SSD suggestion for gaming and machine learning

[Cames Jameroon]

I have a PC which has B560M DS3H AC motherboard. I am planning to upgrade the storage from harddisk to M2 ssd. I want to add a storage of 500GB and use it as my primary disk. I thought of buying samsung 980 (NOT pro) 500GB version for $80 but it does not seem to have DRAM and I was going through articles/videos and found that SSD without DRAM cache are no good. Will DRAM / no DRAM have any effect on my usage which is primarily gaming and loading dataset from drive? Also could anyone suggest an ssd without blowing the budget if Samsung 980 (NOT PRO) is not good choice? 

Edited April 14, 2021 by santy311
edit: spellcheck fix

[SorryBella]

Consider 970 EVO instead. Its 10$ extra, with Samsung's in-house controller. Now granted its "last gen", but you wont see much of a difference between 3.0 nvme drives, and 4.0 nvme drives, especially with your use case.

[AnirbanG007]

39 minutes ago, santy311 said:

I have a PC which has B560M DS3H AC motherboard. I am planning to upgrade the storage from harddisk to M2 ssd. I want to add a storage of 500GB and use it as my primary disk. I thought of buying samsung 980 (NOT pro) 500GB version for $80 but it does not seem to have DRAM and I was going through articles/videos and found that SSD without DRAM cache are no good. Will DRAM / no DRAM have any effect on my usage which is primarily gaming and loading dataset from drive? Also could anyone suggest an ssd without blowing the budget if Samsung 980 (NOT PRO) is not good choice? 

As a game drive or dataset drive, in an nutshell, storage drive, a DRAMless drive will be fine. As a boot drive, well, something with a DRAM is always better than something without a DRAM, however, there are always other factors to consider, like native write to flash performance, and other things. Since you're in a budget, you could look into the SN550 from Western Digital, it is the budget champ, so to speak, you could go for it eyes closed.

 

I wouldn't really recommend the 980 when there is a better drive in that segment already. However, if you have the cash for it, I'd recommend a Samsung 970 evo which has DRAM, and would be better on paper. How much difference you'd actually notice in day to day performance is another story tho.

[Cames Jameroon]

5 hours ago, AnirbanG007 said:

As a game drive or dataset drive, in an nutshell, storage drive, a DRAMless drive will be fine. As a boot drive, well, something with a DRAM is always better than something without a DRAM, however, there are always other factors to consider, like native write to flash performance, and other things. Since you're in a budget, you could look into the SN550 from Western Digital, it is the budget champ, so to speak, you could go for it eyes closed.

 

I wouldn't really recommend the 980 when there is a better drive in that segment already. However, if you have the cash for it, I'd recommend a Samsung 970 evo which has DRAM, and would be better on paper. How much difference you'd actually notice in day to day performance is another story tho.

Will this do: 
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)?
 

[SorryBella]

1 minute ago, santy311 said:

Will this do: 
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)?
 

As my post say, 970 EVO is going to be a better value for you. You dont gain much if at all from going up from Pcie Gen 3 to 4 in gaming and windows usage, and that 10$ is basically a guarantee for a more consistent speed from 0% filled to 100%.

[Cames Jameroon]

1 hour ago, SorryClaire said:

As my post say, 970 EVO is going to be a better value for you. You dont gain much if at all from going up from Pcie Gen 3 to 4 in gaming and windows usage, and that 10$ is basically a guarantee for a more consistent speed from 0% filled to 100%.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB PCIe NVMe M.2 costs 7k inr ($93) whereas Samsung 970 Evo 500GB NVME costs INR 7.7k ($103). There is a price difference of $10, evo plus being the cheaper.

[SorryBella]

8 minutes ago, santy311 said:

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB PCIe NVMe M.2 costs 7k inr ($93) whereas Samsung 970 Evo 500GB NVME costs INR 7.7k ($103). There is a price difference of $10, evo plus being the cheaper.

Plus is dramless while the non plus is controlled by Samsung's propietary Phoenix controller.

[AnirbanG007]

40 minutes ago, santy311 said:

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB PCIe NVMe M.2 costs 7k inr ($93) whereas Samsung 970 Evo 500GB NVME costs INR 7.7k ($103). There is a price difference of $10, evo plus being the cheaper.

You must be checking from Amazon's website in India. I'm aware, the prices are a bit outta whack over there. Evo should be cheaper, not the Evo Plus. Anyway, a 970 evo plus will do an absolutely amazing job, no plus is NOT dramless. This is a screenshot from tomshardware. Also it's not gen 4. Not that it matters anyway.

 

 

 

 

However, from a value perspective, IMO, since you will be storing games and large datasets, 500 wouldn't be enough. I'd recommend the 1 TB version of SN550. It won't be a problem, also It's only 8.7k INR in Amazon as of writing. However if you can afford Samsung, go for it by all means, although IMO those tend to get pricy.