Rock Paper Shotgun has reviewed Samsung's new 990 SSD, a lower-specification, DRAMless drive that unexpectedly excels at reducing in-game load times despite unremarkable overall benchmark performance. The review highlights an odd contradiction: the drive underperforms rivals in general read/write speed tests and comes with a shorter warranty, yet it matches or beats pricier alternatives when it comes to loading games quickly, making it a niche but notable option for PC gamers specifically.

The 990 offers only a three-year warranty, compared with the standard five years on other drives in Samsung's PCIe 4.0 line, including the better-performing 990 Pro. Its CrystalDiskMark scores are budget-tier at 2,878MB/s read and 3,974MB/s write, and the 2TB model's £430 price looks poor value next to the faster 990 Pro at £289; the 1TB model, at £220, is a more reasonable option. However, in Rock Paper Shotgun's Shadow of the Tomb Raider load-time test, the 990 recorded just 6.3 seconds, matching WD's PCIe 5.0 Black SN8100 and edging out both the 990 Pro and WD Black SN850X, which each took 6.5 seconds.