PCIe 5.0 drives

Even if the SN850X happened to be 25% faster here, which you've provided no evidence to support, it's only a single game and a terrible one at that. That would be down to poor programing of this particular title, not any specific advantage the drive has as we can see from every other review on the internet.

I'm not sure what the goal of your argument is other than to try to misrepresent a single game as if it's indicative of the whole.

 

[Mussels]

Reviewers test things differently.

TPU tested the prior models out by measuring load times over many games, while tomshardware only tested out 3Dmark - and 3Dmark is definitely not how most games behave, not realistic for many common uses.
3Dmark is based around short brief tests, with cooldown periods which isn't how games behave or how heavy loads work. TPU tested theirs with regular load times and drives over 50% full, empty drives in short tests are going to give great results but they may not remain that way in the real world.

As to which of those drives is better, both have been in the news for high failure rates and driver related BSOD's so i'd say wait and see how those blow over first.

 

[evernessince]

short brief tests, with cooldown periods which isn't how games behave or how heavy loads work

That entirely depends on the game. Some games, like Skyrim, load in a set number of cells at once and then almost idle IO to the disk.

There's too large of a variety in games to say that any one test isn't how games work. The vast majority of games do not apply a heavy load to the SSD. Most of the time you'll see 80-90 MB/s disk activity in many titles, enough so that the game works perfectly fine on a HDD. In poorly optimized games you might see might higher than that. The problem with that, as Forspoken demonstrates, is that it comes with corresponding dip in average framerate. If you burst load in a ton of assets at once, your CPU usage and frame-rate take a hit. This is why it's important for a game to properly steam assets.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

1- 990 pro
2- hynix p41
3- sn850x