Samsung 980 PRO SSD to unlock advanced applications for gamers, professionals

With the sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,000 MB/s and 5,000 MB/s respectively, as well as random read and write speeds of up to 1,000K IOPS, the 980 PRO is claimed to be up to two times faster than PCIe 3.0 SSDs and up to 12.7 times faster than SATA SSDs.

Samsung today unveiled a new 980 PRO SSD, the company's first consumer PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid-state drive that will unlock a new range of advanced applications for consumers and professionals seeking cutting-edge performance in their high-end PCs, workstations and game consoles.

The Samsung SSD 980 PRO 1TB, 500GB and 250GB models will be available worldwide starting this month while the 2TB capacity model will be available by the end of 2020. The 980 PRO 250GB model will retail at USD 89.99.

Samsung SSD 980 PRO: Specs and features

Samsung says all the key components of the 980 PRO SSD, including the custom Samsung Elpis controller, V-NAND and DRAM, are in-house so that it can deliver the full potential of PCIe 4.0. The new SSD is ideal for consumers and professionals who work with 4K and 8K contents and play graphics-heavy games.

With the sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,000 MB/s and 5,000 MB/s respectively, as well as random read and write speeds of up to 1,000K IOPS, the 980 PRO is claimed to be up to two times faster than PCIe 3.0 SSDs and up to 12.7 times faster than SATA SSDs.

The new SSD comes with a nickel coating on the controller and a heat spreader label on the backside for controlling heat whilst allowing the drive to maintain its compact and slim M.2 form factor.