Rumor: Samsung's PCIe 4.0 x4 980 Pro SSD To Launch by End of Summer

By Niels Broekhuijsen
published

Use that PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot the way it's meant to be used

(Image credit: Anandtech)

According to hardware guru Ice Universe, who normally specializes in mobile leaks, Samsung will be launching the 980 Pro SSD within two months. Of course, anyone can tweet such a timeline, but we believe there is some merit to the statement.

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By now, there are quite a few manufacturers making PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, but Samsung isn't one of them. Well, it doesn't have a product on the consumer market yet. However, we did see the 980 Pro at CES, and it wouldn't come as too much of a surprise to see a release around the time where Computex would normally have taken place -- which is right about now.

Alas, the Coronavirus pandemic may well have lead to delays in manufacturing, impacting the release date of this product.

What makes it more urgent for Samsung to release a product out is the release of the AMD B550 chipset. This platform brings PCIe 4.0 to a greater audience than the higher-end, but older X570 motherboards do, giving Samsung a potential customer base that it should leverage to its advantage.

The new PCIe 4.0 SSD from Samsung is rated to offer read and write speeds of up to 6500 MB/s and 5000 MB/s, respectively, which is notably faster than the PCIe 4.0 SSDs available on the market today. This is in part due to more advanced controller technology, allowing the SSD to leverage the full bandwidth which four lanes of PCIe 4.0 have to offer.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

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Storage
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • pmokover
    Any word on whether there will be a 2TB (or more) version?
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    But the question is will anyone other than prosumers and professionals be able to afford it? Gone is the age of Samsung drives being cheaper and better than all the other competitors, now there is much more viable variety for sometimes far less than Samsung charges.
    Reply
  • georgebaker437
    About time. Samsung's Pro series is the only NVMe I would ever use as a system drive on my personal machines. Even a relatively small (512Mb) system drive with a large secondary will preform better than other drives. I can now start planning my AMD high core count workstation system.
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    But the question is will anyone other than prosumers and professionals be able to afford it? Gone is the age of Samsung drives being cheaper and better than all the other competitors, now there is much more viable variety for sometimes far less than Samsung charges.
    They charge a premium but they have excellent controllers, they sell a lot of product because they deliver. Also the Pro model is directly aimed at prosumers and professionals. Their consumer line is the Evo series. I suspect when they release a 4.0 Evo SSD, it will mop the floor with competing products. Not talking about peak transfer rates, but rather IOPS and real-world performance - and yes, it will cost a bit more as a result. Even right now with them dragging their feet, an older 3.0 970 Evo Plus is still very competitive with the latest 4.0 SSDs.
    Reply
  • afmckay
    I wonder how game load times are affected. Currently samsung PCIe3 ssds out perform sabrent PCIe4 ssds just because samsungs controller works better for that specific task some how, as tested here:

    https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phison-pcie-4.0-ssd-amd-ryzen-3000,6173-2.html
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    afmckay said:
    I wonder how game load times are affected.
    Compared to what? 3.0? SATA III?
    For that use, we're chasing diminishing returns.
    Reply
  • afmckay
    USAFRet said:
    Compared to what? 3.0? SATA III?
    For that use, we're chasing diminishing returns.
    Vs their 970 pro.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    afmckay said:
    Vs their 970 pro.
    Right. Diminishing returns.

    1/4 sec maybe?
    Reply
  • afmckay
    Thats a shame I dont really have any use for the read/write speed. I wonder if instead of increase average fps it might help with fps lows more? As stuff streams off of it into ram for certain games?

    If not theres not much point in a gamer getting this if game load times truly aren't affected much.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    afmckay said:
    Thats a shame I dont really have any use for the read/write speed. I wonder if instead of increase average fps it might help with fps lows more? As stuff streams off of it into ram for certain games?

    If not theres not much point in a gamer getting this if game load times truly aren't affected much.
    No, FPS won't be affected at all.
    Even between one of these and a SATA III SSD.
    Reply