Samsung Unveils 990 PRO SSD PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs, Sorry No Gen 5 Yet!
It looks like Samsung isn’t hopping onboard the PCIe Gen 5 bandwagon just yet. The 990 Pro M.2 NVMe SSDs will retain the Gen 4.0 standard and it looks like the next-gen lineup that launches by CES 2023 and with a new Samsung 1000 series branding will come with the newer Gen 5.0 design. The new 990 PRO SSDs do offer a 50% boost in performance per watt and slightly better transfer rates while utilizing an in-house SSD controller. Press Release: 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 writes 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 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 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 1TB model and $309 for the 2TB. A 4TB capacity version will become available from next year.
