Samsung Electronics Singapore today announced that the 990 PRO SSD, high-performance NVMe SSD based on PCIe 4.0, will be available for sale starting this November. Delivering lightning-fast speeds and superior power efficiency, the new SSD is optimised for graphically demanding games and other intensive tasks including 3D rendering, 4K video editing and data analysis.

 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[1]. 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[2], respectively. With up to a 55% improvement in random performance compared to 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[3], 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[4]. 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. The 990 PRO with Heatsink will become available in early 2023.

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.

Local Availability and Pricing

The 990 PRO Series will be available in 1TB and 2TB capacities at the Samsung Online Store, the Samsung Official Store on Lazada and Shopee, as well as major consumer electronics and IT retailers. A 4TB capacity version will become available in 2023.

Product	Storage	Recommended Retail Price (SGD)
Samsung 990 PRO	1TB	$249
	2TB	$489
Samsung 990 PRO with Heatsink	1TB	$259
	2TB	$499

 

Samsung NVMe SSD 990 PRO Series Specifications

 

Category	Samsung SSD 990 PRO | 990 PRO with Heatsink
Interface	PCIe Gen 4.0 x4, NVMe 2.0
Form Factor	M.2 (2280)
Storage Memory	Samsung V-NAND 3-bit TLC
Controller	Samsung in-house controller
Capacity[5]	1TB	2TB	4TB
DRAM	1GB LPDDR4	2GB LPDDR4	4GB LPDDR4
Sequential Read/Write Speed	Up to 7,450 MB/s, Up to 6,900 MB/s
Random Read/Write Speed (QD32)	Up to 1,400K IOPS, Up to 1,550K IOPS
Management Software	Samsung Magician Software
Data Encryption	AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption, TCG/Opal V2.0, Encrypted Drive (IEEE1667)
Total Bytes Written	600TB	1200TB	2400TB
Warranty[6]	Five-year Limited Warranty[7]

 

^{Specifications table accurate as at time of publication.}

 

[1] PCIe 4.0’s highest theoretical sequential read speed is 8000 MB/s — 990 PRO reaches 7,450 MB/s as of Q3 2022.

2 Sequential and random performance measurements are based on IOmeter1.1.0. Performance may vary based on SSD’s firmware version, system hardware & configuration.

Test system configuration: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor CPU@3.80GHz, DDR4 3600MHz 16GBx2 (PC4-25600 Overclock), Windows 10 Pro 64bit, ASRock-X570 Taichi

3 FORSPOKEN © Luminous Productions Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. FORSPOKEN, LUMINOUS PRODUCTIONS and the LUMINOUS PRODUCTIONS logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Square Enix Co., Ltd.

Test system configuration: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor 3.70 GHz, AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT 16GB, DDR4-2666 (16GB x2), Windows 11 Pro 21H2

4 980 PRO provides power efficiency of 1,129/877 MB per watt for sequential read/write while 990 PRO’s is 1,380/1,319 MB per watt for sequential read/write, based on internal test results of the 1TB capacity model.

5 1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes by IDEMA. A certain portion of capacity may be used for system file and maintenance, so the actual capacity may differ from what is indicated on the product label.

6 Samsung Electronics shall not be liable for any loss, including but not limited to loss of data or other information contained on Samsung Electronics product or loss of profit or revenue which may be incurred by user. For more information on the warranty, please visit samsung.com/SSD or semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/internal-ssd/.

7 Five years or total bytes written (TBW), whichever comes first. For more information on the warranty, please refer to the enclosed warranty document in the package.