SN770 and 990 PRO SN770 and 990 PRO

WD Black SN770 Vs. Samsung 990 PRO: DRAM-less Versus Flagship

In the second half of 2024, Samsung has yet to launch a high-end PCI-Express (PCIe) Gen5 M.2 drive in the consumer market. This means that the Gen4 990 PRO is still Samsung’s flagship – and also one of (if not the) fastest SSDs for the PCI-Express 4.0 interface.

Western Digital is also biding its time with Gen5, meaning that the SN850X is the performance leader in the WD Black lineup (we’ve also compared this drive to the 990 PRO, of course).

The WD Black SN770 is a more affordable alternative in the series and ships without onboard DRAM. In other words, it is not a direct competitor of the 990 PRO but still known to offer solid performance in spite of lacking DRAM.

SN770 Vs. 990 PRO: Specifications

Specifications for the full 990 PRO and SN770 lineups can be found further down on this page. This table compares the 2TB capacities of each drive:

WD_BLACK 2TB SN770
Samsung 990 PRO 2TB
Western Digital WD_BLACK 2TB SN770 NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive - Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280, Up to 5,150 MB/s - WDS200T3X0E
SAMSUNG 990 PRO SSD NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4, M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive, Seq. Read Speeds Up to 7,450 MB/s for High End Computing, Gaming, and Heavy Duty Workstations, MZ-V9P2T0B/AM
Form Factor
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
Interface/Protocol
PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
SSD Controller
Proprietary WD/SanDisk
Samsung Pascal
DRAM
N/A
2GB LPDDR4-4266
NAND
112L BiCS5 TLC
176L TLC (Samsung V-NAND V7)
Sequential Read
5,150 MB/s
7,450 MB/s
Sequential Write
4,850 MB/s
6,900 MB/s
Random Read
650K IOPS
1.4M IOPS
Random Write
800K IOPS
1.55M IOPS
Endurance Rating
1,200 TBW
1,200 TBW
Warranty
5 Years
5 Years
WD_BLACK 2TB SN770
Western Digital WD_BLACK 2TB SN770 NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive - Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280, Up to 5,150 MB/s - WDS200T3X0E
Form Factor
M.2 2280
Interface/Protocol
PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
SSD Controller
Proprietary WD/SanDisk
DRAM
N/A
NAND
112L BiCS5 TLC
Sequential Read
5,150 MB/s
Sequential Write
4,850 MB/s
Random Read
650K IOPS
Random Write
800K IOPS
Endurance Rating
1,200 TBW
Warranty
5 Years
Shopping Links
Samsung 990 PRO 2TB
SAMSUNG 990 PRO SSD NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4, M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Hard Drive, Seq. Read Speeds Up to 7,450 MB/s for High End Computing, Gaming, and Heavy Duty Workstations, MZ-V9P2T0B/AM
Form Factor
M.2 2280
Interface/Protocol
PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
SSD Controller
Samsung Pascal
DRAM
2GB LPDDR4-4266
NAND
176L TLC (Samsung V-NAND V7)
Sequential Read
7,450 MB/s
Sequential Write
6,900 MB/s
Random Read
1.4M IOPS
Random Write
1.55M IOPS
Endurance Rating
1,200 TBW
Warranty
5 Years
Shopping Links

Last update on 2024-11-02 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Unsurprisingly, the Samsung flagship is ahead of the SN770 by substantial margins in all performance-related areas. It uses nearly all of the bandwidth that four lanes of PCIe 4.0 bandwidth have to offer, making the 990 PRO almost 45% faster than the WD Black SN770 in terms of sequential read performance. The 990 PRO is even further ahead of the SN770 as measured in random IOPS. In fact, the only matching part of the spec sheets are warranty terms and endurance.

Both drives use a custom combination of a proprietary controller and NAND memory chips, but a potentially more important difference is that the Samsung 990 PRO is assisted by a DDR4 buffer integrated on the tiny M.2 PCB.

SN770 Vs. 990 PRO: Performance

On the other hand, theoretical maximums as seen on the spec sheets are not the same thing as performance in real-world scenarios. The SN770 is widely seen as one of the best DRAM-less budget M.2 SSDs, but is it fast enough to close in on the 990 PRO? Here’s how they differ according to our reviews of the 2TB WD Black SN770 and 2TB Samsung 990 PRO.

AS SSD Sequential Performance

SN770 Vs 990 PRO AS SSD chart

No SSD will reach its theoretical maximum sequential performance in the AS SSD benchmark, but it still largely reflects the same differences in this case. The 990 PRO’s read speed is 35% higher than the SN770, whereas write speed is about 37% better.

CrystalDiskMark Sequential & Random Performance

SN770 Vs 990 PRO CrystalDiskMark sequential performance chart

Sequential performance according to CrystalDiskMark follows the same pattern, with the Samsung 990 Pro being about 35–40% ahead of the WD Black SN770.

SN770 Vs 990 PRO CrystalDiskMark random performance chart

On the other hand, the most common workload for the average office or gaming PC is not orderly transfers of large files. That’s why performance with small chunks of random data is usually a better proxy for everyday performance. However, and as you may have expected, Samsung flagship is nevertheless substantially ahead of the SN770 here.

Latency (Anvil’s Storage Utilities)

SN770 Vs 990 PRO Latency chart

Latency or response time is another important metric for a number of everyday workloads. Samsung’s Gen4 flagship is about 32% (read) and 24% (write) faster than the WD Black SN770 in this area.

SN770 Vs. 990 PRO: Real-World Performance

SN770 Vs 990 PRO PCMark 10 App start-up chart

UL’s PCMark 10 benchmark includes a test of actual startup times for common office apps. Here, the differences are much less pronounced and the Samsung SSD is even marginally slower than the SN770 in a single outlier.

SN770 Vs 990 PRO game level loading times chart

When the standalone Final Fantasy Shadowbringer benchmark combines the loading times for five different game levels, the Samsung drive’s total is 1.6 seconds or 18.8% lower than the WD Black SSD.

3DMark Storage Benchmark

SN770 Vs 990 PRO 3DMark Storage Benchmark chart

The 3DMark Storage Benchmark is a more diverse combination of gaming workloads that includes installing, copying, loading, and recording games. As measured in average bandwidth, the 990 PRO is 40.7% faster than the SN770.

PlayStation 5 Read Speed Test

SN770 Vs 990 PRO PlayStation 5 performance chart

The WD Black SN770 is not compliant with Sony’s recommendations but will still work as a PS5 storage expansion SSD. The Samsung 990 PRO is better suited for this task (preferably in combination with a heatsink as per Sony’s recommendations) and also faster.

Conclusion

The Winner: Samsung 990 PRO
Overall Winner: Samsung 990 PRO

On average, Samsung’s 990 PRO is substantially faster than the Western Digital WD Black SN770 in synthetic benchmarks and also in tests that reflect real-world scenarios. However, it is also more expensive than the SN770, which remains a solid budget M.2 SSD.

read more:

Samsung 990 PRO Series Specifications

Samsung 990 PRO
Specifications
1TB2TB4TB
Form FactorM.2 2280M.2 2280M.2 2280
Interface/
Protocol
PCIe 4.0 x4/
NVMe 2.0
PCIe 4.0 x4/
NVMe 2.0
PCIe 4.0 x4/
NVMe 2.0
ControllerPascalPascalPascal
DRAM1GB LPDDR42GB LPDDR44GB LPDDR4
Memory176-layer
3D TLC
176-layer
3D TLC
176-layer
3D TLC
Sequential Read7,450 MB/s7,450 MB/s7,450 MB/s
Sequential Write6,900 MB/s6,900 MB/s6,900 MB/s
Random Read1.2M IOPS1.4M IOPS1.4M IOPS
Random Write1.55M IOPS1.55M IOPS1.55M IOPS
Endurance600 TBW1,200 TBW2,400 TBW
Warranty5-Year5-Year5-Year

All capacities of the 990 PRO offer about comparable performance, but the smallest 1TB model is slightly slower with random data.

WD Black SN770 Series Specifications

WD Black SN770250GB500GB1TB2TB
Form FactorM.2 2280M.2 2280M.2 2280M.2 2280
Interface / ProtocolPCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
ControllerProprietaryProprietaryProprietaryProprietary
DRAMNoNoNoNo
Memory112-Layer TLC112-Layer TLC112-Layer TLC112-Layer TLC
Sequential Read4,000 MB/s5,000 MB/s5,150 MB/s5,150 MB/s
Sequential Write2,000 MB/s4,000 MB/s4,900 MB/s4,850 MB/s
Random Read240K IOPS460K IOPS740K IOPS650K IOPS
Random Write470K IOPS800K IOPS800K IOPS800K IOPS
Endurance200 TBW300 TBW600 TBW1,200 TBW
Warranty5-Years5-Years5-Years5-Years
MSRP $59.00 $79.00 $129.00 $269.00

As is usually the case, the small 250 GB and 500 GB varieties of the SN770 ar noticeably slower than the 1TB and 2TB capacities, of which the latter is being compared to the Samsung 990 PRO on this page.

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