Basically, There are only 4 SSDs worth looking at due to price tiers.
There are other SSDs, but they're either priced too close to the samsung, or not readily available.
970 Pro 1TB $300 1261.24 MB/s Anandtech data rate
970 Evo 1TB $170 846.78 MB/s
HP EX950 1TB $140 650.33 MB/s
HP EX920 1TB $117 480.34 MB/s
970 pro, most expensive, only slightly faster, if you have something like server loads, this is the only consumer part that'll sort of cut it. NOT cost competitive for general duty computing . (don't put this in your laptop unless you're rich, a waste of money).
970 evo, recommending this over the Evo-Plus, it's more time tested. Cost 2 performance ratio is about the same, however, evo plus uses the new 96layer nand, and only time will tell if that blows up. Only buy the Plus if you're ok with the risk, 840evo TLC class action lawsuit, never forget.
Ex950, Competitively priced, medium of the pack data rate, conceptually similar to 4th place in F1 racing. Slower, but a good car, budget friendly.
Ex920, recent sales gone as low as $96, very cost competitive but sustained data rate is Half that of samsung 970evo/evoplus.
For client, terminal style workloads, gaming, etc, none of it is gonna matter, get whatever's cheapest.
Don't go lower than 1TB, or it'll be hard to reuse the stick in the future, applications are getting Major Bloat these days..
Performance side, 1TB ssds are significantly faster than 500GB models due to parallel i/o, whereas 2TB models are NOT much faster.
