Sabrent Rocket vs XPG SX8200 Pro vs 970 Evo Plus

[Anderson Merten]

Hey guys, whats up?

 

I'm sorry to bother you with this, but could you help me, please?

 

I've been trying to decide which m2 should I get.. I'm trying to choose between Sabrent Rocket 4.0, XPG SX8200 Pro and the Evo Plus.

Clearly the Sabrent is the fastest, followed by the Evo and the XPG. The thing is, the Sabrent 1TB costs 200, the 970 evo plus 1tb 240$ and the XPG sx8200 pro 2TB 260$, for 60 more I can get double the space.

I'm gonna be working with renders and probably will not game that much, eventually yes, but I'm definitely not a gamer guy.

 

My question is: the difference between speeds is enough to overcome the difference in space? Worth it? Also, nice to know that the Sabrent is the only PCIe 4.0

 

My configs are:

 

Ryzen 3950x

X570 Asus ROG Strix Gaming-E

64gb RAM G Skill Z Neo 3600mhz

RTX 2070 Super ROG Strix OC

Corsair H100i 240mm Platinum AIO

PSU 650W ROG Strix

 

 

[Jurrunio]

how large are your files?

[Anderson Merten]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

how large are your files?

Textures and stuff can be pretty large but doesn't mean that I need them on my SSD and I already have an external HDD..

I bought my last laptop with only 500GB ssd and its still ok untill today with the external HDD.

[Jurrunio]

7 hours ago, Anderson Merten said:

Textures and stuff can be pretty large but doesn't mean that I need them on my SSD and I already have an external HDD..

I bought my last laptop with only 500GB ssd and its still ok untill today with the external HDD.

Then the Rocket 4.0 seems like the best fit, though isn't rendering heavy on CPU/GPU but not storage? There's far less stuff to import comparing to say, video editing.

[NewMaxx]

The Sabrent Rocket 4.0 is based on the Phison E16, there's about a dozen drives that use that controller with the same flash (96L BiCS4 TLC from Toshiba). The SX8200 Pro uses the SM2262EN, updated version of the SM2262, also used on many drives, usually coming with 64L TLC from Intel/Micron. Lastly, Samsung's 970 EVO Plus has a proprietary controller with 96L TLC.

 

The flash differences aren't really important although there is some impact at 2TB (for the SX8200 Pro) because it has to use double-density dies, that is 512Gb/four-plane, which does have more overhead. So in terms of flash performance, the 1TB 970 EVO Plus is fastest followed by the Rocket 4.0 and then the SX8200 Pro. The "up to" sequential speeds you see are only over PCIe 4.0 and specifically SLC mode, I'm talking base flash performance. However these are all roughly in the same ballpark.

 

The E16 is a dual-CPU/quad-core design with a balanced performance profile, the SM2262EN is dual-core optimized for low queue depth, the Phoenix (970 EVO Plus) is penta-core with specialized cores (2xread, 2xwrite, 1xhost). So in terms of power it's 970 EVO Plus > Rocket > SX8200 Pro. However this is ignoring low queue depth performance (which is often most important for consumer usage), efficiency, etc.

 

Lastly they have three different SLC cache designs. The 970 EVO Plus is hybrid (static + dynamic), the SX8200 Pro large and dynamic, the Rocket 4.0 full-drive dynamic. Static is more consistent while dynamic is more flexible, specifically for bursty sequential workloads. There are downsides to dynamic caching, specifically when outside the SLC, when the drive is fuller, etc.

 

The combination of these factors means the SX8200 Pro will be fastest for every day usage, the Rocket 4.0 is best for bursty sequentials (which requires other fast drives in the system, usually), and the 970 EVO Plus is best-balanced. If capacity is a priority and the price is as close as you say, the SX8200 Pro will absolutely get the job done in most cases; video rendering is often subsystem-limited (CPU/RAM).

[Anderson Merten]

On 5/23/2020 at 7:53 PM, NewMaxx said:

The Sabrent Rocket 4.0 is based on the Phison E16, there's about a dozen drives that use that controller with the same flash (96L BiCS4 TLC from Toshiba). The SX8200 Pro uses the SM2262EN, updated version of the SM2262, also used on many drives, usually coming with 64L TLC from Intel/Micron. Lastly, Samsung's 970 EVO Plus has a proprietary controller with 96L TLC.

 

The flash differences aren't really important although there is some impact at 2TB (for the SX8200 Pro) because it has to use double-density dies, that is 512Gb/four-plane, which does have more overhead. So in terms of flash performance, the 1TB 970 EVO Plus is fastest followed by the Rocket 4.0 and then the SX8200 Pro. The "up to" sequential speeds you see are only over PCIe 4.0 and specifically SLC mode, I'm talking base flash performance. However these are all roughly in the same ballpark.

 

The E16 is a dual-CPU/quad-core design with a balanced performance profile, the SM2262EN is dual-core optimized for low queue depth, the Phoenix (970 EVO Plus) is penta-core with specialized cores (2xread, 2xwrite, 1xhost). So in terms of power it's 970 EVO Plus > Rocket > SX8200 Pro. However this is ignoring low queue depth performance (which is often most important for consumer usage), efficiency, etc.

 

Lastly they have three different SLC cache designs. The 970 EVO Plus is hybrid (static + dynamic), the SX8200 Pro large and dynamic, the Rocket 4.0 full-drive dynamic. Static is more consistent while dynamic is more flexible, specifically for bursty sequential workloads. There are downsides to dynamic caching, specifically when outside the SLC, when the drive is fuller, etc.

 

The combination of these factors means the SX8200 Pro will be fastest for every day usage, the Rocket 4.0 is best for bursty sequentials (which requires other fast drives in the system, usually), and the 970 EVO Plus is best-balanced. If capacity is a priority and the price is as close as you say, the SX8200 Pro will absolutely get the job done in most cases; video rendering is often subsystem-limited (CPU/RAM).

Damn man this was an insane good response! Thank you brother!