Samsung 990 pro real world performance

[Dazzy]

My new 2TB 990 Pro NVME isn't hitting the advertised speeds in Samsung Magician benchmarks. It's supposed to reach up to:

• 7,450 MB/s sequential read / 1.4m IOPS random read
• 6,900 MB/s sequential write / 1.55m IOPS random write

However, I'm only seeing 6,500 sequential reads and 6,000 writes. Random reads/writes are around 1.1m IOPS reads and 0.9m IOPS writes.

I've got it installed in a 12th gen Intel system in a 4x4 M2 Slot (both CPU and Chipset lanes tried), it's not thermal throttling, and it's a brand new, non-OS drive. There's no obvious BIOS setting impacting it and everything is on the latest firmware.

I'm wondering if Samsung might have silently revised the drives, as some recent Amazon reviews mention max reads capping at 6.5k on a PS5.

Could anything else be affecting the speed, or might it be a bad drive?

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Try a different benchmark
Crystal disk mark,as ssd,or atto for example
A benchmark on only 1 software
Isn't really telling as could be the software for
Some reason

 

[Dazzy]

Try a different benchmark
Crystal disk mark,as ssd,or atto for example
A benchmark on only 1 software
Isn't really telling as could be the software for
Some reason

Thanks for this suggestion. I've now tested on Cristal Disk Mark and it's closer to the advertised speed (7100 read / 6900 write).

I still wonder if they have revised them though as it still seems a little lower than it should be (comparing to older reviews of the same drive). Magician was also benchmarking the advertised speeds for others. For example RND4K Q32T16 random read IOPS of 1.1m vs 1.55m advertised (and achieved in real world reviews on Cristal Disk Mark).

Got it for £80 after cashback so still cheap for the actual speed acheived though.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

In crystal disk mark
Go to settings
Can't check right now exactly what it says
But there's a setting for nvme drives
Enable that and probably will show
A higher speed

 

[Dazzy]

In crystal disk mark
Go to settings
Can't check right now exactly what it says
But there's a setting for nvme drives
Enable that and probably will show
A higher speed

The figures in my post were already from the NVME mode so it must be something else causing it.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

The figures in my post were already from the NVME mode so it must be something else causing it

7100/6900 is pretty close
Could try atto test it usually reads higher than others
But those figures are close enough to advertised
That could just be something in the background
Is slightly using the drive

 

[Simon42]

I've got dozens of NVMe drives in various systems and I only ever check they're within the ball park for speeds. If it works, doesn't have any SMART errors and is close enough to show there is not a major driver/system issues then that's good enough for me. Quoted figures are on ideal system with a clean Windows install.

I've got a couple of 990 Pro 2TB and just tested one and it has 7132MB/s Read and 6887MB/s Write and that's with AV running and a PC used for software development including virtualisation. I wouldn't give those results a second thought for there being an issue.

 

[chaparral]

Thanks for this suggestion. I've now tested on Cristal Disk Mark and it's closer to the advertised speed (7100 read / 6900 write).

I still wonder if they have revised them though as it still seems a little lower than it should be (comparing to older reviews of the same drive). Magician was also benchmarking the advertised speeds for others. For example RND4K Q32T16 random read IOPS of 1.1m vs 1.55m advertised (and achieved in real world reviews on Cristal Disk Mark).

Got it for £80 after cashback so still cheap for the actual speed acheived though.

I wouldn't worry about it

My 2TB 990 pro

My 4TB 990 Pro

 

[Rroff]

Just bought another one of these though will take me a day or two to get around to fitting it as I need to take half the system apart to get to the M.2 slots so will do a comparison with my older ones.

 

[Rroff]

Within normal benchmark margin of error for me.

My oldest 990 Pro:

One I bought a few days ago:

Having 2 of them sitting under the same motherboard heat spreader (along with an SK Hynix NVME) isn't doing wonders for the temperatures though - before the one there was running about 5C cooler idle than the one with the factory fitted heatsink on its own slot - now they are all about even temperature wise under idle or up to moderate use - though the ones under the motherboard heat spreader are still cooler under heavy load than the one with factory heatsink.