Samsung Formally Launches the 990 PRO Flagship PCIe Gen4 SSD

[btarunr]

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, 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.

"With continuing innovations in gaming, 4K and 8K technology as well as AI-driven applications, consumers' need for high-performance storage is growing exponentially," said KyuYoung Lee, Vice President of the Memory Brand Product Biz Team at Samsung Electronics. "The 990 PRO provides an optimal balance of speed, power efficiency and reliability, making it an ideal choice for avid gamers and creative professionals seeking uninterrupted work and play."



Extreme Performance for an Immersive Gameplay Experience
Featuring Samsung's latest V-NAND and a new proprietary controller, the 990 PRO series offers 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, while 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 more immersive 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 Reliable 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 heatspreader 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.
heatspreader
The 990 PRO with Heatsink version offers an additional layer of thermal control while its RGB lights add more style to the drive.

Samsung's 990 PRO is also 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.

The 990 PRO will be available worldwide starting this October with the manufacturer's suggested retail prices (MSRP) of $179 for the 1 TB model and $309 for the 2 TB. A 4 TB capacity version will become available from next year.



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[GerKNG]

"the 990 PRO is particularly well-suited for heavy gaming..."

what kind of marketing BS is that?

 

[Dobermann]

expensive compared to wd black or seagate firecuda.

 

[_JP_]

"the 990 PRO is particularly well-suited for heavy gaming..."

what kind of marketing BS is that?

If you asked the marketing dept. "during heavy gaming, does it need the heatsink so that the SSD doesn't sag?", they would legit ask that to the Engineering dept.

 

[Space Lynx]

I just don't understand the point of this, Gen5 is around the corner and will smoke this.

 

[Ravenmaster]

I just don't understand the point of this, Gen5 is around the corner and will smoke this.

Was thinking the exact same thing. This will be outdated as soon as it drops. It's literally just a 980 Pro. No real difference in performance to speak of. And the 4TB version (which is something the 980 series never had) will be releasing NEXT year. By then Seagate, WD, Gigabyte Aorus, Sabrent and Crucial will all have their Gen5's out.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

I just don't understand the point of this, Gen5 is around the corner and will smoke this.

There will still be gen 4 slots on those boards as well.

 

[Space Lynx]

There will still be gen 4 slots on those boards as well.

Crucial already has a Gen5 almost ready, I'd rather just get that one, even if I only had a Gen4 slot, because it will max out that slot, same as a Gen4 going in a Gen3 slot.

 

[zlobby]

No details on encryption, no details on endurance. Even if I was a 'pro gamer' there are literally dozens of way cheaper alternative that do the exact same job.

 

[dgianstefani]

Seeing as how the 990 is the last reasonable model in the naming scheme, I wouldn't be surprised if the PCIe gen 5 version started a new naming scheme?

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Hope they have better firmware than the 980 started with.

 

[AM4isGOD]

And how much more will Gen 5 cost? Imo 30%+ more, maybe more at first. Gen4 is good enough for now unless you are a must have, that will also be buying AM5 soon as it is out, good luck with that. I will wait till the first few inevitable AGEESA updates have been released.

I have 2x 1TB WD SN850 black btw

 

[ThisIsChew]

No details on encryption, no details on endurance. Even if I was a 'pro gamer' there are literally dozens of way cheaper alternative that do the exact same job.

it was literally in the article picture lmfao

 

[BorisDG]

Is this still running on Elpis?

 

[gffermari]

Why on earth they released a gen.4 nvme now?
This time they should release gen.5 and cheap gen.4s like the 980 non pro…

 

[Hircine91]

Why on earth they released a gen.4 nvme now?
This time they should release gen.5 and cheap gen.4s like the 980 non pro…

theyre trying to push out drives that are optomised for direct storage now before pcie5 becomes a real thing

 

[bonehead123]

y/A/w/N.... gen 4 is soooooo 2015-ish....

Somebody pleeze wake me up when they release some gen 5,10-14k MB/s models...

oh wait, nevermind, 'cause several other mfgr's have already done that, so yea, back to nappy time now

 

[Blaazen]

Improved IOPS and better energy efficiency is more important than PCIe5. PCIe5 will increase peak read/write speeds and power consumption, nothing else.

 

[zlobby]

it was literally in the article picture lmfao

Not seeing what I want on the mobile version.

 

[Bubster]

What just happened to PciE gen 5 speeds? Seagate firecuda 530 has better performance and was on discount on Amazon last month during prime Day. is Samsung becoming like Intel now?

 

[InVasMani]

Improved IOPS and better energy efficiency is more important than PCIe5. PCIe5 will increase peak read/write speeds and power consumption, nothing else.

Gen 5 vs Gen 4 will increase bandwidth and I/O across the PCIE bus. Any M.2 device with a DRAM cache buffer should be able to better leverage the bandwidth and I/O to a greater extent hell even HMB will improve because the M.2 has a lower latency and higher bandwidth bus to transfer data to and from.

 

[Minus Infinity]

I just don't understand the point of this, Gen5 is around the corner and will smoke this.

You honestly excited by virtually useless sequential speeds? Unless the random r/w performance is massively increased gen 5 won't make a lick of difference to 99.9% of users. At least this 990 Pro is touting large random r/w increases. Let's see how hot gen 5 ssd's run, how much they throttle, how much power they consume and how much they cost. 13GB/s won't make windows magically boot faster or apps load faster. Even allbut the slowest SATA ssd's don't run much slower in real world than fastwr gen 4 ssd's.

 

[1d10t]

Not sure what Samsung has to offer here, there isn't much difference in QD32 with the budget products out there.

 

[Chaitanya]

So plague of solid slabs of metals as "heatsinks" is spreading to SSD makers as well.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Really? 179$ for 1TB?? What happened with the 100$/TB SSDs From last years? And the performance is mediocre for that price.
Epic fail Sammy.