When Samsung launched the 960 EVO over a year ago, it was by far the highest performing consumer TLC SSD ever made. However, the competition was not only able to catch the 960 EVO over time, they have been able to surpass the 960 EVO. Case-in-point would be the newest Western Digital Black and SanDisk Extreme Pro NVMe SSDs.

The 970 EVO has been a long time coming. Normally before any competitor has a chance to pull even or take the crown from Samsung, they release something new and disruptive that keeps the performance crown firmly in their camp. Not so this time around. For the first time, Samsung has serious competition on the consumer TLC front. Samsung knows this and has come to the battle armed with a new NVMe controller, 64-layer 3-bit V-NAND, a new NVMe driver, and new "Intelligent TurboWrite" algorithms that take the EVO series to new performance heights. But is it enough?