Samsung recently announced its latest M.2 SSD – the Samsung 990 PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD. Yes, you read that right, “PCIe 4.0”, and not the PCIe Gen5 SSDs that could reach crazy fast transfer speeds. The Samsung 990 PRO is capable of reaching up to 7,450 MB/s of sequential read speeds and up to 6,900MB/s of sequential write speeds. Based on this information alone, it looks like the 990 Pro competes with the newer Phison-based Gen4 M.2 SSDs, like the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus G. The 990 Pro will be available in two variants, a vanilla 990 Pro and a 990 Pro with heatsink. This time, Samsung opted for a more aggressive or flashy heatsink design. Check out more details, including its specifications, pricing, and availability from the official news release below.
UPDATE: Check out our Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD review here.
Samsung 990 PRO Series SSDs Is Optimized for Gaming and Creative Applications
Samsung Electronics America today announced the 990 PRO, the company’s high-performance NVMe SSD based on PCIe 4.0. Delivering lightning-fast speeds and superior power efficiency, the new SSD is optimized for graphically demanding games and other intensive tasks including 3D rendering, 4K video editing, and data analysis.
Jose Hernandez, Senior Director of Memory Product Marketing at Samsung:
“Consumers demand high-performance and high-capacity storage for PC and console games, 4K and 8K content, and other heavy data workloads”. “Using Samsung’s proprietary V-NAND and controller, the 990 PRO provides speed, power efficiency, and reliability for gaming sessions and creative outlets alike.”
Fast Performance for a Better Gameplay Experience
Featuring Samsung’s latest V-NAND and a new proprietary controller, the 990 PRO series offers nearly the highest speed currently available from the PCIe 4.0 interface. The SSD delivers sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,450 megabytes per second (MB/s) and 6,900 MB/s, respectively. Its random read and write speeds come in at up to 1,400K and 1,550K IOPS, respectively. With up to a 55% improvement in random performance over the 980 PRO, the 990 PRO is particularly well-suited for heavy gaming as well as creative and productivity tasks.
High-performance NVMe SSDs are also critical in reaping the full benefits of the latest game console and gaming technologies. Powered by NVMe, the 990 PRO brings faster loading times to PCs and consoles for a better gaming experience. When tested with Forspoken, Luminous Productions’ forthcoming action role-playing game supporting the latest game-loading technology, the map loading time was about one second, compared to four seconds for a SATA SSD and 28 seconds for a hard disk drive (HDD).
Ultimate Power Efficiency and Thermal Control
Built on a low-power architecture, Samsung’s newly designed controller dramatically improves the SSD’s power efficiency by up to 50% compared to the 980 PRO. Additionally, the 990 PRO employs a nickel coating on the controller and a heat spreader label on the drive for reliable thermal management. Samsung’s Dynamic Thermal Guard technology further ensures that the drive’s temperature stays in the optimal range.
The 990 PRO with Heatsink version offers an additional layer of thermal control while its new RGB lights add more style to the drive. Samsung’s 990 PRO with Heatsink maximizes the cooling effect and prevents performance degradation due to overheating.
Samsung’s 990 PRO is an excellent solution for laptop and desktop upgrades as well as for build-your-own PCs, providing a significant performance boost while using less power for increased battery life and thermal management.
Samsung 990 Pro Pricing and Availability
The 990 PRO and 990 PRO with Heatsink will be available starting this October with the manufacturer’s suggested retail prices (MSRP) of $179 for the 1TB model and $309 for the 2TB. A 4TB capacity version will become available in 2023.
Samsung NVMe SSD 990 PRO Series Specifications
| Interface | PCIe Gen 4.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 |
| Form Factor | M.2 (2280) |
| Storage Memory | Samsung V-NAND 3-bit TLC |
| Controller | Samsung in-house controller |
| Capacity | 1TB, 2TB, 4TB |
| DRAM | 1GB LPDDR4, 2GB LPDDR4, 4GB LPDDR4 |
| Sequential Read/Write Speed | Up to 7,450 MB/s, Up to 6,900 MB/s |
| Random Read/Write Speed (QD32) | Up to 1,400K IOPS, Up to 1,550K IOPS |
| Management Software | Samsung Magician Software |
| Data Encryption | AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted Drive (IEEE1667) |
| Total Bytes Written | 600TB, 1200TB, 2400TB |
| Warranty | Five-year Limited Warranty |
