Samsung Unveils 990 Pro Series SSDs With Snappy Transfers And 7.5GB/s Speeds For Gamers
The 990 Pro Series are native PCIe Gen 4 drives that leverage Samsung’s freshest V-NAND, paired with a new proprietary controller to achieve sequential read and write speeds rated at up to 7,450 MB/s and 6,900 MB/s, respectively. The drives utilize DRAM caches that scale at one gigabyte per terabyte of storage, to keep smaller transfers snappy.
High sequentials are not the only improvement, though. Samsung indicates that it has amplified random performance over the 980 Pro series by up to 55%. This brings random reads and writes up to 1,400K and 1,550K IOPS, respectively. Random performance is particularly important for gaming workloads that make heavy use of graphical resources. It is especially promising for DirectStorage compatibility as that technology starts making its way to PC gaming. Strong random performance is also key to providing a responsive experience, during everyday computing tasks.
Gamers will primarily notice the 990 Pro's impact through faster load times. Samsung provides map loading metrics for Luminous Productions’ upcoming Forspoken ARPG as an example. Where SATA SSDs took 4 seconds and traditional hard disk drives labored for 28 seconds, the 990 Pro drives were able to reduce map loading times to just one second. This can effectively feel instantaneous even relative to a short 4 second interruption, which helps maintain gaming immersion.
Some hardware components have been expanding their power budgets to chase performance, but Samsung is aiming to reduce it. The company says the new 990 Pro Series drives are up to 50% more power efficient than the 980 Pro Series. Solid-state drives are generally unlikely to break your build’s power budget anyway, but kudos to the manufacturers who put in the effort.
These drives incorporate a nickel coating on the controller with a label designed to spread heat. These are complemented by Samsung’s Dynamic Thermal Guard tech, which monitors for overheating to protect the drive’s longevity and performance.
Users who have more intensive usage needs can also opt for a heatsink-equipped version. The heatsink keeps the drive even cooler under load. It also looks cool with aggressive stylings and tunable RGB lighting to accent your rig.
The Samsung 990 Pro will be available with or without the heatsink in October and carries a 5-year warranty. Pricing will start at $179 for the 1TB model and $309 for the 2TB version. Samsung also indicates the 4TB version will be arriving in 2023 but pricing for that is not yet available.
