Samsung 990 Evo Plus 1TB NVMe SSD review

Few brands in the gaming industry are as respected as Samsung is with its SSDs. It is synonymous with this production avenue. Or at least that was the case. It’s really wild; the company dominated in PCIe 3.0 and early PCIe 4.0 SSDs. The 970 and 980 series were amazing and still remain popular, if PC Part Picker’s stats are to be believed. It wasn’t without merit either; Samsung drives have generally always delivered sturdy performance, are reasonably hard-wearing, and are backed by a solid warranty and decent customer service (at least the few times I’ve had to contact them).

Still, it’s been over 17 months since the arrival of PCIe 5.0 and the subsequent slew of high-performance Phison E27-powered SSDs, and since then, at least from Samsung, we’ve heard absolutely vague squats in this regard. Of course, when it comes to dedicated drives.

Oddly enough, Samsung’s 990 EVO series, and now its 990 EVO Plus line (which I’m testing today), strangely support the connection standard, but in a rather strange apply case, although more on that in a moment.

So top specs, what are we looking at here? Well, the 990 EVO Plus comes in three separate variants, ranging from 1 to 4 TB. Sequences appear to make the most of the PCIe 4.0 standard, with my 1TB test sample achieving speeds of 7,150 MB/s read and 6,300 MB/s write, and uses the M.2 2280 format, although the overall design suggests that Sammy got shrewd and is also optimizing it for apply in OEM applications.

In terms of core hardware, the 990 EVO Plus combines Samsung’s latest 236-layer TLC V-NAND memory with a patented internal “Piccolo” controller (the same one found in the original 990 EVO). There’s no DRAM cache here (mostly unnecessary due to the inclusion of TLC instead of QLC), and you get a solid 5-year warranty coupled with a fairly standard 600TBW endurance (at least for the 1TB variant).

However, the real topic of discussion is the NAND flash upgrade, as the previous generation 990 EVO (which landed just nine months ago) instead had the much slower and much less capable 133-layer TLC technology, which significantly constrained its overall performance. As for price, the 990 EVO Plus costs around $90 for the 1TB variant, which falls just under the $100 for 1TB threshold.

So, efficiency. This is where things get engaging (relatively). Sequential performance is close to what Samsung advertised; during my seq tests, reading and writing landed just below what was listed, with 7071 MB/s reading and 5944 MB/s writing. That’s not far from the marketing numbers, around 3-4 percent overall. In 3D Mark’s Storage Bench, it achieved a respectable score of 2918 in the overall index, with a throughput of 498.17 MB/s and an access time of 61 ns. That puts it slightly ahead of the latest WD Blue SN5000 4TB model, which I tested earlier this month.

• Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
• ARIES: 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) Team Group T-Create Expert DDR5 @ 6000 C34
• Graphics Processor: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Great
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X870E-E gaming Wi-Fi
• SSD 1: 2TB Crucial T705 M.2 – PCIe 5.0
• SSD 2: 2TB Kingston Fury Renegade M.2 – PCIe 4.0
• CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken Elite 360 ​​RGB
• Charger: 1200W NZXT C1200 (2024) 80+ Gold
• Chassis: NZXT H5 Flow RGB (2024)

Interestingly, however, random performance at 4K resolution effectively fell off the proverbial cliff. In three separate series, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus achieved speeds of only 68 MB/s reading and 232 MB/s writing. This is very sluggish, with a reduction of about 22% in read-only compared to similar drives. That’s less than ideal, especially considering this is supposed to be a much faster drive than the initial 990 EVO. PCIe 4.0 drives like the WD Black SN770M (itself a 2230 Small Form Factor SSD designed for notebook computers) performed quite aggressively in this area. This, of course, translated directly into our Final Fantasy XIV load time tests, where the 990 EVO Plus achieved a surprisingly sluggish overall average time of 8.044 seconds.

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As for temperatures, perhaps unsurprisingly for a 1TB single-sided M.2 2280 SSD with brand recent, energy-efficient NAND memory, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus performed exceptionally well. At its peak, it managed to reach a slim temperature of 59.0 C. It’s nippy enough to be conveniently and worry-free placed on any device you can think of.

The question is, is this all too little too delayed? From a sequential perspective, this 233-layer TLC makes a huge difference in terms of the outcome. Random 4K, which is much more synonymous with game load times, is just a bit terrible compared to competing SSDs. Then there’s the engaging case of the PCIe 5.0 pedigree. I can only assume that the x2 connectivity capacity Samsung offers (considering it’s the exact same total bandwidth as PCIe 4.0 x4) is intended to make it more versatile for more products and unusual uses. Perfect for devices that may not have backwards compatibility, but this seems like a joke, 17 months too delayed.

And then there is the price. Yes, the Samsung 990 Evo Plus costs just under $90 for 1TB capacity, but the market is currently flooded with much better drives that outperform it even at the lower price. Crucial T500 is one of my most recommended SSD drives. It offers random 4K performance that rivals PCIe 5.0 SSDs, but at a fraction of the price. There is also WD with the Black SN850X drive or Lexar with the always infamous NM790 drive. Or Silicon Power with a 1TB XS70 drive. So many options. And that’s the point – there’s just not a good enough reason to really justify this drive as a personal purchase. Is that good? Yes. But it’s not great, and now you have to be great to get onto the top SSD ladder.