Is it good for hardcore gamer? Get read speeds up to 7,000 MB s with 980 PRO and push the limits of what SSDs can do. Powered by a new Elpsis controller designed to harmonize the flash memory components and the interface for superior speed – with a PCIe 4.0 interface that’s 2x faster than PCIe 3.0 SSDs and 12x faster than Samsung SATA SSDs – every component of this NVMe SSD is manufactured by Samsung for performance that lasts. Know details in Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 internal gaming SSD M.2 (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM) review.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- PS5 compatible
- Choice of capacity
- Aesthetically pleasing
- Responsive PCIe Gen4 performance
- Sustained write speeds
- Hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption
- Software package
AGAINST
- TurboWrite SLC cache not as large as competitors
- Average endurance ratings
- No 4TB option
Specs – Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 internal gaming SSD M.2 (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM)
- Capacity: 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB (coming later in 2020)
- Interface: PCIe Gen4 x4, / NVMe 1.3c Compliant
- DRAM: 512MBV LPDDR4 (250GB, 500GB) 1GB LPDDR4 (1TB)
- Sequential read: Up to 7,000 MB/s
- Sequential write: Up to 5,000 MB/s
- Random read: Up to 1,000K IOPS
- Random write: Up to 1,000K IOPS
- Endurance: Up to 600 TBW
- NAND: Samsung V-NAND 3-bit MLC
- Controller: Samsung Elpis
Price
Pricing on the Samsung SSD 980 PRO series is $429.99 for 2TB, $229.99 for 1TB, $149.99 for 500GB and then $89.99 for 250GB. These prices are higher than most PCIe Gen 3.0 drives, but comparable to many of the current PCIe Gen 4.0 drives on the market.
Compare Samsung 870 EVO vs 970 Evo Plus
| 980 PRO 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 Internal Gaming SSD M.2 | SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 2TB – M.2 NVMe | Samsung 870 EVO 4TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compatible Devices | Laptop, Desktop | — | Laptop |
| Data Transfer Rate | 7000 Mb per second | 3500 Mb per second | 560 Mb per second |
| Digital Storage Capacity | 2 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB |
| Hardware Interface | Solid State Drive | PCI Express x4 | SATA 6.0 Gb/s |
| Hardware Platform | PC, laptop | PC | PC, laptop |
| Item Dimensions | 0.87 x 3.15 x 0.94 inches | 0.87 x 0.9 x 3.15 inches | 3.94 x 2.76 x 0.27 inches |
| Item Weight | 0.29 ounces | 1.90 ounces | 2.08 ounces |
Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 internal gaming SSD M.2 (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM) review
Design
The Samsung SSD 980 PRO series features 6th Generation V-NAND that has over 100-layers making up the TLC memory. Samsung uses 3D charge trap flash (CTF) cells on this generation and claims it delivers 10% lower latency for read/write operations and offers up to 15% lower power than their previous V-NAND.
Controller
Samsung is also introducing a new SSD controller called Elpis that is built on the 8nm manufacturing process for the 980 PRO series. This is the industries first native PCIe Express 4.0 controller and supports 128 queues. The previous controller was called Phoenix and supported just 32 queues.
TurboWrite
In somewhat of a twist, Samsung SSD 980 Pro drives feature TurboWrite technology, similar to Samsung EVO-branded drives. TurboWrite uses a portion of the drives’ V-NAND as an SLC write buffer, which results in improved write performance, as long as the buffer isn’t exhausted. With 980 Pro drives, Samsung has tweaked the algorithm and TurboWrite capacities versus older drives, so it’s virtually transparent to end users, at least on the higher capacity drives.
Read & write speed
The Samsung SSD 980 PRO 250GB is capable of reaching 6.4 GB/s read and 2.7 GB/s write whereas the 2TB model reaches 7.0 GB/s read and 5.1 GB/s write. PCIe 4.0 has a theoretical maximum bandwidth is 8,000 MB/s, so we are starting to approach maximum sequential read speeds already!
Temperature
Lots of performance like this usually leads to increased temperatures, but the 980 Pro can get a little warmer than some other PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Granted, it also outperforms many quite handily, but it’s something to be aware of. After benchmarks, the Samsung Magician app was reporting a maximum temperature of 61C (141.8F) and a warning it was too toasty.
Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 internal gaming SSD M.2 (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM) Performance review
It also has a built-in performance test that does four corner testing. This benchmark shows the 980 PRO 2TB drive reached 7112 MB/s read and 5185 MB/s write for sequential performance and 276,611 IOPS Random Read and 238,281 IOPS Random Write as the boot drive. We test with ~55% data fill on the drive, so these are respectable numbers.
The Samsung SSD 980 Pro 2TB drive came in with scores of 6754 MB/s read and 5019 MB/s write on CrystalDiskMark 7. The 1TB model is rated at 7000 MB/s read and 5100 MB/s write so we were just below the drives rated speeds. Keep in mind that this is with the Microsoft Windows 10 NVMe driver. The Samsung NVMe driver is said to be not needed for this series. Random 4K performance was also excellent with ~82 MB/s read and ~192 MB/s write on both drives at a queue depth of 1.
Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 internal gaming SSD M.2 (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM) customer review
Samsung made a fantastic NVMe
Samsung 980 Pro NVME PCIe 4.0 is one quick SSD. The lighting quick drive move over files quickly at a insane speed. The drive is lighting fast moving over hundreds upon hundreds of gigs of data in a matter of seconds. Large Steam files moved over rapidly from my game library.I had easily installed a 2nd NVME slot on Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 which was a breeze. The drive is small but carefully placing it inside was was a snap. I place some games on the drive like Cyberpunk 2077, Final Fantasy XV, Doom Eternal, MK11, GTAV, and Resident Evil: Village. Loading times was improved at an insane rate. Forza Horizon 4 photo was at an Instant at loading the scene. Applications open up at an lighting speed. (Photos will show default real world testing.)
I love the drive and give ample amount of storage space for my gaming needs. It’s fast and quick, I believe Samsung as usual make fantastic NVME drives so the reliability is good. Of course if you have a Gaming PC, Want to make your laptop faster, or just want more storage. This is clearly a top preforming drive.
By CrysisComplex at Best Buy
Alternate of Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 internal gaming SSD M.2 (MZ-V8P2T0B/AM)
WD Black SN750
Specs
- Capacity : 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB
- Controller: Western Digital
- Memory: SanDisk/Toshiba 3D TLC
- Interface: M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4Seq. read: 3,470 MB/s
- Seq. write: 3,000 MB/s
Pros
+Competitive pricing
+Serious SSD performance
+In-house technology
Cons
Like it’s move into PCIe 4.0 drives, Western Digital’s entry into the SSD arena as a whole was a long while coming, especially at the speedier end of the market. But the WD Black SN750 was worth the wait. It nails solid-state performance on par with the best consumer Samsung EVO SSDs and undercuts them on price too.
The combination of an in-house memory controller and Toshiba memory (also essentially in-house after the acquisition of the SanDisk/Toshiba memory division) means what we’ve got here is a drive that can match Samsung in its build methodology too. And that all means WD can be very aggressive on how much it charges people for the privilege of having a speedy PCIe SSD in their gaming PC.
There is a more expensive version on offer with a heatsink attached to it. Still, so long as you don’t bury your drive in an M.2 slot beneath your GPU, you should be golden, and the SN750 will maintain peak performance without burning out.
Editor’s recommendations
- SK hynix Gold S31 1TB SATA Gen3 2.5 inch internal SSD review
- Samsung (MZ-V8V1T0B/AM) 980 SSD 1TB – M.2 NVMe interface internal solid state drive review
- SanDisk 4TB Extreme Portable SSD – up to 1050mb/s – USB-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 review
- Toshiba N300 vs X300 compare
- Toshiba N300 vs WD Red comparison – where to buy at best price?
