Technological upgrades tend to present a higher cost to customers, but there are times when this is not the case. The latest Samsung 980 NVMe solid-state drives are a perfect example of this. The company is purging the use of DRAM for the first time, a change that will result in a lower list price than its predecessor. Up to this point Samsung could not lose DRAM without sacrificing speed. This has changed thanks to the Host Memory Buffer technology. The result is a cost that kicks off from $50. Despite this, this lineup offers up to 3,500MB/s performance. Continue reading to learn more.
Samsung 980 lineup delivers better performance for less money
Today’s Samsung 980 NVMe release is notable for several reasons. As already mentioned, it lowers cost without sacrificing performance, but yet another perk is that power usage is also considerably less. In fact, Samsung touts an “up to 56%” efficiency boost when compared with 970 EVO. While mileage may vary, this should translate into longer battery life in laptops.
And those aren’t the only upgrades. Redesigned thermals prevent overheating to deliver consistent performance with less throttling needed. This is a huge win for anyone who accesses or transfers a lot of files as part of their daily workflow.
“Through both hardware and software innovations, our new 980 SSD brings greater value without compromising the high-end NVMe performance,” said KyuYoung Lee, vice president of Memory Brand Product Biz team at Samsung Electronics. “The 980 offers an excellent blend of speed, power efficiency and reliability, making it suitable for everyday PC users and gamers as well as content creators.”
Pricing and availability
The new Samsung 980 solid-state drives are available now. Pricing starts at $49.99 for 250GB, with larger variants clocking in at $69.99 for 500GB and $129.99 for 1TB. For comparison, the 970 EVO has a much higher list price, and the going rate is still notably more. One noticeable change of the Samsung 980 lineup is that 1TB is the largest capacity, unlike the 2TB ceiling set by 970 EVO.
9to5Toys’ Take
If you’re looking to boost the performance of a PC or external storage, solid-state drives are the way to go. Apps launch incredibly faster when compared to traditional hard-disk drives, and NVMe solutions are even speedier than 2.5-inch solid-state offerings.
As prices continue to drop, so do the number of reasons to pick anything other than NVMe. Today’s Samsung 980 release will arguably help drive down pricing through competition, something that will benefit all consumers both now and going forward.
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