Review: Samsung 960 PRO 1TB NVMe SSD

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Oct 19, 2016.

  1. DrunkenDonkey

    DrunkenDonkey Master Guru

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    Well thing is, from consumer point of view this ssd is - same performance, bigger price per gb. It is actually going backwards. It is the review that is making you think you got something better, and for a server usage that is hands down true, but for your home computer you actually got cheated. This is no faster than (insert random ssd here from the past 4 years), not cheaper than last year's SATA3 offerings, i.e. move along, nothing to see here.

    The problem: a flash page takes X time to read and Y to be written to and this has not changed at all. Various ideas were implemented that boosted the benchmarks and server usage without benefit for the average Joe:
    - parallel arrays of flash memory allowing for simultaneous access to lot of pages at once. thing is - when you launch your game the ssd can't know in advance what to read so ends up getting it page by page
    - big and fast memory caching - useful with writes, but we rarely do write something, my primary, 4 years old ssd is still on 99% of its life.
    - data predictions - combined with the cache and parallel access - great for sequential read/write and benchmarks as the ssd is able to access the data and have it ready before it is actually needed, useless for any real world scenario

    So in short - SSD reviews needs to be split for end users and server use. End users' one should contain only QD1, 4k random read graph and price per gb. Then we see the zero progress on the ssd front and why in blind test you can't distinguish between the newest and tastiest one and your old dusty ssd bought 4 years ago.

    That said, Intel, Micron and some others are experimenting with non-volatile ram and when that happens we will have a true leap in performance, a bigger step than going from hdd to ssd, so eagerly waiting. Till then - get some 1tb discounted sata3 ssd on black friday and skip ssd reviews for the time being :)
     
  2. stevevnicks

    stevevnicks Guest

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    yeah I agree, that's why I said benchmarks are only worth it if the results translate into end user real world gains.

    I'm not trying or even wanting to talk tech advancements down, I just trying to put across what are the real world benefits of these drive to the gamer ?

    as it seem (not saying I'm correct) most people are to be talking about gaming, cpu, gfx cards.


    after all, we are not all rich and have an endless supply of money, so if your going to invest money to your PC to improve gaming experience are these drives going to benefit the gamer if he/she invest in these new faster drives ?

    by the sounds of it probs not, but after reading review and not totally know all the info I could be in for a let down, which in turn makes you feel duped.

    im not saying that's whats going on but you can see how easy the unknowning gamer could feel this way, expect massive gains that don't happen for what your mainly your PC for.
     
  3. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    This part confuses me.
    Waait, if i want a Plextor M8Pe i will get a NVMe tied to one PCIe lane, not all 4 offered to the NVMe protocol by the CPU/chipset/motherboard ?
     
  4. stevevnicks

    stevevnicks Guest

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    what confuse me I don't really know much or anything about how all the stuff really works so when I see big numbers and fastest I though that would translate in to real world gains for gaming as well, if i don't know it wont make any difference to my gaming experience and decide to go for it, then it would mean I would need to upgrade my motherboard as well then after spend another large sum of money (to me at least) and get no benefits for what I mainly use my PC for then I would of felt deceived.

    not that I could blame anyone but myself although if you didn't know this 4k thing which I didn't then I would of wasted my money, well not totally because im sure my system performance would improve ? but not what/reason I bought it for, again for me this 4k thingy is the most important from a gamers point of view, thanks to this forum I have now learned this, which in turn saved me a lot of hassle, cash and disappointment.
     

  5. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    And your question confuses me ? :)

    Why would you assume that M8Pe is based on NVME 1.0 ?
    M8Pe is 1.2 and then backwards compatible. But I should have written that better, I meant in terms of older NVMe 1.0 (dates back from 2011) when PCIe Gen 3.0 and 4 lanes & multi-path I/O wasn't even in the protocol.
     
  6. stevevnicks

    stevevnicks Guest

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    I'm guessing if you not as informed as yourself HH then that's how it is ?

    I think your site is poss the best on the web for info and your forum is second to none (even if there are a few trolls but hey they are everywhere these days)

    do you not agree for your less informed/techy site users this review of these type of drives are more suited to server than gamer ?

    maybe you can include results for your average or less informed users on gaming results to help them from making the wrong choices ?

    I know you may think that's waste of time or even dumb but hey if people like me don't know then we don't know, which can lead to a case of the WTF's, for this type of reader ?

    it's always good to learn from the more experience rather than feeling duped even though I understand that's not the case here your not trying to dupe anyone, but easy for people like me to not realise this drive is more suited to server tasks etc, and I know I'm not the only one, I have learned a lot from your reviews and opinion and respect the time and effort your giving people like me, its like a lesson on new hardware advise and I respect your opinion and knowledge.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2016
  7. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    First of all, i thank you Hilbert for all you efforts and your dedication to this forum and your time.
    I should formulated better my question.My fault was assuming that Plextor P8Me uses Nvme 1.0.
    Sorry for the mistake, i know that you don't want to baby-feed us with tech info, you have already enough on your head.
    Thank you.
     
  8. stevevnicks

    stevevnicks Guest

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    well thanks for the baby feed comment! I come here for advise because I don't know everything !

    so we have to be experts to come to this site for advise ? hmm okie dokie ...
     
  9. anticupidon

    anticupidon Ancient Guru

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    Well, no.
    This forum is what we make of it.
    I was saying that i was in the wrong for assuming.My part was to better inform myself, then ask the real question.
    Hilbert is kind enough to respond to all our questions.
    We all share knowledge here, everyone is welcomed.
    Sorry for the thread derail.
     
  10. mohiuddin

    mohiuddin Maha Guru

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    @DrunkenDonkey ,
    Thanks for your post.
    yes 4k random reads are the main thing to look for, for us. All these years , i didnt realize. :p
     

  11. DrunkenDonkey

    DrunkenDonkey Master Guru

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    Not only 4k random reads, but QD=1 ones (stands for Queue Depth = 1). On higher QD (server usage) many drives including this one optimize performance by trying to execute simultaneous reads from different flash banks, so good controller, fast cache and the low latency of the NVME helps with that too, but for desktop usage we are on QD=1 (that is - read one thing after another) and there all SSDs gravitate towards ~40mb/sec.
     
  12. stevevnicks

    stevevnicks Guest

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    this info^ is invaluable to someone like me, for the reason I now know I don't need this type of device

    thanks DrukenDonkey you've saved me from making a big mistake on my next upgrades.

    like I say if you don't know this or understand the tech limitations and just think well its faster then it must be better, it's no surprise some people will be like WTF ?
     
  13. DrunkenDonkey

    DrunkenDonkey Master Guru

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    Happy to help :)
    I actually found it the hard way - got a blazing fast ssd (thankfully, the company I work in purchased it, not me) and to my surprise it was no faster than my crappy old crucial. So I started researching on why and quickly found what is going on. You can find it in samsung's own whitepapers
    Or to quote:

    In that regard, I find highly disturbing that most of the SSD reviews actually either don't present such 4kRR/QD1 info or present mixed one (i.e. average of QD1/4/8/32) which gives you absolutely nothing or mix reads with writes as random transfers - again an useless mess.

    HH - would love someone with access to lot of SSDs (*cough* you *cough*) to give a clear consumer grade comparison of the main ones in typical desktop/gaming (QD=1, 4k RR) scenario. I know some are faring better (not by far mind you, but still better) than others, so it will be great to have a nice base.

    Also, if you feel like it you can include other "usage scenarios" too - movie processing type (QD3, sequentals play big role, write speed too), "database server" - (QD32, random read, random write), "file server" - (QD4-8, sequental reads), i.e. so instead of having a massive number of benchmarks which the average user simply looks as "I like this number, whatever that means", to have some definitive practical guide.
     
  14. stereoman

    stereoman Master Guru

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    Just bought myself an Intel 600p 512gb dirt cheap and while it can't compete with the sammy with serious workloads for gaming I think it should be fine, atm I have 2 games installed on my Samsung 850 pro raid setup but space has become a big issue and unfortunately I ran out of sata ports so an NVMe drive was the best solution and Intel had the cheapest drive,

    glad I read this thread before making my purchase, saved myself from wasting money for speed that I won't need.
     
  15. mohiuddin

    mohiuddin Maha Guru

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    Thanks again man. Do you have any idea, which sata ssd would be best with this 4k random qd=1 thing in mind.? Also price a factor. How mx300 525gb crucial stands out @120$?
     

  16. DrunkenDonkey

    DrunkenDonkey Master Guru

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    Nah, skip this one completely, go with the older - mx200 if you want, but not mx300. I kinda have a soft spot in my heart for crucial, but once it got released it was a major disappointment. Really go for samsung 850 evo if you can afford it, crucial mx200 next (don't even think about bx200), sandisk extreme pro third option and then it is a mixed bag, adata and stuff. If i'm to give rough relative performance of them:
    850 evo: 100
    mx200: 80
    extreme pro: 70
    mx300: 50
    bx200: 50
    rest: 40-60
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2016
  17. jura11

    jura11 Guest

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    Still think older MX100 has been bit better than MX200,I've used both Crucial and MX100 has been better,but finding them can be difficult too

    MX300 are not bad SSD,but still they're not the best for money you can buy


    Thanks,Jura
     
  18. DrunkenDonkey

    DrunkenDonkey Master Guru

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    I do own mx100, tho given to my sister to use now, I agree, they are great, but don't have hard evidence to compare against. MX300 are bad man, they got improved for benches while their real world performance is horrible compared to previous. Unless it was something that firmware update fixed along the line, they were pretty rough and making you think what was crucial thinking.
    I remember back in the days when anand was doing his own ssd testing and got big argument with ocz who did exactly the same - made some ssd look better in benchmarks (namely higher sequental read and stuff) but worse in real usage. Eventually ocz cracked and released firmware update that fixed it. Now crucial doing the same, but there is no more someone with high profile to voice against, and I guess most customer buy by the bigger number so there's that :(
     
  19. mohiuddin

    mohiuddin Maha Guru

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    Thanks guys. Really appreciate it. But Evo prices are going upwards on amazon. I have plan on buying an ssd (yeah never used an ssd yet!!!!) later, when they would get much more cheaper. May be 860evo? With 48layer 3d nand, I can expect the price to go down even more?? Say 90-100$ for 500+GB ssd :p
     
  20. rsouzadk

    rsouzadk Member

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    Awesome performance.
     

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