SN850 vs SN770 at same price

Here in the Netherlands Framework offers 2 models of 1TB SSD for the DIY edition: the SN850 and the SN770. While Framework has a large price difference in price between them (€216 vs €150), when ordered from a separate store they can be had for nearly the same price.

The SN770 is DRAM-less, which impacts its performance and (from what I’ve read) makes it use the main system ram through the processor.
The SN850 is faster but (again, from what I’ve read) uses more power and gets hotter. Although, it seems like this might not be an issue with ASPM enabled?

I’m not going to be doing many things which really depend on SSD speed, except for hybernating the system which might benifit from a faster SSD. But the lack of DRAM in the SN770 might affect the rest of the system.

Which one would you recommend? Or should I look at a different SSD?

2 Likes

If power savings and low heat are really important to you, skip the SN770 altogether and go for the SK Hynix Gold P31.

Otherwise get the SN850. ASPM will mitigate idle power consumption and heat issues slightly and if you’re not pushing the SSD hard anyway it won’t really have occasion to get too hot or consume much power. You will benefit with hibernation.

3 Likes

The 2TB options are €406 and €435 but the same SSD’s are available elsewhere for as low as €199 in the Netherlands: Vergelijken - Tweakers

I personally ended up getting a different 2TB ssd which was even cheaper and just dropped in price even more, the PNY CS3030: PNY XLR8 CS3030 2TB kopen? - Prijzen - Tweakers

Whatever you do, do not thet the Crucial P5. It has specific firmware issues with the Framework: Input/output error on disk after S3 suspend - #6 by ShatteredScales

My 1TB SN850 has been fine. I slapped a thermal pad I had kicking around on it and it mates nicely with the underside of keyboard. The keyboard still pulls off nicely with gravity. Temps are around the 40 to 45C under some usage. I don’t use a laptop for heavy lifting so not a consideration for me.

No issues with it and 6960MBps!

2 Likes

I had all but settled on an SN850, but then the SK Hynix Gold P31 came out and then the SN770 came out and now I’m in the same boat as you.

Thank you for starting this thread, will keep an eye out for the comments.

I ended up doing a reality check and going with the cheaper Samsung 980. I don’t think I’ll really benifit from the extra speed, as so many people online point out that it really doesn’t matter much once you’re firmly in the quadruple digits write speed.

I did the same with my RAM amount, I was going to buy 32GB but I don’t think I’ll be hitting 16gb basically ever, so that’s what I went with.

I can always upgrade these parts, and having some spares laying around never hurts. I’m just glad that this decision isn’t permanent, unlike my friend’s macbook that has all the bells and whistles of M1 but is stuck with a measly 250GB of storage.

Though for now I ended up canceling my Framework order and pre-ordering the 12th-gen, and I might end up returning the SSD and seeing where the market is at in 2 months.

If you don’t need a large amount of RAM and want to save money, it’s probably better to go with 2 smaller sticks, i.e. 2 X 8 GB, rather than 1 X 16 GB, in order to take advantage of dual-channel RAM.

Maybe it doesn’t normally make a difference, but it’s enough of a difference here that the GPU is starved of memory bandwidth enough that it can’t manage an external display:

If this isn’t an issue for you, you can go with 1 X 16 GB and if it does become an issue, just add a second 16 GB stick.