970 Evo Plus, 980 or 990 Pro?

[Melodist]

Howdy fellas,

 

Currently the prices are the following:

 

970 Evo Plus 2 TB: 97 Euro

980 Pro 2 TB: 128 Euro

990 Pro 2 TB: 158 Euro

 

Which one would you recommend?

 

The thing is, I could get either the 980 Pro or 970 Evo Plus with another storage SSD or just the 990 Pro.

 

This drive will be for now my Avid Pro Tools system. I'm still currently on a PCIe 3.0 system but it feels foolish to buy another 970 Evo Plus (I currently have 2 x 2 TB Evo Plus) and wanted to add another 2 TB. Just don't know whether it's better to buy something future proof that I can also use in my next system?

 

First I thought, if I go PCIe 4.0 drive-wise, the 980 Pro, because the price isn't that far away, but then I read the greatly improved the 990 over the 980 with random read and write speeds which i would even experience in my PCIe 3.0 system?

 

I work mainly in Avid's Pro Tools Ultimate with sessions of about 250 tracks with a size each of roughly between 30 to 150 megs and Gaming with my 3070 Ti. I have different system drives for that purpose.

 

What do you guy's think I should do?

[Bismut]

1 hour ago, Melodist said:

What do you guy's think I should do?

Think about how much bandwith you need. I have found that I am fine with SATA SSDs, but I usually use my system to game on.
I do not know how much bandwith Avid Pro uses, but I would expect it to be okay with any NVMe bandwith, including the 970 Evo.

 

1 hour ago, Melodist said:

Just don't know whether it's better to buy something future proof that I can also use in my next system?

Future proofing is a bit of a fools errand, even when it comes to storage. Prices generally fall with time and it only makes sense to buy a blazing fast SSD if you want to use difrect storage, but that has not reached the PC market in a big way AFAIK. You can get the 980 Pro if you are planning to switch to PCIe Gen4 soon, but I would just stick with the 970 Evo for now if you are not.
Also, how many PCIe slots are empty on your board? I have found that I would not be able to fit more drives on mine.

[itsabearcannon]

First off, stick with either the 970 EVO Plus or the 990 PRO. Ignore the 980 PRO.

 

The 980 PRO isn't so much cheaper than the 990 PRO that it's worth getting a last-gen product, and if you really care about saving money over speed than the 970 EVO Plus is the drive to beat right now on the combination of price, performance, and reliability.

 

So really your choices are 970 EVO+ for 97 Euro, or 990 PRO for 158 Euro.

 

Your choice should be entirely dependent on whether you think you're going to upgrade to a PCIe Gen4/Gen5 platform in the next two years. By that point, Samsung should have launched their flagship PCIe Gen5 SSD and you should re-evaluate, but for right now just answer that question. Read and write speeds will be virtually the same on PCIe Gen3, as both the 970 EVO+ and 990 PRO are going to be hitting the limit of what the slot can handle anyways.

 

Will you upgrade platforms to AM4/AM5 or LGA1700 in the next two years? If so, get the 990 PRO.

 

If you're not planning on an upgrade for two years, get the 970 EVO+ to save the cash, then buy a true top-end SSD down the line when you finally do upgrade.

 

 

[Ryker Robb]

Who says you have to go with samsung? The wd sn850x is another good option.

[testcy]

Will the difference in performance between the 990 Pro and 970 Evo Plus be that noticeable to be worth such difference in price?

[Doobeedoo]

Depends of your usage and benefit also how long you plan to keep and further use drives in new build. 990 Pro if you don't need more storage and potentially use more writes or want drive to last a very long time with heavy use.

[Melodist]

24 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Depends of your usage and benefit also how long you plan to keep and further use drives in new build. 990 Pro if you don't need more storage and potentially use more writes or want drive to last a very long time with heavy use.

 

I didn't fully understand your last sentence? 990 Pro if I don't need more storage!? Why when I don't need more storage?  And in terms of durability, the 970 Evo Plus and 990 Pro have the same durability rating.

 

10 hours ago, itsabearcannon said:

First off, stick with either the 970 EVO Plus or the 990 PRO. Ignore the 980 PRO.

 

The 980 PRO isn't so much cheaper than the 990 PRO that it's worth getting a last-gen product, and if you really care about saving money over speed than the 970 EVO Plus is the drive to beat right now on the combination of price, performance, and reliability.

 

So really your choices are 970 EVO+ for 97 Euro, or 990 PRO for 158 Euro.

 

Your choice should be entirely dependent on whether you think you're going to upgrade to a PCIe Gen4/Gen5 platform in the next two years. By that point, Samsung should have launched their flagship PCIe Gen5 SSD and you should re-evaluate, but for right now just answer that question. Read and write speeds will be virtually the same on PCIe Gen3, as both the 970 EVO+ and 990 PRO are going to be hitting the limit of what the slot can handle anyways.

 

Will you upgrade platforms to AM4/AM5 or LGA1700 in the next two years? If so, get the 990 PRO.

 

If you're not planning on an upgrade for two years, get the 970 EVO+ to save the cash, then buy a true top-end SSD down the line when you finally do upgrade.

 

 

That's exactly my thought, people didn't seem to be very happy with the 980 Pro generally when it came out and the 990 Pro seems to be an improvement, it also seems to run lower temps due to the new chip they've put on it.

 

Well I guess yeah, I'd upgrade within the next 2 years for sure but you're saying the only advantage is the sequential read and write speed of it? Nothing else? I guess then anyone who's playing games and professionally isn't transferring super big files should actually get the 970 Evo Plus, even in 2 years from now on? Since that won't change in the future I presume.

 

However, I saw a small file improvement on a review which I'll attach here.

 

Found this on XDA.

 

My point is that I want to avoid redundant purchases for the future.

 

I will definitely keep my existing 2 x 2 TB Evo Plus drives for the new system and already add now another 2 TB upgrade since I need the space but do I really benefit from a 990 Pro even in the future?

[Doobeedoo]

21 minutes ago, Melodist said:

 

I didn't fully understand your last sentence? 990 Pro if I don't need more storage!? Why when I don't need more storage?  And in terms of durability, the 970 Evo Plus and 990 Pro have the same durability rating.

I meant it as price wise, 990 Pro is more expensive than cheaper alternative with also getting another drive for similar total price. Rating TBW wise I'd still expect 990 Pro to last longer, it's also using newer NAND too. But really writes wise it can sustain more performance wise. 990 Pro has quite improved IOPS too.

[Melodist]

On 7/30/2023 at 4:57 PM, Doobeedoo said:

I meant it as price wise, 990 Pro is more expensive than cheaper alternative with also getting another drive for similar total price. Rating TBW wise I'd still expect 990 Pro to last longer, it's also using newer NAND too. But really writes wise it can sustain more performance wise. 990 Pro has quite improved IOPS too.

I wonder whether the 990 Pro would improve the durability compared to the 970 Evo Plus.

[Doobeedoo]

37 minutes ago, Melodist said:

I wonder whether the 990 Pro would improve the durability compared to the 970 Evo Plus.

I would expect so, being a higher tier product with longer warranty too. But hardly you would write as much.

[Blackcloud]

For whatever reason in my area.

The 990 pro is $179

The 980 pro is $172

The 970 Evo is $240

And this is for the 2TB version for all of them. So I ended up just buying the 990 pro lol. I even spoke to the worker and asked why the 970 was $60 more than the 990 and they were shocked when they saw it.