Read update
- The 990 Pro SSD will be available to order starting on November 1 on Samsung's online store and other retailers. However, pricing has increased slightly since the initial announcement, possibly due to current economic inflation.
Samsung has been at the forefront of flash storage and memory for years, and the company's internal SSDs are a popular option for custom builds (or upgrading older PCs). Samsung now has an even faster SSD: the 990 Pro.
UPDATE: 10/19/22
The 990 Pro SSD will be available to order starting on November 1 on Samsung's online store and other retailers. However, pricing has increased slightly since the initial announcement, possibly due to current economic inflation.
The new pricing is set at $169.99 for 1 TB, $289.99 for 2 TB, $189.99 for 1 TB with the heatsink, and $309.99 for 2 TB with the heatsink.
The Samsung 990 Pro (this isn't an Evo-branded drive) is specifically built for 3D rendering, 4K video editing, data analysis, "graphically demanding games," and other tasks that require constant read and write disk access at high speeds. Samsung didn't specifically mention if it's compatible with the PlayStation 5 (which can accept third-party SSDs if they are fast enough), but the older Samsung 980 Pro worked with the PS5, so it's a safe bet.
Samsung says the drive can deliver sequential read and write speeds (meaning data in the same area on a drive) of up to 7,450 MB/s and 6,900 MB/s, respectively. That's up to 55% faster than the 980 Pro, which was released in 2020. The drive is also up to 50% more power efficient than the 980 Pro. Samsung will sell the drive with and without a heatsink -- the latter option has RGB lights, because do you really have a gaming PC if you don't have RGB everywhere?
The new drive once again places Samsung near (or at) the lead in NVMe SSDs, but there's still plenty of competition. Corsair released its MP600 PRO LPX SSD earlier this year, with promised sequential read speeds of up to 7,100 MB/s. However, the drive exceeded that in some real-world tests.
Pricing for the Samsung 990 Pro and 990 Pro with Heatsink will be $179 for the 1 TB model, and $309 for 2 TB, with both arriving in stores around October 2022. The company also plans to release a 4 TB version in 2023. Pre-orders are not live yet, but you can sign up to be notified when it becomes available.
Most PCs are still better off with SATA-based or cheaper NVMe drives, especially since higher-end drives have diminishing returns for most computer tasks -- the difference between booting up Windows on a fast NVMe SSD and a fast SATA SSD is a few seconds at the most. However, if you know you'll benefit from faster speeds (like gaming at higher quality settings), the 990 Pro is promising.
Source: Samsung