Samsung SSD 970 Pro And 970 EVO Review: Faster, More Endurance Than 960

Name: Samsung SSD 970 PRO And SSD 970 EVO
Brand: Samsung

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, April 24, 2018, 10:00 AM EDT

We like PCMark's Storage 2.0 benchmark module for its real-world application measurement approach to testing. PCMark offers a trace-based measurement of system response times under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system operation. From simple application start-up performance, to data streaming from a drive in a game engine, and video and photo editing with Adobe applications, we are comfortable that these tests reasonably illustrate the performance profile of SSDs in an end-user / consumer PC usage model, more so than a purely synthetic transfer test.

Futuremark's PCMark Storage 2.0

http://www.futuremark.com

Surprisingly, the Samsung SSD 970 Pro takes the overall lead according to PCMark. Intel's Optane drives have typically led in these trace-based benchmarks, and the 800P does offer the most bandwidth and leads in most of the individual tests, but the two tests in which the 800P trails the 970 Pro are weighted as such that they pull down its overall score for a third place finish. There is a tiny spread separating all of the drives in the overall score, however. In the bandwidth test, the 960 Pro tops the 970 EVO, but the 970 Pro is the fastest of the NAND-based drives we tested.

Tags: Samsung, SSD, Storage, PCIe, nvme, 970 evo, 970 pro

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com