Samsung 990 EVO Plus SSD Review: Power Efficient Speedy Storage
HDTune v5.75 Benchmarks
The Samsung 990 EVO Plus didn't play well with HD Tach's workloads. Transfer speeds looked good, and were actually better than the higher-end 990 Pro, but latency was much higher than expected.
CrystalDiskMark x64 Benchmarks
CrystalDiskMark is a synthetic benchmark that tests both sequential and random small and mid-sized file transfers using incompressible data. It provides a quick look at best and worst case scenarios with regard to SSD performance, best case being larger sequential transfers and worse case being small, random transfers.
Random transfers also looked with the Samsung 990 EVO Plus at both queue depths. At both queue depths, there was no catching the 990 Pro, but the Samsung 990 EVO Plus outran the EVO and was competitive with the other DRAM-less drives.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker Game Level Load Times
We also tested game level load times using the Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker benchmark. This tool loads an array of different game levels during its graphics benchmark and outputs the average result when complete.
Level load times in Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker were tightly grouped, but the Samsung 990 EVO Plus performed really well overall. It was only about a tenth of a second off the mark of the fastest drive here, and was right alongside the Phison E31T.
UL's 3DMark Gaming Storage Benchmark
UL recently added a gaming-centric storage benchmark to 3DMark that leverages trace-based tests of actual PC games and gaming-related activities (such as streaming with OBS) to measure real-world gaming performance in a variety of scenarios. The tests include things like loading Battlefield V, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and Overwatch from the initial launch to the main menu, recording a 1080p gameplay video at 60 FPS with OBS while playing Overwatch, installing The Outer Worlds and saving game progress. And finally, copying the Steam folder for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive from one drive to another.
The Samsung 990 EVO Plus outpaced the original EVO in 3DMark's Storage Test, and traded blows with the Kingston Fury Renegade and E31T, depending on the particular test in regard to peak bandwidth.
In terms of its average latency and overall scores, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus outruns the original EVO and lands just behind the Gen 5 Phison E31T reference drive.
UL's PCMark 10 System Drive Storage Test
We like PCMark 10's new quick storage benchmark module for its real-world application measurement approach to testing. PCMark offers a trace-based measurement of system response times and bandwidth under various scripted workloads of traditional client / desktop system use cases.
In PCMark's trace-based tests, we once again see the Samsung 990 EVO Plus land about in the middle of the pack, which is actually a really great finish considering the competition. The Samsung SSD 990 Pro is the only Gen 4 drive to pull ahead and the Samsung 990 EVO Plus outguns the Phison E31T.
Samsung 990 EVO Plus SSD: Our Verdict
As we mentioned earlier, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus family of SSDs will be available in a variety of capacities, at prices ranging from about $105 for a 1TB drive on up to approximately $345 for a 4TB model. At those prices, which equate to about $0.08 - $0.11 per gigabyte, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus is priced slightly higher than many other mainstream PCIe Gen 4 SSDs, but when availability ramps, we expect street prices to fall somewhat – Samsung’s original EVO’s, for example, are currently available for about 40% below MSRP. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus family also carry a solid 5 year warranty, have very good endurance ratings in-line with many more expensive SSDs, and performance is very good overall. In a number of tests, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus punches well above its weight class.
When all is said and done, if you're in need of fast, affordable, relatively low-power SSD that’ll work well in everything from a thin and light laptop to a beefy gaming rig, the Samsung 990 EVO Plus would be a solid choice. We can easily recommend this drive to anyone shopping for a mainstream SSD.
