Samsung 990 PRO: Pushing that Cool PCIe 4.0 Envelope

Samsung Electronics America formally introduced the 990 PRO as its “Excessive Efficiency PCIe 4.0 Based mostly NVMe SSD”.

So this newest SSD is one other PCIe 4.0 drive, as was the case with the 980 PRO above, and never PCIe 5.0 {hardware}, as you may need learn someplace just lately.

And as is the case with its older cousin, the brand new inner drive additionally comes with a heatsink model.

However there’s extra to that model of the heatsink and the brand new SSD as a complete.

Samsung 990 PRO: Pushing that PCIe 4.0 envelope

In comparison with earlier NVMe SSDs from Samsung, the brand new 990 PRO is an incremental improve in sequential efficiency. It is barely sooner and retains the identical {hardware} design.

Particularly, Samsung says the brand new drive provides sequential learn and write speeds of as much as 7,450 megabytes per second (MB/s) and 6,900 MB/s, solely barely sooner than the 980 PRO.

Nonetheless, its energy is in its random entry efficiency, the place Samsung claims that it may be as much as 50% sooner than the earlier mannequin. However that is still to be seen.

Samsung 990 PRO: {hardware} specs

Samsung says the 990 PRO options its newest V-NAND and a brand new proprietary controller “providing almost the very best pace at the moment obtainable from the PCIe 4.0 interface.”

Nonetheless, the unit shares the identical endurance scores because the earlier 980 PRO and 970 PRO fashions.

	Samsung SSD 990 PRO	Samsung SSD 980 PRO	Samsung SSD 970 PRO
capabilities	1TB, 2TB, 4TB	250GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB	512GB, 1TB
Interface	PCIe Gen 4.0 x4, NVMe 2.0	PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe 1.3c	PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3
Design	M.2 (2280)	M.2 (2280)	M.2 (2280)
Warmth sink model	Sure	Sure	Nope
Controller	Samsung Inner Driver	Samsung Elpis Controller	Samsung Phoenix Driver
NAND-flash reminiscence	TLC Samsung V-NAND 3-bit	Samsung 1xx layer 3-bit MLC V-NAND	Samsung MLC third Gen V-NAND 2-bit
Cache	Unknown	DDR4 512MB (500GB, 250GB) 1GB (1TB) 2GB (2TB)	RDA 4 512MB (512GB) 1GB (1TB)
Safety	AES 256-bit full disk encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted drive (IEEE1667)	AES 256-bit full disk encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted drive (IEEE1667)	AES 256-bit full disk encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted drive (IEEE1667)
sequential learn	As much as 7450MB/s	As much as 7000MB/s	As much as 3500MB/s
sequential write	As much as 6900MB/s	As much as 5000MB/s	As much as 2700MB/s
random learn (QD32 Thread 4)	As much as 1,400,000 IOPS	As much as 1,000,000 IOPS	As much as 500,000 IOPS
random write (QD32 Thread 4)	As much as 1,550,000 IOPS	As much as 1,000,000 IOPS	As much as 500,000 IOPS
Endurance (Terabyte Written)	2400TBW (4TB) 1200TBW (2TB) 600TBW (1TB)	1200TBW (2TB) 600TBW (1TB) 300TBW (500GB) 150TBW (250GB)	1200TBW (1TB) 600TBW (512GB)
Software program	Samsung Wizard	Samsung Wizard	Samsung Wizard
Guarantee	5 years	5 years	5 years

Higher vitality effectivity and thermal management

In line with Samsung, the brand new drive additionally has higher energy effectivity, as much as a 50% enchancment in comparison with the 980 PRO.

Samsung says that the 990 PRO “employs a nickel plating on the controller and a warmth sink label on the unit for dependable thermal administration.” That new design, plus Samsung’s Dynamic Thermal Guard expertise, helps maintain the drive’s temperature inside the optimum vary even throughout heavy hundreds.

Nonetheless, there may be nonetheless a warmth sink model. It seems that along with serving to with thermal management in functions the place the host can produce accessible warmth, the 990 PRO’s heatsink additionally doubles as a gaming-related accent with its built-in RGB lights, just like the case with the WD BLACK P40. .

Clearly, that you must use a gaming rig with a clear casing to understand that.

Costs and availability

Samsung says the brand new 990 PRO NVMe SSD is a superb answer for any pc, be it a laptop computer or desktop.

The brand new SSD shall be obtainable within the US, each in “naked” and heatsink variations, in October and has steered costs of $179 and $309 for 1TB and 2TB. If you’d like the 4TB model, you will have to attend till 2023.