VR-Zone Chinese tested the ACHI ver. of Samsung's SM951 SSD

[snowComet]

 

VR-Zone Chinese managed to get probably a prototype version of the Samsung's SM951 SSD. They claimed the ssd they got is ACHI version, and there is an alternate version which runs NVMe.

 

 

According to the photos from VR-Zone Chinese, the controller on the SM951 is an ARM-based PCIe 3.0 MDX controller S4LN058A01-8030, and the NAND Flashes are Samsung's 16nm MLC  K9UKGY8SCD-DCK0.

They bench tested the ssd, and compare it with the its precessor, Samsung's XP941.

Test Platform

Motherboard：ASUS ROG Maximus VII Impact

Processor：Intel Core i7-4790K

Memory：Kingston DDR3 1600MHz x 2

OS SSD：Samsung 830 128GB

OS：Windows 8

Test result comparsion between the SM951 and XP941

According to VR-Zone's test result, there is a 30% to 50% growth in performance between the two ssds. But still new drive's seq.read performance didn't reach what Samsung claimed. (around 15xxMB/s vs Samsung-claimed 2,150MB/s). They deduced the difference in performance may due to the m.2 slot in the mPCIe Combo IV of their M7i, which they claimed is running in PCIe 2.0 (which is odd, because it should be running in PCIe 3.0 as Asus claimed), or this is a early prototype, which need firmware upgrade to run it in full speed.

 

VR-Zone also claimed this ssd will be used in Lenovo's new ThinkPad X1 Carbon,and maybe in Apple's new Macbook Pro with Retina Display as well.

http://chinese.vr-zone.com/140023/samsung-sm951-pcie-gen-3-m2-ssd-hand-on-review-01142015/ (in Chinese)

[H4X3R]

which they claimed is running in PCIe 2.0 (which is odd, because it should be running in PCIe 3.0 as Asus claimed)

Normal m.2 runs at pcie 2.0 x 4 = 10 GBps while "ultra" m.2 (first introduced by asrock and now found on MSI boards as well) runs at pci e 3.0 x 4 = 32 GBps so that is most likely the bottleneck.

[snowComet]

Normal m.2 runs at pcie 2.0 x 4 = 10 GBps while "ultra" m.2 (first introduced by asrock and now found on MSI boards as well) runs at pci e 3.0 x 4 = 32 GBps

But in Asus's website and manual it claimed it runs in pcie 3.0 x4....

So it runs in pcie 2.0 or 3.0?

[H4X3R]

But in Asus's website and manual it claimed it runs in pcie 3.0 x4....

So it runs in pcie 2.0 or 3.0?

They probably ran it at 3.0 however, the "low" performance may be due to the GPU using more pcie 3.0 lanes (on 16 on Z97) so it has to share them with the "ultra" m.2 slot. On X99 there should be higher performance numbers.

[snowComet]

They probably ran it at 3.0 however, the "low" performance may be due to the GPU using more pcie 3.0 lanes (on 16 on Z97) so it has to share them with the "ultra" m.2 slot. On X99 there should be higher performance numbers.

it maybe, but we can't confirm it as VR-Zone didn't specific what GPU they used (they may be the iGPU in 4790k)...

[ChrisRam]

Since someone just locked a real review of it as a repost I'll post it here.

 

Samsung 2014 SSD Global Summit event brought further insight into the inner workings of Samsung's 850 Pro products. At the time, Samsung teased us about 3bit per cell 3D V-NAND, this would eventually appear in the 850 EVO products that were later released. We also caught a glimpse into the future of Samsung's NVMe products. Sitting quietly in the shadows was a product called SM951, not particularly a catchy name, but one that has captivated SSD enthusiasts since we first published the image above.

Read more at http://www.tweaktown...view/index.html

 

 

It's easily the fastest consumer SSD you can get.....but they are hard to get now. RamCity.com.au will have them soon though. 

 

 

 

No offence to Oscar at Chinese VR Zone but some people may want to read the story and not just see a few benchmark images.