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3D MARK STORAGE GAMING BENCHMARK
UL Solutions has created a new storage gaming benchmark that we will start to use as new SSDs come in. The 3DMark Storage Benchmark DLC extends 3DMark Advanced Edition with a dedicated component test for measuring the gaming performance of SSDs and other storage hardware. It supports all the latest storage technologies and tests practical, real-world gaming performance for activities such as loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.
3DMark is a fairly new tool in our toolbox and we have only tested a few other drives to date, the SK hynix Platinum P41 scoring a 4225 and the KIOXIA XG8 client SSD achieving 3812. At 4947 Total Points, the Samsung 990 Pro did well once again.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Where to start… I’m just a bit… breathless. The Samsung 990 was an unexpected and rather late arrival, however, we can guarantee this performance wasn’t imagined by anyone that has tested it. If you are a reviewer and this SSD doesn’t seem pretty special to ya, call Samsung because you received a dud. Tested on our Intel Z690 Test Bench, this SSD pulled in some of the best metrics we have seen with over 7.1GB/s read and 6.7GB/s write and read and write IOPS topping 1.4 million. In our True Data Testing, the 990 Pro surpassed even the Intel Optane!
Those numbers alone aren’t the key here though. That Crystal DiskMark low 4k random read result surpassing 100MB/s is all that. And it wasn’t a one off. That result came through in Crystal DiskMark and then repeated itself in AS SSD, TxBench and even Anvil Disk Benchmark. This was followed by the best results we have seen in true gaming benchmark tests to include 3D Mark and PCMark 10.
The Samsung 990 Pro just may be the SSD we might never have expected to see…as a consumer SSD. This drive has the genetics of enterprise storage if we have ever seen one, has decent pricing and a comfortable 5-year warranty . Great Work Samsung. Editor’s Choice!
CHECK SAMSUNG 990 PRO PRICING AT AMAZON
For the everyday use of an average user, is there any significant difference between Gen 4 NVMe SSD and Gen 5? Is it worth the expected price difference?
For every day use for the average user any SSD would work. There isn’t an expert in the world that can tell the difference in any SSD during typical everyday use.
That is basically same as asking if it is worth to buy pcie 4 gpu over pcie 5 gpu. It really depends on product and your use case. I would argue that you might see some improvement on games using direct storage, but there are a lot of if:s in that. I would also argue that you see noticeable difference on windows startup time if you go for intel optane 905 which is gen 3 vs any pcie 5 currently on the market. That has like 3x higher 4k read performance. Interface just enabled higher transfer speed, you need something on the other end that can actually use the available bandwidth on the other end. 14GB/s is not really worth it if device can do 100MB/s at 4k file size if that is your primary need. Personally I think pcie 5 SSD is waste of money because most use cases require higher small file reads, which are currently somewhere between 50MB/s and 350MB/s. Most SSD:s are below 100MB/s and optane:s were at bit above 300MB/s. Sadly Intel could not market them properly as they have max transfer speed below 3GB/s, while Samsung 990 is above 7GB/s. It is pretty hard for marketing team to say Intel one would be faster on overall use when most people just look at max transfer speed.
100MB random reads? Thats huge speed. Unbelievable