Today we’re examining the Samsung 990 EVO 2TB NVMe SSD. This drive is particularly fascinating as it possesses an exclusive feature. The 990 EVO operates in two modes; it can function as a Gen 4 drive with x4 PCIe lanes, or as a Gen 5 drive with x2 PCIe lanes. Although the maximum PCIe bandwidth in both configurations remains the same, the Gen 5 mode utilizes half the lane count, an aspect I find interesting as it could potentially lead to more M.2 slots on motherboards in the future. This is also the first significant upgrade to the EVO series after the Gen 3 970 EVO drive, thus I’m keen to observe its performance.
Samsung 990 EVO 2TB SSD
The Samsung 990 EVO 2TB model is available in a one-sided M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor.
Samsung exhibits exceptional vertical integration with the 990 EVO. The core of this unit is an in-house Samsung controller named “Piccolo” and it leverages Samsung’s 133-layer TLC. There is a minor shift within the EVO series, ilustrated by the 990 EVO being DRAM-less, in contrast to the previous 970 EVO that had a DRAM cache. This doesn’t come as a surprise since Samsung launched the Samsung 980, which similarly, lacks a DRAM cache.
Flipping to the rear of the Samsung 990 EVO 2TB, you will only find a product label.
Specs of the Samsung 990 EVO SSD
You can find the Samsung 990 EVO available in 1TB and 2TB storage sizes.
Samsung’s 990 EVO scores 5000MB/s sequential read, and 4200MB/s sequential write. Set between top-end Gen 3 and Gen 4 performance, this delivers a tasteful improvement for those looking to upgrade from a Gen 3 drive. But sheer performance isn’t the sole stand-out feature of this drive, as we’ll touch on shortly. The drive’s endurance is adequately provided at 600 TBW (terabytes written) per 1TB of capacity, giving my 2TB drive 1200 TBW. And finally, it comes with an industry-standard 5-year warranty.
I usually only share one CrystalDiskInfo screenshot to convey basic details like PCIe link speed and NVMe revision. In this instance, you can see the 990 EVO running in PCIe 5.0 mode using x2 lanes.
In this display, you’ll notice the 990 EVO functioning in PCIe 4.0 with x4 lanes. NVMe 2.0 is supported in both scenarios. This adaptability is the drive’s ace up its sleeve; it can function in either Gen4 x4 or Gen5 x2 modes, both of which yield around the same bandwidth.
All the tests carried out, unless otherwise stated, were done with the drive set to work at PCIe 5.0 x2.
Test System Configuration
We are using the following configuration for this test:
- Motherboard: MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (12C/24T)
- RAM: 2x 16GB DDR5-6000 UDIMMs
Our testing uses the Samsung 990 EVO 2TB as the boot drive for the system, installed in the M.2_1 slot on the motherboard. This slot supports up to PCIe Gen 5 x4. The drive is filled to 85% capacity with data, and then some is deleted, leaving around 60% used space on the volume.
Testing of PCIe 4.0 was executed using the M.2_1 slot, which was hardcoded to Gen 4.
In the following, we will proceed with our performance examination.
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