“Combine that with the lowest latencies in the business, and you have the snappiest-feeling SSD on the planet.”

When it comes to M.2 NVMe SSDs based on flash memory, we’re not going to pull any big surprises. Samsung’s 970 Pro, available in 512GB and 1TB formats for $230 and $480 respectively, is our pick of the premium M.2 drives. Its advantage over the competition isn’t enormous, but it’s still the winner – just by a smaller margin.

Its core specifications are the chief reason why the 970 Pro is so good. For starters, it uses Samsung’s hottest 64-layer 3D MLC NAND memory, where the 970 Evo uses cheaper but ultimately slower 3D TLC NAND. Then it packs at least 512MB of LPDDR4 DRAM cache. Finally, there’s Samsung’s very latest and greatest controller chip and firmware combo, known as Phoenix.

The net result? Sequential read speeds of 3.5GB/s that pretty much saturate the quad-lane M.2 interface. It’s about as good as it gets for 4K random read performance at low queue depths, too. As good as it gets, that is, for a NAND flash drive. Unfortunately for Samsung, Intel has finally begun to deliver with its 3D Xpoint technology, now branded Optane. Which is why our money-noobject recommendation is the Intel Optane 905p 1.5TB.

It costs a preposterous US$3,200. It doesn’t even offer the highest peak sequential speeds. But it’s almost certainly the fastest SSD you can buy in terms of real-world performance where it matters.

Most obviously, the 905p absolutely kicks butt when it comes to latency and low queue depth 4K random access performance. So, yes, the Samsung 970 Pro edges it by about 10 percent when it comes to sequential reads, but the 905p absolutely monsters the Samsung when it comes to single queue depth 4K reads – it’s 300 percent faster. Combine that with the lowest latencies in the business, and you have the snappiest-feeling SSD on the planet. It’s just a pity that it costs quite so much.