Samsung 990 Evo Breaks Ground as World’s First Hybrid SSD: Incorporating Both PCIe 4.0 x4 and PCIe 5.0 x2

Samsung inadvertently published the product page for its upcoming 990 Evo NVMe SSD, revealing both marketing and hardware specifications, as reported by WinFuture. Unlike Samsung’s renowned top-tier SSDs, such as the 990 Pro, the 990 Evo positions itself as a firm midrange drive with read and write speeds of 5,000 MB/s and 4,200 MB/s, respectively. What sets the 990 Evo apart is its distinctive configuration of four PCIe 4.0 lanes or two PCIe 5.0 lanes.

The All new Samsung 990 Evo

The most notable feature of the Samsung 990 Evo is its support for PCIe 5.0, albeit with just two lanes, offering equivalent bandwidth to the four lanes of PCIe 4.0 it also provides. While PCIe 4.0 SSDs function seamlessly on PCIe 5.0 slots, the 990 Evo doesn’t appear to gain any particular advantage from supporting PCIe 5.0, especially when not constrained by its PCIe 4.0 connection.

Nevertheless, there is a niche scenario where the two PCIe 5.0 lanes could prove beneficial. In cases where the data connector has only two lanes, a PCIe 4.0 SSD on a PCIe 5.0 interface with two lanes would see its bandwidth halved from 8,000MB/s to 4,000MB/s. In contrast, the Samsung 990 Evo, with its ability to run those two lanes at PCIe 5.0 speeds, would maintain its normal bandwidth. The use of two lanes instead of four could also result in some power savings. However, for consumer drives, the practical utility of these PCIe 5.0 lanes remains unclear, given that desktops typically feature PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots with four lanes, and laptops do not yet support PCIe 5.0.

Despite expectations of significant performance gains over the years, the Samsung 990 Evo offers a relatively modest improvement compared to its predecessor. This can be attributed, in part, to the 970 Evo Plus already being a high-performing SSD for its time, nearing the limit of the PCIe 3.0 interface. Unlike the 990 Pro, which stands as Samsung’s flagship PCIe 4.0 SSD, the 990 Evo falls between it and the 970 Evo Plus.

Samsung’s midrange Evo lineup has seen no updates since the 970 Evo Plus in 2019, which supported only PCIe 3.0. Despite the introduction of PCIe 4.0 SSDs in the same year, Samsung continued to produce more 970 Evo Plus drives, solidifying their position as the company’s lower-end SSDs.

Notably, Amazon Germany briefly listed prices for the Samsung 990 Evo, slightly higher than the 990 Pro. Although the prices were later removed, it is reasonable to assume that Samsung would not launch a midrange SSD with an MSRP exceeding that of its flagship product.