Samsung 980 1TB vs Western Digital WD Black SN850 1TB

I have both types of the Samsung 980 - Pro & non-Pro - NVME drives and can say that there is no noticeable real world difference in performance between them. I have a 1TB 980 & a 1TB 980 pro as well as a 2TB 980 pro, running on a Z790 chipset based motherboard (supports PCIe Gen4) with a 13900K & 64GB of DDR4 RAM. The 2TB 980 Pro obviously runs slightly faster than the 1TB 980 Pro in synthetic benchmarks due to the higher density NAND. The 1TB 980 Pro beats out the 1TB 980 non-Pro drive by around 40% in synthetic benchmarks which I put down to the DRAM cache on the Pro PCB. Once the DRAM cache on the Pro is depleted, the speeds drop off rapidly to similar speeds of the non-Pro drive (which uses system RAM as a buffer if set to High Performance in Samsung Magician software), even though the 980 Pro is operating at Gen4x4 bandwidth & the non-Pro at Gen3x4. Temperatures of both the Pro & non-Pro are within a degree Celsius of each other with the Pro running slightly hotter from the DRAM cache (to be expected). If looking at the 1TB drives, then for the small amount extra the Pro costs compared to the non-Pro, it is worth buying even if you are running an older platform that only supports PCIe Gen 3 as you get some sort of future proofing along with the DRAM cache that improves performance to some degree. Unless you are operating to a strict budget where you just cannot afford an extra £/$5-10, the non-Pro 980 just isn’t that much of an option nowadays (i bought it almost a year ago when Gen4 drives were still significantly more expensive). As a Game drive, then both will be more than adequate & with the 980 pro also being available in 2TB capacity (which is faster than the 1TB Pro as well), if you want more capacity then the 2TB 980 Pro is a fantastic choice (as long as do not get one that runs a 3xxxxxxxxxxxxx firmware as if you do make sure that you upgrade it to the latest firmware immediately in Magician due to a bug in the older 3 series FW that will incorrectly mark blocks as bad until the drive locks itself into a read only mode). Once the firmware is upgraded, it is then worth setting the 980 Pro to High Performance mode (with over provisioning & TRIM enabled) as the difference is noticeable than if left in the default mode. Overall the Samsung 980 non-Pro is more than adequate if you cannot get hold of or afford the extra for a 1TB Pro for a storage/game drive. If you want a new Boot/OS drive, then it is worth going for the Pro instead.