Samsung 990 PRO Heatsink edition unleashed on retail channels

Samsung has now made good on previews of a subsequent version of the new 990 PRO SSD with its own cooling solution. The PCIe 4 component is still rated for write speeds of up to 6,900 megabytes per second (MB/s) and read speeds of up to 7,450 MB/s, yet has its own integrated "slim and elegant" heatsink rather than mere nickel shielding for the "in-house" controller as in the 'original' variant.

It is rated to cool the drive's "latest V-NAND" up to 16°C in sequential read tests and up to 12°C in sequential write tests at ambient temperatures of 25°C compared to the standard 990 PRO.

Despite the addition of this new housing, Samsung still touts the Heatsink edition as ideal Direct Storage for the PlayStation 5. It also integrates top-mounted RGB, tunable via this SSD's version of its OEM's Magician 7.2 software.

The new version of the 990 PRO can now be found listed alongside its non-Heatsink counterpart on sites such as Amazon. Oddly, while the latter started at US$169 to US$289 for 1TB to 2TB SKUs on that platform, the Heatsink edition is cheaper, having been released at US$149 to US$239 at the same capacities (or €129.90 to €214.90 elsewhere).