Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Decent efficiency
- PCIe 5.0 x2 or PCIe 4.0 x4
- Five-year guarantee and good TBW ranking
Cons
- PCIe 5.0 efficiency was inconsistent and slower than PCIe 4.0 efficiency
- Pricey in comparison with the cut price PCIe 4.0 competitors
Our Verdict
Samsung’s 990 EVO can run on the PCIe 5.0 customary, nevertheless it’s constrained to 2 lanes (x2) and performs strictly like a PCIe 4.0 SSD. A considerably dear, and never notably quick PCIe 4.0 SSD, at that.
Price When Reviewed
1TB: $125 I 2TB: $210
Best Prices Today: Samsung 990 EVO
$124.99
Samsung is first to market with what would seem like the reasonably priced PCIe 5.0 SSD we’ve all been ready for — the 990 EVO. Alas, in our testing, with the drive solely capable of leverage two PCIe 5.0 lanes, it proved slower and fewer constant than when utilizing 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0. Even for PCIe 4.0, it’s not a very quick, and on the dear facet.
Further studying: See our roundup of the best SSDs to find out about competing merchandise.
What are the Samsung 990 EVO’s options?
The 990 EVO is a 2280 type issue (22mm broad, 80mm lengthy) NVMe SSD using stacked, 133-layer TLC NAND and an in-house Samsung controller, in response to the corporate.
Unusually, it may well perform as both a four-lane (x4) PCIe 4.0 (or earlier generations at slower speeds), or a two-lane (x2) PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD, offering the identical theoretical bandwidth. With the suitable BIOS, it may save a few valuable PCIe 5.0 lanes in that mode. Credit to Samsung for the innovation.
Host Memory Buffer (HMB) is utilized for major caching so there’s no DRAM on board. Recent classic HMB has confirmed equal or higher than DRAM-enabled PCIe 4.0 SSDs in sustained transfers, and virtually as quick total as DRAM-endowed PCIe 5.0 designs.
Note that that is the primary HMB/PCIe 5.0 SSD we’ve seen or examined.
The 990 EVO is warrantied for 5 years or 600TBW (terabytes that could be written) per 1TB of capability. That guarantee is par for the course, as is the TBW ranking. Hardly Seagate-like, however a lot better than QLC NAND drives.
How a lot is the Samsung 990 EVO?
The 990 EVO will ship in 1TB and 2TB flavors for $125 and $210, respectively. That’s the MSRP and almost twice what you’ll pay for a cut price HMB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD.
For a model with the cachet and status of Samsung, the premium pricing is considerably comprehensible. But additionally know that whereas the 990 EVO helps PCIe 5.0, it’s no sooner than the common PCIe 4.0. As you’ll see under.
How quick is the Samsung 990 EVO?
The 2TB 990 EVO that Samsung despatched us proved a decidedly unspectacular performer. It’s by far the slowest PCIe 5.0 SSD we’ve examined, and whether or not PCIe 5.0 or 4.0 was utilized, it solely hit the PCIe 4.0 common. But the primary subject was that the PCIe 5.0 CrystalDiskMark 8 numbers have been wildly inconsistent throughout runs — wherever from 3GBps to 5GBps studying. Normal variation is a pair hundred MBps max.
The inconsistency precipitated us to throttle our testbed’s PCIe M.2 slots to 4.0 and retest. The CrystalDiskMark 8 and AS SSD 2.0 (not proven) outcomes when utilizing the 990 EVO over PCIe 4.0 have been barely sooner to a lot sooner, and fully constant throughout runs — roughly 5GBps studying and 4GBps writing sequentially in CrystalDiskMark.
Quite probably, HMB, not less than as applied on the 990 EVO, likes extra pipes, even when they’re solely half as quick.
Think of the 990 EVO as a barely dear, average-performing PCIe 4.0 SSD.
Note that the competing Teamgroup MP44 and WD SN770 are each PCIe 4.0 HMB designs. The Crucial T700 is thrown in to present you an concept of what’s attainable with PCIe 5.0 (and DRAM).
The 990 EVO’s 4K efficiency (proven under) below CrystalDiskMark 8 was way more aggressive.
Our real-world sequential 48GB switch checks have been kinder to the 990 EVO than CrystalDiskMark 8 — not less than whereas secondary cache (TLC written as SLC) held out. In reality, it beat out the primary total Crucial T700 — a drive that had a mysteriously onerous time studying smaller recordsdata and folders whereas arising aces at every thing else.
Secondary cache ran out simply previous the 100GB mark, therefore the 5 minutes plus it took the 990 EVO to jot down the total 450GB. You can see the precise incidence within the final picture under.
While the 990 EVO writes to secondary cache at over 3GBps, it drops to round 1.15GBps when writing natively to the TLC NAND. That’s really not that unhealthy contemplating onerous drives handle solely 250MBps and SATA SSDs high out at 525MBps. It’s not ideally suited, nevertheless it’s not the tragic-for-NVMe 150MBps you’ll see when some QLC drives run out of secondary cache.
Note that the PCIe 5.0 points could also be associated to our testbed and never impact different computer systems. The total testbed configuration will be discovered on the finish of the article. The motherboard is an Asus ROG STRIX Z790-i. We paid onerous money for it so we don’t usually give the corporate free promoting, however on this case the make and mannequin may be related.
Should you purchase the Samsung 990 EVO?
The 990 EVO was a sooner, extra constant performer with 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0 than with two lanes of PCIe 5.0. Why, we’re not sure; nonetheless, overlook the PCIe 5.0, revolutionary as it’s, and consider it as a barely dear, average-performing PCIe 4.0 SSD and make you resolution from there.
Sadly, the cut price PCIe 5.0 SSD stays a chimera.
How we check
Drive checks at the moment make the most of Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit operating on an X790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of reminiscence complete). Intel built-in graphics are used. The 48GB switch checks make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk taking on 58GB of the 64GB complete reminiscence. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which additionally incorporates the working system.
Each check is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that as any drive fills up, efficiency will lower attributable to much less NAND for secondary caching, and different elements.
The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped in addition to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can range by capability attributable to extra or fewer chips to learn/write throughout and the quantity of NAND accessible for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors additionally sometimes swap elements. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report (techniques being roughly equal), by all means—tell us.