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The PS5-rivalling Samsung 980 Pro SSD is launching within two months

GHG

Gold Member
The delayed new Samsung PCIe 4.0 is coming soon.

The new suggested launch timing has come from @UniverseIce (via HWBattle), a noted source of other Samsung rumours, and claims that it will mark the arrival of "the super performance of real PCIe 4.0 SSD." The Samsung 980 Pro is the Korean giant's first consumer PCIe 4.0 SSD, and is promising storage performance ahead of anything else around right now.
That much was announced back at the Las Vegas show in January, with sequential read and write speeds of 6,500MB/s and 5,000MB/s respectively.

...

The upcoming Phison E18 controller, however, is supposedly capable of offering up to 7,000MB/s of throughput over the PCIe 4.0 interface, getting dangerously close to maxing out the theoretical limits of a M.2 x4 socket.


For reference the SSD inside the upcoming PS5 is promising uncompressed throughput of at least 5,500MB/s, though is expected to be able to use some compression algorithm trickery to hit 9,000MB/s for some workloads. Early rumours suggested Sony were going to use a 980 QVO SSD, with 4-bit MLC, so Samsung could be winning whatever happens.



Two of these bad boys in raid0 is going to be:

tenor.gif
 
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For reference the SSD inside the upcoming PS5 is promising uncompressed throughput of at least 5,500MB/s, though is expected to be able to use some compression algorithm trickery to hit 9,000MB/s for some workloads. Early rumours suggested Sony were going to use a 980 QVO SSD, with 4-bit MLC, so Samsung could be winning whatever happens.

Lol, what trickery? Lossless compression is usually 2:1 ratio (usually; PS5's a bit less than that, which is honestly unusual. I'm interested to know why it isn't 11 GB/s lossless compressed as I'd expect), so lossless compression up to 9 GB/s should just be assumed given the other numbers.

More interesting part here is Sony considering 4-bit MLC chips; maybe they are still using 4-bit chips or decided to go with 8-bit chips instead. 48-bit (6 byte) bus vs. 76-bit (12 byte) bus, I figure the latter would be more desirable. But also more expensive. There's other things to the Samsung one still not known though like the number of channels, the type of NAND modules (in capacity, which can influence the number of channels), whatever cache type the drive has and its amount etc.

So yeah, theoretically it might seem better than Sony's but without knowing the other stuff that can't be definitely ascertained. Dunno to say if it is even comparable considering those other factors, because most of the work comes through the flash memory controller, not the NAND modules themselves.
 
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Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
"PS5 Rivalling."

It's not comparable (positively or negatively) as it's a completely different architecture.

I see PC Gamer keeps being really desperate to assert the relevance of its platform. They've been at it for month, trying to downplay next-gen consoles. Goodness gracious. Calm down. PC isn't going anywhere even if consoles get something new and shiny for once. As a matter of fact, it's just gonna push PC tech and everyone will be fine. 🤔

As someone who primarily games on PC, this is nauseating.
 
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"PS5 Rivalling."

It's not comparable (positively or negatively) as it's a completely different architecture.

I see PC gamer keeps being really desperate to assert the relevance of its platform. Goodness gracious. Calm down. PC isn't going anywhere even if consoles get something new and shiny for once. As a matter of fact, it's just gonna push PC tech and everyone will be fine. 🤔

SSDs aren't really viewed in terms of architectures; you have the flash memory controllers, you have the NAND modules, the PCIe lane interconnects, the NVMe operating protocol etc. Since Sony's and Samsung's are using the same memory technology (NAND), same PCIe standard (4.0), same NVMe operating protocol, same method of addressing chips in parallel to the controller (channels), use some type of cache (SRAM (or PS-RAM for Sony, likely DRAM for Samsung), etc....architecturally they're pretty much the same.

The differences are more in the configuration and perhaps some of the additional hardware one or the other might have, like the cache coherency engines in PS5's flash memory controller I/O block. I don't see news of Samsung releasing a speedy SSD for PC as being bad or something desperate; the sooner more PC drives reach parity with what the next-gen consoles can offer (not just in terms of raw specs but also in throughput, which is something I expect DirectStorage and other parts of Velocity Architecture implemented in the PC space to help with on that side), the sooner game developers can feel assured in pushing for that type of performance in their game programming and design. If not as the baseline, then at least as a higher-end to actually put serious optimization in for.

It's a win-win for gamers.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
SSDs aren't really viewed in terms of architectures; you have the flash memory controllers, you have the NAND modules, the PCIe lane interconnects, the NVMe operating protocol etc. Since Sony's and Samsung's are using the same memory technology (NAND), same PCIe standard (4.0), same NVMe operating protocol, same method of addressing chips in parallel to the controller (channels), use some type of cache (SRAM (or PS-RAM for Sony, likely DRAM for Samsung), etc....architecturally they're pretty much the same.

The differences are more in the configuration and perhaps some of the additional hardware one or the other might have, like the cache coherency engines in PS5's flash memory controller I/O block. I don't see news of Samsung releasing a speedy SSD for PC as being bad or something desperate; the sooner more PC drives reach parity with what the next-gen consoles can offer (not just in terms of raw specs but also in throughput, which is something I expect DirectStorage and other parts of Velocity Architecture implemented in the PC space to help with on that side), the sooner game developers can feel assured in pushing for that type of performance in their game programming and design. If not as the baseline, then at least as a higher-end to actually put serious optimization in for.

It's a win-win for gamers.

What's desperate isn't the news that Samsung is releasing a fast SSD. It's PC gamer calling it "PS5 Rivalling!"

It isn't "rivalling" anything else than slower SSDs from competitors. As a matter of fact, more and faster SSDs benefit PS5 as much as they benefit PC.

This is the same crap as the "Unreal Engine 5 runs on a laptop!" we saw a few weeks ago, and it smells like desperation.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
Eww. Why you wanna screw up your random speeds like that?

Benchmarks bro.

But seriously, depends in how you have them set up and which chipset platform and motherboard you are using.

When configured correctly on a good x570 motherboard there are lots of benefits to be had with little downside as long as you understand the potential pitfalls from a reliability standpoint.

"PS5 Rivalling."

It's not comparable (positively or negatively) as it's a completely different architecture.

I see PC Gamer keeps being really desperate to assert the relevance of its platform. They've been at it for month, trying to downplay next-gen consoles. Goodness gracious. Calm down. PC isn't going anywhere even if consoles get something new and shiny for once. As a matter of fact, it's just gonna push PC tech and everyone will be fine. 🤔

As someone who primarily games on PC, this is nauseating.

These are likely going to be the first PS5 compatible drives available on the market.
 

martino

Member
Lol, what trickery? Lossless compression is usually 2:1 ratio (usually; PS5's a bit less than that, which is honestly unusual. I'm interested to know why it isn't 11 GB/s lossless compressed as I'd expect), so lossless compression up to 9 GB/s should just be assumed given the other numbers.

More interesting part here is Sony considering 4-bit MLC chips; maybe they are still using 4-bit chips or decided to go with 8-bit chips instead. 48-bit (6 byte) bus vs. 76-bit (12 byte) bus, I figure the latter would be more desirable. But also more expensive. There's other things to the Samsung one still not known though like the number of channels, the type of NAND modules (in capacity, which can influence the number of channels), whatever cache type the drive has and its amount etc.

So yeah, theoretically it might seem better than Sony's but without knowing the other stuff that can't be definitely ascertained. Dunno to say if it is even comparable considering those other factors, because most of the work comes through the flash memory controller, not the NAND modules themselves.

it's because most texture format are already compressed and zlib / kraken compression can only add 30-40% on top of it.
super-compressed texture like crunch (lossy) can do 2:1 or even more on top of it . So who knows what MS solution will do (lossy / not lossy , how performent it is)
and also texture are :


and also it woul be good to talk random reads at some point.
 
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Tripolygon

Banned
It is not really rivaling, it is technically speaking, should be the first PS5 compatible expansion SSD. Lets see if it makes it on Mark Cerny's list. More competition means lower prices in the end.
 
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ABnormal

Member
The very same prediction Cerny made during road to PS5.

But he made also clear that a fast ssd without the removal of the bottlenecks of the I/O is limited by orders of magnitude in its efficiency.

Most of people still seems to not understand that it's not the ssd the primary reason to the data performance of ps5, but rather the architecture for it and dedicated processors.
 

iHaunter

Member
Right but don't you have to upgrade your Mobo to PCIE 4.0 and have a CPU that supports it? Essentially build a new computer to use it fully outside of the GPU.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
Right but don't you have to upgrade your Mobo to PCIE 4.0 and have a CPU that supports it? Essentially build a new computer to use it fully outside of the GPU.

That's already supported by the latest hardware you can buy nowadays, but that's really not the point, because this nincompoop doesn't understand that Samsung isn't competing with PS5 at all, nor they're trying.
 

skneogaf

Member
Ps5 ssd isn't game changing but how it can be used is.

Unless pc video game developers have really fast ssd as minimum spec then we can all have ssd's thst are twice as fast but we won't see much difference between twice as fast, as fast or what we have now.

A bit quicker load times isn't going to change much in my life.
 

iHaunter

Member
That's already supported by the latest hardware you can buy nowadays, but that's really not the point, because this nincompoop doesn't understand that Samsung isn't competing with PS5 at all, nor they're trying.

It can "Work" on PCIE3 but will it actually be at the 5.5GB + kind of performance? I doubt it.
 

samporter

Banned
"PS5 Rivalling."

It's not comparable (positively or negatively) as it's a completely different architecture.

I see PC Gamer keeps being really desperate to assert the relevance of its platform. They've been at it for month, trying to downplay next-gen consoles. Goodness gracious. Calm down. PC isn't going anywhere even if consoles get something new and shiny for once. As a matter of fact, it's just gonna push PC tech and everyone will be fine. 🤔

As someone who primarily games on PC, this is nauseating.

Why wouldn't the SSD be comparable if the total transfer rates are roughly the same? If the PC can access the same amount of data as the PS5 SSD, then it is comparable. Now if you meant to say that PS5 SSD is optimized for PS5 games while PC software will not to be able to take advantage of the transfer rate, then that may make more sense.

Seeing as how you are a PC gamer, it is surprising that you are impressed by these two consoles. They have Ryzen2 8-core CPU, 16GB ram, around Nvidia RTX2600-2700. We have consumer PC's with better CPU, ram and GPU already.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
It can "Work" on PCIE3 but will it actually be at the 5.5GB + kind of performance? I doubt it.

PCIe 4.0 is already available (has been since late last year). My mobo supports it, and my current SSD (seagate firecuda 520 ) is already PCIe 4.0 even if it isn't as fast as the Samsung one mentioned here (5000 MB/R, 4400 MB/W).

Why wouldn't the SSD be comparable if the total transfer rates are roughly the same? If the PC can access the same amount of data as the PS5 SSD, then it is comparable. Now if you meant to say that PS5 SSD is optimized for PS5 games while PC software will not to be able to take advantage of the transfer rate, then that may make more sense.

Seeing as how you are a PC gamer, it is surprising that you are impressed by these two consoles. They have Ryzen2 8-core CPU, 16GB ram, around Nvidia RTX2600-2700. We have consumer PC's with better CPU, ram and GPU already.

Because total transfer rates are just a small part of the picture. Linus explains it pretty well in the video linked above. Very fast SSDs are the foundation of what the PS5 (and I imagine to an extent the Xbox Sersies X) does, but that foundation is amplified by how it handles data.

Where did I say that I am impressed? I haven't seen them run. I don't get "Impressed" before I see things running.

BUT, as someone who primarily plays on PC but also plays on all platforms when required, I'm well aware than consoles are always bigger than the sum of their parts. That's just their nature.
 
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The very same prediction Cerny made during road to PS5.

But he made also clear that a fast ssd without the removal of the bottlenecks of the I/O is limited by orders of magnitude in its efficiency.

Most of people still seems to not understand that it's not the ssd the primary reason to the data performance of ps5, but rather the architecture for it and dedicated processors.
Yeah, its the reason why putting a SSD in a PS4 only gets you slightly better load times for most games - the drive isnt the limiting piece if hardware.
 

LordKasual

Banned
Honestly? I don't care if it's better or worse because PS5's SSD is fucking worlds beyond what we currently have.

I just want something comparable to XSX and PS5 at a decent price point
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
What's desperate isn't the news that Samsung is releasing a fast SSD. It's PC gamer calling it "PS5 Rivalling!"

It isn't "rivalling" anything else than slower SSDs from competitors. As a matter of fact, more and faster SSDs benefit PS5 as much as they benefit PC.

This is the same crap as the "Unreal Engine 5 runs on a laptop!" we saw a few weeks ago, and it smells like desperation.
I don't think "rivaling" is necessarily a negative connotation for PS5. It's just a point of comparison (albeit a flawed one). I think you're being a little overly sensitive about this specific language, in my opinion.
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
I don't think "rivaling" is necessarily a negative connotation for PS5. It's just a point of comparison (albeit a flawed one). I think you're being a little overly sensitive about this specific language, in my opinion.

You're free to have your opinion, but this isn't an isolated case for PC Gamer.

It's not just a flawed point of comparison. It's a completely ludicrous one. Storage hardware isn't in any shape or form rivaling a platform that can use it, even if they were in any shape or form comparable, which they are not.

This is another of PCgamer's desperate attempts to scream to the world that the PC master race is still relevant. Which we all know it is, making those attempts look even sillier.
 
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D

Deleted member 471617

Unconfirmed Member
So happy that the 825GB SSD and 1TB SSD will be more than enough for me for the entire generation. :)
 

Kenpachii

Member
PCIe 4.0 is already available (has been since late last year). My mobo supports it, and my current SSD (seagate firecuda 520 ) is already PCIe 4.0 even if it isn't as fast as the Samsung one mentioned here (5000 MB/R, 4400 MB/W).



Because total transfer rates are just a small part of the picture. Linus explains it pretty well in the video linked above. Very fast SSDs are the foundation of what the PS5 (and I imagine to an extent the Xbox Sersies X) does, but that foundation is amplified by how it handles data.

Where did I say that I am impressed? I haven't seen them run. I don't get "Impressed" before I see things running.

BUT, as someone who primarily plays on PC but also plays on all platforms when required, I'm well aware than consoles are always bigger than the sum of their parts. That's just their nature.

That PC SSD is faster, u can't deal with straight facts is your problem. The PS5 SSD = 5,5gbps that samsung one is 6,5gbps. It's that simple.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
That will be the price you need to pay if you want to expand your PS5 storage. :messenger_grinning_sweat:

They don't even realize how fucked they are by Sony choosing to use that proprietized SSD that no multiplatform developer is going to even use to its fullest ability. Its like bragging about having a 4K TV and the only time you ever view 4K content is the UHD blurays you buy every now and then. But if anyone knows Sony they have a history of doing this. Anyone remember the PSP and Vita memory cards?
 
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Rikkori

Member
Time to debunk the "but muh special hardware" marketing spiel people bought hook line and sinker from Sony, with the horse's own words:







That's right. All of PS5 "special sauce" is barely worth a shitty intel core. LOL

Gonna be some harsh reality checks at launch.
 
Time to debunk the "but muh special hardware" marketing spiel people bought hook line and sinker from Sony, with the horse's own words:







That's right. All of PS5 "special sauce" is barely worth a shitty intel core. LOL

Gonna be some harsh reality checks at launch.

I'm going to need you to seek shelter immediately, the fanboys will be here soon to try and discredit you and his tweet. Brace yourself, you haven't you much time left.
 

longdi

Banned
They don't even realize how fucked they are by Sony choosing to use that proprietized SSD that no multiplatform developer is going to even use to its fullest ability. Its like bragging about having a 4K TV and the only time you ever view 4K content is the UHD blurays you buy every now and then. But if anyone knows Sony they have a history of doing this. Anyone remember the PSP and Vita memory cards?

tbf Sony allows non-prop ssd, but since they are using prop tech, you need a much faster and hence more expensive one.
At least 18 months from launch before the general population can buy 'affordable' >6gbs ssd expansion :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
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