MY G752VY SSD BENCHMARKS COMPARED: Samsung 950 NVMe vs 951 NVMe vs 850 EVO - READ

[dbodyguru]

I have the G752VY with 3 different Samsung SSD's installed now. Because there are a lot of questions about installing Samsung SSD's and replacing the default SSD's, I've decided to benchmark all three of these SSD's on my system so you can see the differences. Hopefully it helps you decide on your upgrade SSD planning.

I've decided to compare the

SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 GIG NVMe

vs

SAMSUNG 951 NVMe 128 Gig (comes as the default OS drive in the Asus ROG G752 VT and VY models)

vs SAMSUNG 850 SATA 2.5 1TB

SEE THE ATTACHED IMAGE FOR benchmarks compared.


SUMMARY

If you look at the images, you'll see how fast the SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 is and also just how ****ty the default SAMSUNG 951 NVMe 128 gig SSD that comes with the system. The read speeds are 1 GiB but the write speeds are 150 MiB! The 950 PRO 512 write speeds are 10 TIMES faster. Even the random 4K tests double the speed. The 850 EVO has half the seq read speed as the 951 (500 MiBvs 1GiB) but the seq write speed is over 3x faster than the 951. The only area the so called 951 NVMe beats the 850 EVO is the seq write speed (2x) as fast. But for every other metric, it's far worse. Basically, if it comes between using the 850 EVO OR the defaut 951 NVMe drive that comes with the G752, I'd go with the 850 EVO any day. Note, I tested the 2.5 SATA 850 EVO. It could be the 850 m2 SATA III or ACHI versions are faster than the 2.5.

Of course, the best option is to go with the SAMSUNG 950 PRO -- either 256 or 512 GIGS. Look at the speeds! It blows the 951 out of the water (10x faster write speeds, over DOUBLE the read speeds). It also blows the 850 EVO out of the water with 4.5x the read speeds and DOUBLE the write speeds.

CONCLUSION
*SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 GB NVMe ROCKS so much.
*Default 951 NVMe 128 GB that comes with the system is **** and should be thrown away. Better off going with a 2.5 SATA 850 EVO if the cost of the Samsung 950's are too high for you, and booting your OS from that rather than boot from the 951 Samsung 128 GB. The 951 has double the read speeds of the 850 EVO, yes, but the write speeds are about 1/3 of the speed!!! Is it better? I don't know, depends if you are doing a lot more reading or writing to your drive.

So I hope this helps you guys decide what SSD to upgrade to. Whatever you decide, DITCH the absolutely ****ty 951 SAMSUNG NVMe 128gig/256/512 gig that comes with your G752VT/VY -- you can get at least double the read speeds and 10x the write speeds by switching!

I honestly don't understand -- paying about 2500 USD for my G752VY (which is a sweet, sweet machine and with the 3D vapor cooling runs super super cool, even when CPU and GPU are maxed -- only at 75-79C!!!) and Asus gives such a ****ty SSD which hurts performance~!

Also see my other posts that tell how I installed my 950 NVMe on the ASUS ROG G752VY and how I also installed a 850 EVO m2 SATA III on my other computer I bought, the ASUS ROG GL552...

How to SUCCESFULLY Install the Samsung 950 PRO NVMe into G752 and boot windows from it: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...s-How-I-Did-It

How to SUCESSFULLY install the Samsung 850 EVO m2 SATA III into the GL552 and boot windows from it:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...s-How-I-Did-It

[golomb13]

Keep on mind that there are two versions of SM 951 on market, the one that got SAME speeds as 950 PRO:

PM951
MZVLV256HCHP - This one Assus use, and this one got crappy results.

SM951
MZVPV256HDGL - I am having this version - same speeds as 950 Pro, and i think even better becasue heat throttling is not enabling that fast as 950 Pro one.

Keep that in mind before spreading news.

[Gps3dx]

I've decided to compare the

SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 GIG NVMe

vs

SAMSUNG 951 NVMe 128 Gig (comes as the default OS drive in the Asus ROG G752 VT and VY models)

vs SAMSUNG 850 SATA 2.5 1TB

SEE THE ATTACHED IMAGE FOR benchmarks compared.

Thanks for that nice comparision.
Do you mind sharing with us please, the driver info ( i.e manufacturer & version ) you used each time in each test ?
Let me explain....

I know from my little reading from the last few days around the new, and especially from "win-raid.com", that default/internal MS windows NVMe driver is CRAP.... and that for performance increase you should install the driver from your NVMe Controller manufacturer ( I guess it is Intel in your case, as the G752 runs the CM236 chipset ) - just to be clear - This "Controller Driver" sits in the Device Manager, under "Storage Controller" and it is NOT THE RAID Controller (i.e not IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller)!

Samsung has it own "Controller Driver", one can get it from here.
Benchmark result differs from using a controller driver differs from different manufacturer and version.

Now... since I just told you how to tweak even better your system - do you mind performing a bit more benchmark for us - to prove that is indeed the case ? ( P.S - I don't question Win-RAID.com... they are hack of pro there... )
Please try to run benchmark with different NVMe controller driver:​ MS Vs Samsungs Vs Intel ?? ( All of these drivers are HERE )

[drummerdimitri]

I have the G752VY with 3 different Samsung SSD's installed now. Because there are a lot of questions about installing Samsung SSD's and replacing the default SSD's, I've decided to benchmark all three of these SSD's on my system so you can see the differences. Hopefully it helps you decide on your upgrade SSD planning.

I've decided to compare the

SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 GIG NVMe

vs

SAMSUNG 951 NVMe 128 Gig (comes as the default OS drive in the Asus ROG G752 VT and VY models)

vs SAMSUNG 850 SATA 2.5 1TB

SEE THE ATTACHED IMAGE FOR benchmarks compared.


SUMMARY

If you look at the images, you'll see how fast the SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 is and also just how ****ty the default SAMSUNG 951 NVMe 128 gig SSD that comes with the system. The read speeds are 1 GiB but the write speeds are 150 MiB! The 950 PRO 512 write speeds are 10 TIMES faster. Even the random 4K tests double the speed. The 850 EVO has half the seq read speed as the 951 (500 MiBvs 1GiB) but the seq write speed is over 3x faster than the 951. The only area the so called 951 NVMe beats the 850 EVO is the seq write speed (2x) as fast. But for every other metric, it's far worse. Basically, if it comes between using the 850 EVO OR the defaut 951 NVMe drive that comes with the G752, I'd go with the 850 EVO any day. Note, I tested the 2.5 SATA 850 EVO. It could be the 850 m2 SATA III or ACHI versions are faster than the 2.5.

Of course, the best option is to go with the SAMSUNG 950 PRO -- either 256 or 512 GIGS. Look at the speeds! It blows the 951 out of the water (10x faster write speeds, over DOUBLE the read speeds). It also blows the 850 EVO out of the water with 4.5x the read speeds and DOUBLE the write speeds.

CONCLUSION
*SAMSUNG 950 PRO 512 GB NVMe ROCKS so much.
*Default 951 NVMe 128 GB that comes with the system is **** and should be thrown away. Better off going with a 2.5 SATA 850 EVO if the cost of the Samsung 950's are too high for you, and booting your OS from that rather than boot from the 951 Samsung 128 GB. The 951 has double the read speeds of the 850 EVO, yes, but the write speeds are about 1/3 of the speed!!! Is it better? I don't know, depends if you are doing a lot more reading or writing to your drive.

So I hope this helps you guys decide what SSD to upgrade to. Whatever you decide, DITCH the absolutely ****ty 951 SAMSUNG NVMe 128gig/256/512 gig that comes with your G752VT/VY -- you can get at least double the read speeds and 10x the write speeds by switching!

I honestly don't understand -- paying about 2500 USD for my G752VY (which is a sweet, sweet machine and with the 3D vapor cooling runs super super cool, even when CPU and GPU are maxed -- only at 75-79C!!!) and Asus gives such a ****ty SSD which hurts performance~!

Also see my other posts that tell how I installed my 950 NVMe on the ASUS ROG G752VY and how I also installed a 850 EVO m2 SATA III on my other computer I bought, the ASUS ROG GL552...

How to SUCCESFULLY Install the Samsung 950 PRO NVMe into G752 and boot windows from it: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...s-How-I-Did-It

How to SUCESSFULLY install the Samsung 850 EVO m2 SATA III into the GL552 and boot windows from it:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthrea...s-How-I-Did-It

I am surpsired by your results!

I have the G752VT with the same original drive configuration but my 128 GB 951 SSD was writing at around 500 MB/s with the same read speeds as yours so don't blame the drive. There might me some drivers you forgot to install.

I've cloned the drive like you did to a 240 GB 950 M.2 SSD and now the pc is working perfectly so thanks for the guide!

[dbodyguru]

Thanks for that nice comparision.
Do you mind sharing with us please, the driver info ( i.e manufacturer & version ) you used each time in each test ?
Let me explain....

I know from my little reading from the last few days around the new, and especially from "win-raid.com", that default/internal MS windows NVMe driver is CRAP.... and that for performance increase you should install the driver from your NVMe Controller manufacturer ( I guess it is Intel in your case, as the G752 runs the CM236 chipset ) - just to be clear - This "Controller Driver" sits in the Device Manager, under "Storage Controller" and it is NOT THE RAID Controller (i.e not IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller)!

Samsung has it own "Controller Driver", one can get it from here.
Benchmark result differs from using a controller driver differs from different manufacturer and version.

Now... since I just told you how to tweak even better your system - do you mind performing a bit more benchmark for us - to prove that is indeed the case ? ( P.S - I don't question Win-RAID.com... they are hack of pro there... )
Please try to run benchmark with different NVMe controller driver:​ MS Vs Samsungs Vs Intel ?? ( All of these drivers are HERE )

I am UNABLE to install the Samsung 950 drivers on the G752VY. It will not let me (I get an error message saying 950 NVMe is not detected when I try installing the driver, despite the fact it does show up in the Device Manager as the 950 and the write and read speeds as tested seem in line with what the speeds should be.

Also note, Samsung Partition Magic does NOT recognize the 950 in the list of dropdown drives to select. So I'm using the default MS or Intel drivers.

Now at this request, I've installed the new INTEL controller and run the benchmark. But the speeds are about the same as before. Again, I don't have the official samsung drivers installed, so maybe the drive is not as fast as it should be and / or partition magic software is not optimizing / running on the 950.

I've also just updated the BIOS to the new bios offered by asus for the G752, but that did not fix the issue or allow me to install the samsung drivers.

Anyways, see image with the Intel drivers installed (which made no difference) and the benchmark for the 950 512 NVMe SSD.

[JustinThyme]

Been searching everywhere but there just is no info on the G752Y models with the larger stock SSDs. Nothing to be found but the RH71. Guess Ill have to be the guinea pig for the 256GB. DH72 is on the way, I was just curious as to whether I needed to order another SSD to get past the obvious joke AKA 128GB stock drives performance if it is also prevalent in the 256GB. Ill eventually go to 512 and would rather go with the 950 pro but wont without proper operation and fully functional software. Id just as soon just go with the SM951.

[dbodyguru]

If you can afford the VY model, just pony out and get the 950 PRO 512. It's super fast and either way, you will want to make larger driver your main bootable OS (just partition the OS to be 128 gigs and the other partition to be the rest, which you store you main programs / games).

I also recommend you take out the slow ass HDD and replace it with the Samsung 850 EVO 1 TB. This makes your system ALL SSD and super fast for every operation -- even storing movies / dowloads et. The HDD is a huge bottleneck if you read and write to it, which you will since the 256 SSD (and likely the ****ty cheap NVMe one if it's the stock 951 that comes with the computer) is just too small when you start actually installing stuff to your computer. I mean, you can easily use 128 gigs for windows + OS updates + free space on the drive + system restore points, if you want to keep a nice 40 gigs free on it for best operation / os updates.

SO yea, at the very least buy the 950 PRO 512 and use the stock one as secondary storage.

The '****ty' ms drives give me fast speeds. I've installed to the Intel driver which did NOT increase the speeds at all and in fact caused a boot delay error where it took 1 minute to see the ROG logo when doing a reset or power on (and restore from sleep state would hang).

There is no reason NOT to get the 950 PRO (especially the 512 gig). The only issue you have is you can't use samsung partition wizard and run the SSD optimization stuff on it (rapid SSD mode, ssd overprovision, etc) because it doesn't detect it correctly as the 950 PRO. But speed wise in terms of reads and writes, it's fine

[dbodyguru]

Also note, I don't recommend installing the intel controllers (i installed to the latest 1.48 version). I did this right before the bios update and afterwards my computer would 'hang up' on boot for 1 minute before showing the ROG logo on screen and beginning the boot process. This happened for system resets and for power on starts. Closing the lid or enabling sleep state would hang up the computer -- it would turn on but just a black screen.

Restoring to a point BEFORE I installed the intel drivers for SSD fixed this. As I showed you in my benchmark, there was NO real difference in speed after installing the intel drivers with the 950 pro read and write speeds. Just use the default MS drivers that install automatically UNTIL the official samsung drivers are working with future updates.

[JustinThyme]

I've gone ahead and ordered the 950 pro 512GB. It's not about cost as believe it or not the SM951 AHCI and NVMe are harder to find and cost more. My worries were around TRIM and OP as well as warranty but after a good bit of research elsewhere my worries were put to rest.

I already have an 850 pro to replace the spinner.

[aeolisio]

I am UNABLE to install the Samsung 950 drivers on the G752VY. It will not let me (I get an error message saying 950 NVMe is not detected when I try installing the driver, despite the fact it does show up in the Device Manager as the 950 and the write and read speeds as tested seem in line with what the speeds should be.

Also note, Samsung Partition Magic does NOT recognize the 950 in the list of dropdown drives to select. So I'm using the default MS or Intel drivers.

Now at this request, I've installed the new INTEL controller and run the benchmark. But the speeds are about the same as before. Again, I don't have the official samsung drivers installed, so maybe the drive is not as fast as it should be and / or partition magic software is not optimizing / running on the 950.

I've also just updated the BIOS to the new bios offered by asus for the G752, but that did not fix the issue or allow me to install the samsung drivers.

Anyways, see image with the Intel drivers installed (which made no difference) and the benchmark for the 950 512 NVMe SSD.

I was hoping the 950 would have better results by now but it looks exactly the same as when we tested them. I put up a crystal mark to show that even a very heavily used smaller AHCI sm951 still beats the 950 nvme and it has working trim and drivers without a problem. I still don't see any incentive to buy a 950 unless all you care about is having a black pcb.