I'm running out of space for games and am considering adding a Samsung 990 Pro 1TB alongside my existing Lexar NM620 512GB. Would the 990 Pro noticeably improve gaming performance or loading times, and would moving my operating system to it make booting and everyday tasks significantly faster? I'm also wondering whether its reputation as a high-end SSD justifies the extra cost compared with a cheaper Gen 4 or SATA SSD.
4 Answers
Samsung did have a firmware issue affecting some 990 Pro drives, which was addressed with a firmware update. If you buy one, check its firmware using Samsung’s management software and update it if necessary. The drive is still a strong option, but reliability alone probably isn’t enough reason to pay a large premium for a gaming drive.
For most games, even a SATA SSD is close to an NVMe drive because games generally don’t take full advantage of sequential PCIe speeds. The drive mainly affects loading and installation times; it doesn’t directly improve in-game performance. The 1TB capacity would be a worthwhile upgrade, but a cheaper Gen 4 drive is likely enough.
The main benefit here is the extra capacity, not gaming performance. Since the NM620 is already an NVMe SSD, switching to a faster model usually won’t increase FPS, and game loading times tend to be very similar. A cheaper SSD with good reviews would probably provide better value for storing games.
Moving the operating system to the 990 Pro might improve some disk-heavy tasks, but don’t expect dramatic changes. Boot times and normal applications are often limited by firmware initialization, CPU processing, and the applications themselves. An NVMe drive is already fast enough that the difference between a midrange and flagship model can be difficult to notice outside benchmarks.
Would it help with particularly long game loads, such as the loading screens in GTA V, or would those usually be limited by something else?
The firmware issue was identified and a later update resolved the reported health-loss problem, so checking the drive after installation is the important part.