Samsung's 990 Pro is the fastest SSD we've tested - and now the 2TB is on sale in the UK
Take home the best PCIe 4.0 drive for £30 off.
The Samsung 990 Pro is the fastest gaming SSD we've ever tested, and it's down to £153.99 on Amazon UK for a 2TB model as of today. That's nearly £30 below RRP and a good deal for a drive of this level of performance.
The 990 Pro is defined by its speed, so let's do that. The drive essentially maxes out the PCIe 4.0 interface, with read speeds up to 7450MB/s and write speeds up to 6900MB/s. Random performance, which is a better indicator of real-world useage including game load times, is also off-the-charts good: 1400K IOPS reads and 1550K IOPS writes marks this as the fastest PCIe 4.0 drive on the market, even beating out the 2TB WD SN850x (which is normally cheaper but currently the same price).
These eye-opening specs are borne out in real world testing too. Here's James with his write-up from our best gaming SSDs piece:
In the CrystalDiskMark random read/write test, which is more representative of real-life speeds than sequential figures, the 990 Pro shot to 3647MB/s read and 4090MB/s write results. The former, in particular, is about 2000MB/s quicker than the very best PCIe 3.0 drives have managed, not to mention over 1100MB/s faster than the old Samsung 980 Pro. And because better read speeds equal better load times, the 990 Pro launching a Shadow of the Tomb Raider save in 6.6 seconds makes it the fastest we have on record.
A terrifically fast SSD then, and well worth the asking price! Note that this drive doesn't come with an integrated heatsink, so it's suitable for a wide range of devices including desktops and laptops, but you can always pick one up for £7 if you fancy it!