Remember back in the days of 2017-2019 when consumer-grade SSDs started gaining popularity? Samsung's 970 EVO stood out during that time, offering PCIe 3.0 x4 full-speed performance, giving many users their first taste of lightning-fast storage. The 970 EVO also dominated SSD sales charts with its relatively good performance-to-price ratio and a five-year warranty.
Fast forward six years, the SSD market has undergone revolutionary changes. High-capacity PCIe 4.0 SSDs have become the norm in the storage market, and PCIe 5.0 products are gradually gaining traction, providing even faster and more efficient data transmission.
Consumer buying preferences have shifted from initially seeking low-priced, low-capacity "system drives" to pursuing faster and larger capacity full-drive solutions. As a global leader in the storage industry, Samsung has continuously driven changes in the storage market. Recently, it unveiled its new generation product—the Samsung 990 EVO SSD.
This product not only supports mainstream PCIe 4.0 x4 but also is the first to support PCIe 5.0 x2, while continuing the EVO series' tradition of offering indulgent dessert-grade capacity. Next, let's take a look at how the Samsung 990 EVO performs.
Unboxing and Specifications of Samsung 990 EVO
The Samsung 990 EVO comes in a new packaging design called "Ocean Series," which is quite different from the previous generation's black box with orange lettering six years ago. The new design features a gradient blue color as the primary hue, complemented by prominent model names, transfer speeds, and capacity labels.
Compared to earlier product packaging, the "Ocean Series" design embodies a more minimalist and stylish aesthetic, which aligns better with the modern consumer's taste.
This color scheme has been previously seen in products like the Samsung T5 EVO and Samsung PRO Ultimate SD/TF cards, presenting a fresh and minimalist appearance with a strong sense of technology.
The Samsung 990 EVO comes in packaging with a deep sea blue tone, reflecting its positioning as a premium product within Samsung's storage product line.
The front of the package features a colorful illustration of the product, highlighting the model name. Additionally, the packaging clearly indicates important performance specifications, such as a transfer speed of 5000MB/s, compatibility with PCIe 5.0, and a storage capacity of 2TB for the solid-state drive.
On the back of the packaging, there will be warranty information in multiple languages along with some internationally recognized certification marks.
The Samsung 990 EVO maintains the traditional design aesthetic of Samsung's M.2 solid-state drive product line. On the left side of the product, you'll find the product name and brand logo prominently displayed, while on the right side, there's the product information along with a barcode. These details, coupled with the classic black PCB base, give the product a strong tech vibe even in terms of appearance.
The hard drive features a single-sided PCB design, with the back side left clean without any electronic components. This design is particularly suitable for installation in ultrabooks with limited space.
The product label on the back actually serves as a thin metal heat sink, aiding in heat dissipation, which is one of the public secrets behind the low temperature of Samsung solid-state drives. Additionally, this sticker bears various international standard certification logos followed by solid-state drives, such as FCC, CE, and others.
After peeling off the sticker on the front of the Samsung 990 EVO, you can observe that the controller and chips are designed with a side-by-side layout. This design advantage lies in the spacious heat dissipation area reserved between the controller and chips, preventing heat from concentrating in one place and thereby further enhancing the cooling efficiency.
The Samsung 990 EVO utilizes the Samsung proprietary Piccolo S4LY022 controller on the main control side. This controller leverages advanced 5-nanometer process technology to ensure performance stability while achieving lower power consumption control.
As for the storage chips, the Samsung 990 EVO is equipped with Samsung's improved V6 version TLC NAND storage chips, with the chip part number being K9DVGB8. Each chip has a storage capacity of 1TB. The official total write endurance rating for the 2TB model is 1200TB.
In other areas of the PCB, you can observe a multitude of capacitor modules and power management units arranged with precision and order.
Samsung 990 EVO Benchmark Performance - PCIe 4.0 x4
The test setup is as follows: The processor used is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, paired with the MSI X670E ACE motherboard. The system is updated to the latest BIOS version and has a fresh installation of Windows 11 23H2.
During the testing, the Samsung 990 EVO is installed in the dedicated PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot on the motherboard. To evaluate the performance under different interface standards, we adjusted the motherboard BIOS settings to switch the hard drive's operating mode to PCIe 4.0 x4.
SAMSUNG Magician Software 8.0
Samsung's Magician software has recently been upgraded to version 8.0, which is compatible with most Samsung solid-state drives (SSDs) and external hard drive products. It offers features such as performance testing, data wiping, and firmware updates.
Through the software's main interface, users can easily monitor the temperature, remaining capacity, and usage capacity of their hard drives, as well as view the results of performance tests.
Furthermore, the software provides a comprehensive display of product information, including serial numbers, firmware versions, and specifications. Users can also perform firmware updates online to ensure optimal performance of the hard drive.
The software also offers a dedicated tool for conducting disk data integrity scans.
For solid-state drive (SSD) users, selecting the operating mode is a common feature, including Full Performance Mode, Standard Mode, Power Saving Mode, and Custom Mode.
It's generally recommended to enable full power performance in Standard Mode to achieve optimal performance, or sacrifice about 10% of storage capacity by switching to Full Performance Mode for the best performance output.
For users who are concerned about the health of their hard drives, simply enabling the anti-sleep mode can be used to complement Win11 for the best user experience.
We conducted performance benchmark testing using the Performance Benchmark feature of Samsung Magician 8.0, and here are the read/write performance data for the Samsung 990 EVO:
The performance improvement compared to the PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs currently dominating the market is close to 40%, with no disparity from official data. This brings a foundational enhancement for faster and smoother user experiences.CrystalDiskMark
In CrystalDiskMark tests conducted on the Samsung 990 EVO, we performed a test on an empty drive. In the 1GiB read/write test, the sequential Q8T1 read speed was 5081.52MB/s, with a write speed of 4057.64MB/s.
When the test data packet increased to 16GiB, the read speed of Seq Q8T1 showed a slight improvement, reaching 5089.94MB/s, with a write speed of 3731.20MB/s. Despite a slight decrease in write speed during large file transfers, the overall performance remains at an exceptionally high level, capable of easily handling most daily use scenarios.
3DMark Storage Test
The storage test in 3DMark aims to evaluate the performance of storage devices by simulating real-world gaming load and file transfer scenarios. This test differs from traditional synthetic storage benchmarks, which focus solely on random and sequential read/write speeds. Instead, 3DMark's approach closely mirrors actual user usage scenarios.
The Samsung 990 EVO scored 4292 points in the test, with an average bandwidth of 738.10MB/s and an access time of 42μs. Compared to competing PCIe 4.0 x4 solid-state drives using different controllers and flash chips, the Samsung 990 EVO outperformed by approximately 20%.
This result highlights Samsung's advantage in its latest controller design and optimized flash chips, especially in handling fragmented and randomized workloads such as game loading.
PCMark10 Storage Test
We also conducted tests on the Samsung 990 EVO using the professional benchmarking tool PCMark10. This software accurately simulates the actual performance of solid-state drives when handling various applications through recording and playback.
The storage test covers a variety of real-world scenarios, including software startup, office software operations, and game loading, to evaluate the performance of storage devices under real workloads.
In the data loading benchmark test, with the drive in an empty state, the Samsung 990 EVO scored 8152 points, with a bandwidth of 1204.32MB/s and an average access time of 19μs.
In the fresh-system disk benchmark, the Samsung 990 EVO scored 4009 with a bandwidth of 644.02MB/s and an average access time of 42μs.
Similar to the storage test in 3DMark, the Samsung 990 EVO also demonstrates approximately 25% performance advantage in PCMark10 tests, showing superior performance compared to other PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs on the market.
In a rapid system disk benchmark test, the Samsung 990 EVO scored 5710 with an empty disk state. It achieved a bandwidth of 684.07MB/s and an average access time of 22μs.
Based on the data provided, the Samsung 990 EVO demonstrates excellent performance in idle state, with outstanding scores and bandwidth, especially surpassing 1GB/s in data loading benchmark tests, indicating its strong capability in handling high-intensity data tasks. Additionally, the average access time remains at low latency levels across all tests, crucial for applications requiring fast data access.
Compatibility Testing of Samsung 990 EVO - PCIe 5.0 x2
The Samsung 990 EVO supports PCIe 4.0 x4 and is compatible with PCIe 5.0 x2. Compared to the previous generation, the PCIe 5.0 standard increases the single-channel data transfer rate from 8 GB/s to 16 GB/s, resulting in a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 32 GB/s for PCIe 5.0 x2. This configuration not only ensures high-speed transfer performance but also has the potential to mitigate heating issues caused by high-speed transfers compared to PCIe 5.0 x4 solid-state drives.
With the widespread release of new processors and motherboards supporting PCIe 5.0, solid-state drives (SSDs) compatible with PCIe 5.0 x2 are expected to play a significant role in the market. These SSDs, benefiting from excellent transfer speeds and lower heat generation, are particularly suitable for applications where both performance and thermal efficiency are important considerations. In the laptop arena, PCIe 5.0 x2 SSDs are especially fitting, as these devices typically have more constraints on heat dissipation. Consequently, PCIe 5.0 x2 SSDs are expected to become the preferred specification for many future laptops, providing high-speed data transfer while controlling heat output to ensure long-term device stability.
In the evaluation of the Samsung 990 EVO, we assessed its performance under PCIe 5.0 x2 using the storage test in 3DMark. The test yielded a score of 4361 points, with an average bandwidth of 743.83MB/s and an access time of 41μs. These results indicate an improvement in performance for the Samsung 990 EVO under PCIe 5.0 x2 compared to its performance under PCIe 4.0 x4.
Review Summary of Samsung 990 EVO SSD
After numerous rounds of testing and real-world usage, we affirmatively commend the overall performance of the Samsung 990 EVO solid-state drive (SSD). This SSD demonstrates a solid and reliable material selection, boasts impressive actual speed performance, and simultaneously considers adaptability to future devices. With its 5000MB/s read speed, users are ensured swift data processing and smooth application experiences. Moreover, its stable heat management performance allows it to adapt to a variety of devices including desktops, laptops, and mini PCs.
The Samsung 990 EVO, with its compatibility with PCIe 5.0, is well-positioned to meet market demands in future motherboard and hardware upgrades. It continues the tradition of practicality associated with the Samsung EVO series of solid-state drives, ensuring positive reception in the market.
