Samsung has announced that the 990 PRO, its latest PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, will be available to pre-order beginning on November 1, 2022. Available with or without a newly designed heatsink, the SSDs offer sequential read/write speeds of up to 7,450/6,900 MB/s, random performance of up to 1,550K IOPS for reduced loading times, and support for Microsoft’s DirectStorage API software technology. Users can choose between the 990 PRO 1 TB ($169.99), 990 PRO 2 TB ($289.99), 990 PRO with Heatsink 1 TB ($189.99), or 990 PRO with Heatsink 2 TB ($309.99). A 4 TB version will be available in 2023.
From a Samsung press release:
Samsung Electronics America today announced that the Samsung 990 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD Series will be available for pre-order on November 1, 2022. Featuring breakthrough innovations in proprietary NAND, controller, and software technology, the Samsung 990 PRO and 990 PRO with Heatsink are optimized for PC and console gamers, and creators seeking storage with outstanding performance, power efficiency, and thermal control.
The drives are well-suited for heavy gaming and productivity tasks like 3D rendering, 4K video editing, and data analysis. For a smooth and fast gaming experience, the 990 PRO Series delivers sequential read and write speeds of 7,450 megabytes per second (MB/s) and 6,900 MB/s respectively. The 990 PRO Series achieves random performance up to 1,550K IOPS, which reduces loading times dramatically. The 990 PRO Series is also optimized for Microsoft’s DirectStorage API software technology, which enables games to take advantage of fast NVMe SSDs.
Within the 990 PRO is the world’s first 8nm controller for consumer SSDs, which improves its power efficiency by up to 50% compared to the 980 PRO, increasing battery life on systems. Efficient thermal management provided by the nickel coating on the controller and a heat spreader label on the back side of the SSD means users needn’t worry about heat-related disconnections. Samsung’s Advanced Heat Dissipation Technology keeps the SSD at optimal temperature for hours of gameplay without performance degradation.
For an additional layer of thermal control, the Samsung 990 PRO with Heatsink meets the PCI-SIG D8 standards required for compatibility with desktops, gaming consoles, and laptops. Easily installed in minutes, console owners can more than triple their storage capacity for games and digital entertainment, eliminating frustrations from storage space limitations. The 990 PRO with Heatsink has a futuristic design and RGB lights to fit the style of any gaming setup, and Samsung Magician Software allows users to customize the RGB lighting color and effects. This software also allows users to view critical device health information.
Pre-orders for the 990 PRO 1TB ($169.99), 990 PRO 2TB ($289.99), 990 PRO with Heatsink 1TB ($189.99) or 990 PRO with Heatsink 2TB ($309.99) begin November 1, 2022 at Samsung.com.
The 990 PRO with Heatsink 1TB and 2TB are also available in a new character box – the contents of the box remain the same.
The 990 PRO Series comes with an industry-leading 5-year limited warranty and will begin shipping in late November. A 4TB version of the 990 PRO Series will be available in 2023.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →Have we regressed to the point of needing to pre-order storage?
I would have expected their next gen would be Gen5 based.
Still I'd take a Samsung Gen 4 SSD over most other makers Gen 5 devices any day.
This is ridiculous, what happened to just buying devices from retail stores? Why would I want to "pre-order" hardware? Is this some limited run collector item now?
If they are limiting preorders to 1 per customer with some sort of verification... I think that's fine. Especially if Scalpers have fully integrated themselves into the IT shopping experience.
Something really needs to be done about scalping.
Like mass-prosecuting people.
I'm not talking about some slaps on the wrists either.
I say a 2 year prison sentence per scalped item is appropriate :p
We have to end the profiting by people who have done none of the work.
It's gotten to the point that there is sclaping on items that aren't even in short supply now, where it winds up being a manufactured supply problem, with scalpers just holding stuff hostage from the market. It's insane.
Send these fuckers to federal pound-me-up-the-ass prison. That will change a few things.
There is another option.... don't buy the product. It isn't as if scalpers are buying up ALL of the bread and holding it hostage. (Ok Toilet Paper was a thing and THAT kind of stuff needs to be criminally processed.)
If it is ostensibly a LUXURY item I don't think it's right to criminally charge someone. I think making them a social pariah, outing them for being trash humans. That sort of thing is fine. But putting them in jail because they put the video card you want out of reach morally or financially... yea it sucks... but that's no reason to put someone in jail. (Or do something like beat them with a bat behind the Microcenter. )
Scalpers are the symptom, not the cause. The cause are the weak minded individuals who can't wait a few weeks or months to get the latest future scrap metal, and are even willing to pay extra to get it.
No lie, this is a big part of the problem
Another part of the problem is the products being released with insufficient units. NVidia could have waited to launch until Black Friday with dramatically more units available. Scalpers can’t get traction if there are 100s of every model available at every microcenter and 10000s available at new egg, etc
False scarcity is a thing that Nvidia is using to keep desire for the product sharp so the lower end units will sell through.
Welcome to what happens in markets with insufficient competition
Yup.
Research shows that you need a minimum of 3-5 viable competitors in a market in order for the market to function like a proper free market.
Anything less than that and you have partial monopolistic pressures.
We haven't had that kind of GPU market since ~2000-2001. Matrox's G400 and S3's Virge bowed out in ~2000 (they were never really viable competitors to begin with). 3DFX may have folded in 2002, but it wasn't really a viable competitor towards the end.
So, 2000-2001 was when the GPU industry started to fall apart and become a duopoly and it has sucked ever since.
Whoops, and I just realized I was commenting on an SSD thread, not a GPU thread.
There is more competition in SSD's. I'm not sure how this is turning into a pre-order/scalping situation. There are plenty of options to choose from.
Samsung has basically been best of breed in SSDs for a while. A new potentially top performance product is likely to risk scalping.
That is true.
They boast lower max sequential speeds than many of the other smaller brands which slap their names on the latest controller from a third party (Phison, Sandforce, etc.) and call it a day instead of designing anything of their own, but they make up for it in reliability and real world performance.
I've been a long time Samsung customer (I used to say that the only SSD brands I trusted were Samsung and Intel, and now Intel's SSD division is no more) but I bought a Sabrent Rocket 4 when I built my Threadripper system as at the time Samsung didn't have a Gen 4 model yet. In retrospect I should have just stuck with the 970 Pro available at the time.
Its specifications stated lower max sequential performance, and was a Gen 3 drive, but real world performance was probably better than the Sabrent Rocket 4 as was definitely the reliability.
The takeaway is that max sequential numbers are pretty much useless for gauging true SSD performance. You need to look at 4k random performance at various queue depths. This is what results in rtrue system responsiveness and good load times, and in those figures, Samsung is a class leader among consumer drives, even when the others boast newer PCIe gens and faster sequential speeds.
This is also why Optane drives are befuddlingly fast despite their old tech PCIe bandwidth and low sequentials. It's a true shame that the world will never see Gen 4, Gen 5 or newer Optanes.
I tend to think of true SSD makers as those that manufacture their own controllers and flash ram. That leaves a subset left:
- Crucial (if you consider parts from their parent Micron theirs)
- Dell (if you consider their stake in Kioxia to be internal)
- Kingston (if you consider their stake in Kioxia to be internal)
- Micron
- Samsung
- Seagate (if you consider their stake in kioxia and their subsidiary SandForce internal)
- SK Hynix (Intel's old SSD division)
- Western Digital (if you consider their stake in Flash Forward and their subsidiary Sandisk internal)
While not everyone who has access to Kioxia parts through their stake in the company make top performance drives, all of the recent top performance SSD's are on this list. Notably Samsung, Western Digital and SK Hynix)
Find any list of SSD's sorted by 4k random reads, and the top of that list (once you get past the Optanes which hold a ridiculous lead, but are dead and buried) is dominated by Samsung, Western Digital and Intel (now SK Hynix) drives.
They hold almost the entirety of the top 30 spots between them, with the first non-Samsung/WD/Intel drive coming in at 27th place...
I still have my pro-Samsung SSD bias, but Intel/SK Hynix has tumbled in the ranks in my mind lately.
Today I'd shop Samsung first, WD second and SK Hynix a distant third. (unless they catch back up and prove themselves)
I don't think I'd ever buy another random rebadged Phison drive. That was a mistake and I have since learned from it.