Samsung SM951 512GB M.2 Review

tinytomlogan

The Guvnor
Staff member
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SSDs with incredible speeds are coming thick and fast. We take a look at the latest Samsung offering, and see how PCI Express 2.0 compares to PCI Express 3.0 too.


Samsung SM951 512GB M.2 Review
 
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The speed leap is just phenomenal! I don't know how much it would relate to my personal desktop usage, but just as a technological feat it's incredible.

Really looking forward to these pushing into the mainstream.
 
I'd have one tomorrow if they only came with a black PCB or some sort of cover, I just couldn't have a slab of green sat in the middle of the motherboard teasing me.

*Cough* *Cough* PARVUM!! M.2 covers please ;)
 
I'd have one tomorrow if they only came with a black PCB or some sort of cover, I just couldn't have a slab of green sat in the middle of the motherboard teasing me.

*Cough* *Cough* PARVUM!! M.2 covers please ;)

+1 This

Kingston have come out with one and it's a Black PCB!
 
wow...the next step is always amazing!
can't imagine what will be the speed of devices in next 5 years?! ..maybe in TBs..
 
Come one mate! Do you know how hard it was for us regulars to hear you say "Bottleneck" that many times?! X_X

Also phenomenal speeeds. Btw the 2011 socket cpus could be an option for those who want dual way gpu configs and a drive like that. the 4930k has 40 lanes that means x16 x16 x8
 
well it would be super cool if you could also mention something about temperature of the drive and throttling issues. :cool:

Quote from another site:
"In our open air test bench we quickly found out that we were experiencing performance throttling due to overheating.
We found that in just just 130 seconds that our drive went from an idle temperature of 35C to the throttle point of 82C! Our performance went from being ~1500MB/s all they way down to 70MB/s during the throttle as a way to cool the drive down by what we are guessing is a short term cut in power and operations on the controller. "


Humm ? :rolleyes:
 
I just picked up a 256g 951 from Ram City in Queensland yesterday for my os when i get my new X99 build together. I highly recommend any aussies contact Rod at Ram City, he is very courteous and knowlegdable and customer support is second to none.
 
Bought my 256gb sm951 from ramcity as well. had it shipped to wisconsin to my folks house as I'm currently stationed in England with the USAF. they shipped it to me here and voila. installed nicely in my MSI X99A XPower AC motherboard. reads at almost exactly the same speeds as posted on this review. 1950MB/s read and 1200MB/s write.

i've found that it works best in windows 7 ultimate x64, windows 8.1 pro x64 throttles it down quite a bit. windows 10 build 10061 x64 same thing.

i have 5930k cpu installed along with 2x msi r9 290x video cards and a 500gb samsung 850 evo for game installs.

LOVE THIS UPDGRADE!!!
 
Have An Asus Rampage Extreme V X99 mb with a 5960x. With this ssd plugged into the M2 port is it running at PCI 3.0?
 
Thank you hoxlund. I'm running 2 new Samsung 850EVO 512s in Raid 0 so I'll wait until the price drops a bit and then move into the SM951
 
First of all thanks to tiny tom logan his amazing reviews. Hes the only reviewer who i watch and after can know for sure whether something is right for me. So in depth, no finding out about unexpected things when the product arrives. Your arc midi r2 review was class found out so much about that case.
Either way here's my q:
My motherboard has this feature http://www.asrock.com/news/index.asp?id=2121

I was going to sell my 240gb sandisk extreme pro and buy a Samsung sm951 m.2 ssd. This would give me speeds up to 1700+ on the write and 1500+ on the read as opposed to my current 500+.

My question is, will this steal pci e 3.0 lanes / bandwidth from my gpu?
If so, will it limit gpu performance?
Will it affect my ability to run sli?
Can this be used as a boot drive? (as i want to remove all my drive cages and other ssds). The big one is 400gb which is enough for me.
I have i7 4790k
Thanks for the help guys!
 
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with my msi x99a xpower ac motherboard it does not steal lanes nor does it inhibit my crossfire.

running dual r9 290x at full 16x bandwidth for both cards. verified that with gpuz
 
with my msi x99a xpower ac motherboard it does not steal lanes nor does it inhibit my crossfire.

running dual r9 290x at full 16x bandwidth for both cards. verified that with gpuz

think i found my answer:
found my answer, kind of disappointing:
"But there is a problem. On the Intel Z97 platform PCI Express 3.0 is only supported by the microprocessor itself. The CPU has 16 PCI Express 3.0 lanes that can be used to connect a graphics card in PCIe 3.0 x16 mode or reconfigured as 8+8 lanes (to support a dual-GPU configuration) or 8+4+4 lanes (to support a multi-GPU or multi-PCIe devices configuration). As a result, once an SSD in plugged into the Ultra M.2 slot, the bandwidth between central processing unit and graphics processing unit is cut-down by half. Therefore, while the end-user gets additional SSD performance, he/she may lose some GPU performance because of insufficient bandwidth between it and the CPU."

as of:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...m-2-ssds-with-ultra-m-2-but-there-is-a-catch/

dont think z97 has enough lanes to go around, x99 has like 40.
I think the only way i get good storage performance is over sata using raid 0, all these new solutions limit my gpu lanes and only seem worthwhile on x99.
Next time i build im going for the extreme platform
 
you are very correct. thats why i just sold my asus maximus formula vii and i7-4790k a couple months ago and switched to my x99 setup with a 5930k cpu

if you do want to switch make sure to get at least the 5930k cpu as it does offer 40 lanes, the 5820k only offers like 20 or something low like that

i knew i was going to buy the sm951 m.2 ssd so i went with the highest performing x99 motherboard with usb3.1. extremely satisfied with my MSI choice
 
you are very correct. thats why i just sold my asus maximus formula vii and i7-4790k a couple months ago and switched to my x99 setup with a 5930k cpu

if you do want to switch make sure to get at least the 5930k cpu as it does offer 40 lanes, the 5820k only offers like 20 or something low like that

good to know! yeah i might make the switch, depending on how easy it is to offload my current mb/ proc and whether i can get a decent price for it. Might just wait till my current setup is over the hill though
 
wow thats real nice, what gpus and what fans? I wish i got the msi 970, but i bought the kfa2 overclockers one for coil whine free and it whines lol, love the 0db fan mode on the msi gpus. and they look class.
 
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