Best PCIe Gen4 m.2 to use as an OS drive

[DexRain]

So, first off, been AWHILE since I've posted anything here (this is my second big rebuild since my last post)

With the recent stimulus check on top of my essential butt working 60-80 hour weeks I've managed to get some big time upgrades, I'm essentially trying to "future-proof" my rig as best as possible while I'm financially able to do so.

I've already bought an MSI MEG X570 Godlike motherboard, Ryzen 3 R9 3950, 64gb's of DDR4 3600, an EVGA 2080ti Black Edition, ROG Spatha RGB mouse, and a new desk since the old one was literally held together with ratchet straps

All i have left to acquire before I put together the new build are a few storage upgrades, replacing the last 500gb sata HDD in tower with a 4tb cav black and getting a gen 4 m.2 as a boot drive.

Now, this is where I FINALLY get to my question, where do I go for the best PCIe gen 4 m.2 to use as an OS drive?  My first thought was Samsung since the sata III 850 evo I've using as an OS drive has been flawless for the last 5 years, and the 970 evo m.2 I've been using as a gaming drive for a bit over a year now has been equally impressive, but they don't offer any gen 4 drives.
Seagate FireCuda 520 has good reviews but I've had nothing but bad luck with their platter drives over the years all the way back to the early 00's, so I'm a bit hesitant to pull the trigger on that.
Sabrent Rocket is cheaper, comes with a heatsink, is equally well reviewed, and boasts some impressive looking transfer speeds.  I've only heard of them as a manufacturer of smart phone accessories though, and was wondering if anyone here has had any hands on experience with their SSD's
My other 2 options appear to be increasingly expensive offerings from Gigabyte (who I've also had bad luck with recently) and Corsair (who I've had great luck with, but it comes at a MUCH higher price point)

[ir_cow]

If you want the "best" gen4 NVMe M.2, you are going to have to wait a few more months. Right now all the gen4 use the  Phison E16 controller because it is the only one that is Gen-4 capable and not much faster than Gen-3. 

I believe all these use the Phison E16 controller , GIGABYTE AORUS , Sabrant Rocket, Patriot Viper, Corsair MP600, XPG GAMMIX S50 and Seagate FireCuda 520 current Gen4 M.2. Most even have the same Micron Nands. Essentially making them all identical. Apparently Seagate is using some custom firmware for the Phison E16 controller which makes it "slightly" faster. Doesn't mean the other companies can't push out a new firmware.

CES2020 Samsung announced 980 Pro as a new NVMe M.2 with 6GB read / 6GB write, essentially maxing it out M.2 Gen-4. However its not out yet.

Personally I couldnt tell a difference between gen3 and gen4 outside a benchmark. Games still load instantly and copying files is still limited to the speed of my SATA SSDs, older NVMe or external drives. Having the fastet drive isn't useful if everything else is slower. 

If you are video editing, you will be disappointed also.

I still use a SATA SSD as my Adobe projects temp cache, it makes no difference to a faster NVMe drive from what Ive found in use.

I've even made a ramdisk drive before which has a 50GB read / 30GB write. Still no difference in scrubbing, encoding or editing. The seek times on a platter drive is really the only problem and once SATA SSD started to reach 500/500, file transfer stopped being a issue. I still store my 8K files on a platter drive, I cant afford a 8TB NVMe.

Edit: I forgot to mention that you will want to remove the heatsink anyways and use the M.2 Sheild on the motherboard. Depending on where the drive is placed, those heatsinks actually make the temperatures go up. For my Corsair MP600 I removed the heatsink and used the MB shield since the only Gen4 slot is next to the CPU and Video card. The heat from the video card wasn't helping :/

So in short, until Samsung, SK Hynix or Micron release its own Gen-4 controller, Phison is the only choice and the current ones are all nearly identical due to using the same controller and NANDS.

[DexRain]

Thanks for the detailed response!

Looks like I'll be picking up the Sabrent without the heatsink for now then, and picking up a larger m.2 when better controllers hit the market and the price/gb ratio gets a bit more reasonable.  This gives me 500gb for windows and core apps, and 750gb's for bigger, load heavy games.

[ir_cow]

Yeah I was going to get the Sabrant too, but the Corsair MP600 was on sale that week. 

I have never dealt with Sabrant RMA so that is something to consider when picking a brand.

Also don't feel you have to get the non-heatsink verison. The Corsair one was very easy to get off. Lots of videos showing how to remove the heatsink safely. It shouldn't void warranty either.

[DexRain]

non heatsink version is $10 cheaper and the heatsink is just an extra that you apply yourself with thermal tape.

Their USB hubs hold up great, I've had one sitting on the floor of my living room for 2 years to add controllers to my Switch for Smash Bros and it's lived through at least a dozen parties so they at least make durable products, hopefully that carries over to their SSD's