The Samsung 990 SSD Backlash: Paying More for Less Speed
The Samsung 990 SSD controversy centers on a new NVMe drive whose higher launch price and lower performance than the older 990 Pro have sparked criticism from PC enthusiasts, raising doubts about its price-to-performance value in a market already strained by surging memory costs and AI-driven demand. This is not a minor tweak; it is a clear break from the usual expectation that newer storage brings either more speed or more capacity for the money. Instead, PC builders are staring at a “pay more, get less” proposition, and they are right to be upset. The Samsung 990 SSD 1TB is priced at USD 269.99 (approx. RM1,240) and the 2TB at USD 529.99 (approx. RM2,440), while the older 990 Pro launched at USD 179 (approx. RM820) for 1TB and USD 309 (approx. RM1,420) for 2TB. That alone would be controversial, but the performance gap makes it worse: sequential reads on the 990 peak at 7,250 MB/s vs 7,450 MB/s on the Pro, with writes at 6,450 MB/s vs 6,900 MB/s. When you pay a premium and lose speed, the burden of proof is on the manufacturer to show hidden value. Samsung has not done that convincingly.
AI Demand, NVMe Storage Cost, and Samsung’s Pricing Logic
To understand the Samsung 990 SSD price, you have to follow the money, not the megabytes per second. Global memory prices are climbing because artificial intelligence hardware is soaking up the supply of storage chips, pushing suppliers toward high-margin corporate deals and leaving consumer SSDs to fight for scraps. The 990 SSD is a product of this pressure cooker, not of a normal competitive market. This explains why the 990 Pro itself has inflated to USD 320 (approx. RM1,470) for 1TB and USD 640 (approx. RM2,940) for 2TB. When the older, faster drive is that expensive, Samsung can argue the 990 is a “cheaper flagship PCIe 4.0 option” even if its performance is lower. Flash manufacturers are signalling another 20% price increase in the memory market in the third quarter, meaning NVMe storage cost is rising across the board, not only for Samsung. The quotable truth is this: you are not paying a premium for innovation; you are paying a premium because AI has made memory scarce.
DRAM-less Design and the Hidden Performance Trade-Off
Samsung’s performance story for the 990 SSD hangs on one idea: nearly 990 Pro-level PCIe 4.0 speeds at lower power. On paper, that sounds appealing for compact or efficiency-focused builds. In practice, the DRAM-less design is a major compromise. The drive relies on your system’s DDR4 or DDR5 RAM as cache, so its speed is tied directly to how much and how fast memory you have. Review testing shows this clearly. With a fast 32GB DDR5 kit, the 990 posts solid benchmark numbers and a big jump over the older Samsung 980, but it still sits behind the 990 Pro in overall performance. Once the SSD runs out of system memory, it converts its own quad-layer-cell NAND into slower single-layer-cell cache, which causes a dramatic slowdown in big transfers. After roughly 200GB of continuous file copying, speeds can crash to between 300 MB/s and 30 MB/s. For a modern NVMe drive at this price, that kind of behaviour is unacceptable for creators and heavy PC users.
SSD Value Comparison: Why Enthusiasts Are Walking Away
When PC builders look at NVMe storage cost today, they do not care only about peak speeds; they care about the value per dollar in real workloads. Here, the Samsung 990 struggles badly. You are paying about a 50% premium for slower technology compared with the 990 Pro’s launch pricing. Even in the current market, the 1TB 990 Evo Plus is only USD 20 (approx. RM90) more, and the 1TB 990 Pro is USD 50 (approx. RM230) more. Those modest jumps buy you better NAND and a proper DRAM cache. That is why reviewers call the 990 “Samsung’s most bare component in years” and argue it is not a fantastic bargain even with memory prices skyrocketing. A year ago, similar money would have bought double the capacity on a drive with its own cache. For high-end builds, the price-to-performance ratio has become brutal: if you can afford to move up to the Evo Plus or Pro, it is hard to justify settling for a drive that slows to hard-drive-like speeds in long transfers.
Who Should Consider the 990 SSD—and Who Should Skip It
The 990 SSD is not a disaster for every PC storage upgrade scenario, but its sweet spot is narrow. It makes some sense if you want near-flagship PCIe 4.0 NVMe performance, have good system RAM, and care more about lower power use than absolute speed. Light users who rarely move huge files and non-competitive gamers might find it acceptable, especially if future SSD hikes make the Pro and Evo Plus climb even higher. For PC enthusiasts, though, this is a bad deal. If you build high-end rigs, move large game libraries or 4K project folders, or demand consistent performance, the DRAM-less design, dependence on RAM, and severe slowdown after about 200GB of transfers are red flags. With another 20% memory price increase looming, you should be more, not less, ruthless about SSD value comparison. In a market where AI is inflating every NVMe storage cost, paying extra for weaker hardware is the one mistake you can still avoid.
