PeachDodo

Just googled Samsung 980 and noticed it was added to their website:  https://www.samsung.com/sg/memory-storage/980-pro-nvme-m2-ssd/MZ-V8P1T0BW/
 
Any thoughts?  Is there anything new on this page (specs-wise) that we didn't already know about?  Guessing this means it's release is imminent.

Too many to list, but there's several controllers in the mix - SM2264/SM2267 from SMI, E19T/E18 from Phison, Lexar/WD with proprietary, Crucial/Micron possibly with proprietary, Samsung's (obviously) which might have an EVO variant eventually, Marvell (although these seem entry-level or OEM), InnoGrit has a few coming which look good, etc. You will be seeing an utter ton of Gen4 drives - I just can't give you specific dates because the industry is getting creamed right now.
 
I suspect the SM2264 will be the fastest for consumers, the E18 will be the most available (most brands using it), while the E19T and SM2267 will be excellent entry-level (but slower), InnoGrit and WD should be powerhouses (as would be the E18 and Samsung's), the rest are mostly OEM/client. It's possible the more important question will be flash actually - I already have a lot of information on these if you're technically minded, for example BiCS5 at 132 MB/s per die (vs. Samsung's 82 MB/s) for example.
 
The 1TB 970 Pro is $319.99 on Amazon right now - the 980 Pro will definitely exceed that in cost. It'll probably be twice as expensive as good Gen4 TLC drives.

If the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB is over $300 in Canada, it is a non starter. There's almost zero reason to buy Samsung drives for quite a while now, they haven't been reasonably priced for almost 2 years. They are not better. Samsung took the goodwill and reputation they got from being the first 3D Nand drives, and have been coasting for years on it without merit.
 
You can buy the S50 from Adata for $240 CAD, or the Corsair MP600 for $250, or the SX8200 Pro for $170 or Adata Gammix S11 Pro for $160 right now. Why wait. There won't be much of a difference with the 980 Pro anyways (and there isn't much difference between the top 10 drives today either).
 
If the Samsung drive is over $300 you're even better off buying a different 2TB PCIe 4.0 drive, you'll have an extra 1TB to convert to SLC cache.
 
 

You don't have to just get the Sabrent Rocket. There are 4 other drives that all use the same hardware as the Rocket PCIe 4.0 drive. The Adata S50 for $240 (all prices Canadian), the Corsair for $250, and the Seagate and Gigabyte also. I'm trying to explain to you that the Samsung 970 Evo isn't special. You're talking $500 for that drive with a 2TB capacity (that's the only model with a decent price/GB, the 2TB) so even after $200 plus off the MSRP on sale ($700 to $500), it is still $200 more than the competitors (like the Gammix S11 Pro at $300), and isn't faster.
 
The problem with waiting is what about Samsung makes you think they will sell their products at reasonable prices? They won't come in and beat the old prices even. They want $350 for the 970 Evo which is the exact same speed as the $160 S11 Gammix Pro and slower than the Corsair $250 one. You don't get your money's worth, you are paying for a brand.
 
Don't get me wrong, I want a 980 Pro, but $300 or less. I have a 5 percent chance of getting it at that price. So just ignore that brand.

PCIe 4.0 is just more max bandwidth, it doesn't make the drive much faster. You can use the Corsair MP600 with PCIe 3.0 also. Personally I'd get an Adata SX 8200 Pro for now, and get a Phison E18 drive when they come out. They will compete with the 980 Pro and be half the price.

It's absolutely worth waiting as new technology is around the corner and the market is in the consumer's favor through at least 1H 2021. I keep an eye on foreign investor reports (e.g. China) and it's been "through 2021" since March of this year, unfortunately a lot of armchair economists tend to portend doom and gloom for the NAND/SSD market this year - prices were up early, but honestly not that much. That's to say, the market is ideal for someone who is willing to wait for the right drive.
 
The other side of this is that hardware enthusiasts will say, accurately, that NAND itself is the limitation (versus say, 3D Xpoint). Completely true, moreover software limitations and the fact consumers don't push the hardware means it's difficult even to see big gains over SATA/AHCI SSDs outside of sequential performance. That being said, most commentators lack the deeper comprehension of flash workings where there's tons of little techniques that are improving flash this generation (e.g., "12x" layers, which could be anywhere from 128 to 144 in earnest). Particularly QLC will see benefits, but I'd rather not dive too deeply into that right now, but see BiCS5 here.
 
For example, shortening bitlines and using SBL means you can get 37% faster partial page reads (e.g. 4KB read vs. 16KB page-sized read) which is quite relevant for consumer usage. The fact that we'll see CMOS Under Array (CUA) on BiCS5 as well. This means up to 132 MB/s program speed per die with 3-bit MLC (TLC) coupled with a new 16/12nm controller process node means we'll have entry-level Gen4 drives that will completely saturate and dominate a x4 PCIe 3.0 M.2 socket. Honestly I'm more excited about those options than the 7 GB/s racers, but even there you see crazy sequentials which may become quite relevant for PC gaming in a few years due to consoles (who needs compression when you got 7 GB/s raw).
 
That wraps back around to the "reliability" concept - again, most people can't verbalize the differences between drives. In reality you first have the flash: what technology is its basis? Floating gate (Intel/Micon) has better endurance than BiCS (WD/Kioxia) and P-BiCS (Hynix) for example. Micron is going TCAT with replacement gate (RG) which has the same foundation as V-NAND (Samsung) but will be superior even. So while you're best avoiding Toshiba and Hynix flash, the rest is all quite good (in fact, Intel/Micron QLC is superior to Samsung's). Then there's the raw binning of the flash, e.g. bad blocks per die, which also extends from flash tech. because there's a direct impact on yields, see here. Again I would generally trust Intel/Micron and Samsung the most, you also have IMFT flash on HP drives for example but it's binned by BiWin which may not be 100% up to snuff (ADATA bins their own wafers which is a step up from most, btw).
 
Controllers are almost all ARM Cortex-R5 bases with subtle differences in data protection (e.g. differential memory device for data-at-rest protection), ECC/LDPC differences, algorithms for read retry, etc. However for the most part they're all about as reliable. Firmware to some extent is an issue but quite minor in practice, however drives with a huge variety in flash tend to have more flash revisions which can be troublesome.
 
In any case if this is all too technologically-minded for you, if you just want a "market" response, refer again to my first paragraph - it's worth waiting. If you want the best drive on the market now then yes that's absolutely the 970 EVO Plus. I wouldn't even consider the 980 Pro, today or next year. WD SN750 would be my secondary choice if reliability and consistency is your goal. Next gen, who knows, we have new contenders and new flash tech, and yes we already have Hynix's 128L drives out but that's for a different discussion.

Really appreciate the additional info.  It's been a decade since I've built a new rig, so a lot of this is either new to me or I've forgotten a lot.  I guess I might as well be a novice at this point
 
Anyway, I do a good amount of 2D/3D work (lots of Autodesk and Adobe applications), but I do a bunch of gaming, too.  I'll make use of the 64gb for sure.
 
In the past, I've never overclocked (or had any reason to) and just set an XMP profile, for example, and was good to go.
 
For running with 64gb but with speeds beyond 2133mhz, is there an "easy" solution, or should I just get the ram and with tweaks, hope for the best?  A lot of this is uncharted territory for me, both since it's been so long and I've never had to do much tweaking.  If I can get a good combination of speed + capacity, that'd be great.
 
Sorry if that's not helpful, I'm just trying to be honest on where I'm coming from.  I really do appreciate your help.  I don't have a ton of time to research, but building a new rig will be really helpful for me (I'm running an i7-930 at the moment).
Great and legitimate question    Honestly, I won't use a lot of what the board has to offer -- I know that going in.  I could for example get the MSI Tomahawk, but it's tough to find.  The Crosshair VIII Hero seemed good, even if overkill, and I'm guessing I won't make full use of the VRM, for example.  I'm looking for something reliable that won't need lots of tweaking, I suppose.  As noted above, there's a lot to consider when putting this build together, especially since it's been so long since I last built.  Luckily I'm not constrained by budget, and I'd still like the experience of building a new machine.
 
I used to keep up with hardware, but there's so much new stuff/tech these days that I'll admit a lot of it is new to me; so I apologize in advance if any of my responses are unhelpful.  I know that it's up to me to determine what to do and what to buy, but I know that many folks out there know a lot more about it than I do.  I was trying to reduce time spent troubleshooting a brand new build, for the most part.