Samsung Will Open Pre-Orders for 990 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD Series on November 1

Tsing

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Samsung has announced that the 990 PRO, its latest PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, will be available to pre-order beginning on November 1, 2022.

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This is ridiculous, what happened to just buying devices from retail stores? Why would I want to "pre-order" hardware? Is this some limited run collector item now?
 
MadMummy76 said:
This is ridiculous, what happened to just buying devices from retail stores? Why would I want to "pre-order" hardware? Is this some limited run collector item now?
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If they are limiting preorders to 1 per customer with some sort of verification... I think that's fine. Especially if Scalpers have fully integrated themselves into the IT shopping experience.
 
Grimlakin said:
If they are limiting preorders to 1 per customer with some sort of verification... I think that's fine. Especially if Scalpers have fully integrated themselves into the IT shopping experience.
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Something really needs to be done about scalping.

Like mass-prosecuting people.

I'm not talking about some slaps on the wrists either.

I say a 2 year prison sentence per scalped item is appropriate :p

We have to end the profiting by people who have done none of the work.

It's gotten to the point that there is sclaping on items that aren't even in short supply now, where it winds up being a manufactured supply problem, with scalpers just holding stuff hostage from the market. It's insane.

Send these ****ers to federal pound-me-up-the-*** prison. That will change a few things.
 
Zarathustra said:
Something really needs to be done about scalping.

Like mass-prosecuting people.

I'm not talking about some slaps on the wrists either.

I say a 2 year prison sentence per scalped item is appropriate :p

We have to end the profiting by people who have done none of the work.

It's gotten to the point that there is sclaping on items that aren't even in short supply now, where it winds up being a manufactured supply problem, with scalpers just holding stuff hostage from the market. It's insane.

Send these ****ers to federal pound-me-up-the-*** prison. That will change a few things.
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There is another option.... don't buy the product. It isn't as if scalpers are buying up ALL of the bread and holding it hostage. (Ok Toilet Paper was a thing and THAT kind of stuff needs to be criminally processed.)

If it is ostensibly a LUXURY item I don't think it's right to criminally charge someone. I think making them a social pariah, outing them for being trash humans. That sort of thing is fine. But putting them in jail because they put the video card you want out of reach morally or financially... yea it sucks... but that's no reason to put someone in jail. (Or do something like beat them with a bat behind the Microcenter. )
 
Zarathustra said:
Something really needs to be done about scalping.

Like mass-prosecuting people.

I'm not talking about some slaps on the wrists either.

I say a 2 year prison sentence per scalped item is appropriate :p

We have to end the profiting by people who have done none of the work.

It's gotten to the point that there is sclaping on items that aren't even in short supply now, where it winds up being a manufactured supply problem, with scalpers just holding stuff hostage from the market. It's insane.

Send these ****ers to federal pound-me-up-the-*** prison. That will change a few things.
Click to expand...
Scalpers are the symptom, not the cause. The cause are the weak minded individuals who can't wait a few weeks or months to get the latest future scrap metal, and are even willing to pay extra to get it.
 
MadMummy76 said:
Scalpers are the symptom, not the cause. The cause are the weak minded individuals who can't wait a few weeks or months to get the latest future scrap metal, and are even willing to pay extra to get it.
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No lie, this is a big part of the problem
 
Brian_B said:
No lie, this is a big part of the problem
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Another part of the problem is the products being released with insufficient units. NVidia could have waited to launch until Black Friday with dramatically more units available. Scalpers can’t get traction if there are 100s of every model available at every microcenter and 10000s available at new egg, etc
 
Endgame said:
Another part of the problem is the products being released with insufficient units. NVidia could have waited to launch until Black Friday with dramatically more units available. Scalpers can’t get traction if there are 100s of every model available at every microcenter and 10000s available at new egg, etc
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False scarcity is a thing that Nvidia is using to keep desire for the product sharp so the lower end units will sell through.
 
Endgame said:
Welcome to what happens in markets with insufficient competition
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Yup.

Research shows that you need a minimum of 3-5 viable competitors in a market in order for the market to function like a proper free market.

Anything less than that and you have partial monopolistic pressures.

We haven't had that kind of GPU market since ~2000-2001. Matrox's G400 and S3's Virge bowed out in ~2000 (they were never really viable competitors to begin with). 3DFX may have folded in 2002, but it wasn't really a viable competitor towards the end.

So, 2000-2001 was when the GPU industry started to fall apart and become a duopoly and it has sucked ever since.
 
Zarathustra said:
Yup.

Research shows that you need a minimum of 3-5 viable competitors in a market in order for the market to function like a proper free market.

Anything less than that and you have partial monopolistic pressures.

We haven't had that kind of GPU market since ~2000-2001. Matrox's G400 and S3's Virge bowed out in ~2000 (they were never really viable competitors to begin with). 3DFX may have folded in 2002, but it wasn't really a viable competitor towards the end.

So, 2000-2001 was when the GPU industry started to fall apart and become a duopoly and it has sucked ever since.
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Whoops, and I just realized I was commenting on an SSD thread, not a GPU thread.

There is more competition in SSD's. I'm not sure how this is turning into a pre-order/scalping situation. There are plenty of options to choose from.
 
Zarathustra said:
Whoops, and I just realized I was commenting on an SSD thread, not a GPU thread.

There is more competition in SSD's. I'm not sure how this is turning into a pre-order/scalping situation. There are plenty of options to choose from.
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Samsung has basically been best of breed in SSDs for a while. A new potentially top performance product is likely to risk scalping.
 
Endgame said:
Samsung has basically been best of breed in SSDs for a while. A new potentially top performance product is likely to risk scalping.
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That is true.

They boast lower max sequential speeds than many of the other smaller brands which slap their names on the latest controller from a third party (Phison, Sandforce, etc.) and call it a day instead of designing anything of their own, but they make up for it in reliability and real world performance.

I've been a long time Samsung customer (I used to say that the only SSD brands I trusted were Samsung and Intel, and now Intel's SSD division is no more) but I bought a Sabrent Rocket 4 when I built my Threadripper system as at the time Samsung didn't have a Gen 4 model yet. In retrospect I should have just stuck with the 970 Pro available at the time.

Its specifications stated lower max sequential performance, and was a Gen 3 drive, but real world performance was probably better than the Sabrent Rocket 4 as was definitely the reliability.

The takeaway is that max sequential numbers are pretty much useless for gauging true SSD performance. You need to look at 4k random performance at various queue depths. This is what results in rtrue system responsiveness and good load times, and in those figures, Samsung is a class leader among consumer drives, even when the others boast newer PCIe gens and faster sequential speeds.

This is also why Optane drives are befuddlingly fast despite their old tech PCIe bandwidth and low sequentials. It's a true shame that the world will never see Gen 4, Gen 5 or newer Optanes.


I tend to think of true SSD makers as those that manufacture their own controllers and flash ram. That leaves a subset left:

- Crucial (if you consider parts from their parent Micron theirs)
- Dell (if you consider their stake in Kioxia to be internal)
- Kingston (if you consider their stake in Kioxia to be internal)
- Micron
- Samsung
- Seagate (if you consider their stake in kioxia and their subsidiary SandForce internal)
- SK Hynix (Intel's old SSD division)
- Western Digital (if you consider their stake in Flash Forward and their subsidiary Sandisk internal)

While not everyone who has access to Kioxia parts through their stake in the company make top performance drives, all of the recent top performance SSD's are on this list. Notably Samsung, Western Digital and SK Hynix)

Find any list of SSD's sorted by 4k random reads, and the top of that list (once you get past the Optanes which hold a ridiculous lead, but are dead and buried) is dominated by Samsung, Western Digital and Intel (now SK Hynix) drives.

They hold almost the entirety of the top 30 spots between them, with the first non-Samsung/WD/Intel drive coming in at 27th place...

1666292911788.png1666292959236.png

I still have my pro-Samsung SSD bias, but Intel/SK Hynix has tumbled in the ranks in my mind lately.

Today I'd shop Samsung first, WD second and SK Hynix a distant third. (unless they catch back up and prove themselves)

I don't think I'd ever buy another random rebadged Phison drive. That was a mistake and I have since learned from it.
 
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"The 990 PRO with Heatsink has a futuristic design and RGB lights to fit the style of any gaming setup, and Samsung Magician Software allows users to customize the RGB lighting color and effects."
*sigh*

Pricing:
  • 990 PRO 1TB ($169.99)
  • 990 PRO 1TB with Heatsink ($189.99)
  • 990 PRO 2TB ($289.99)
  • 990 PRO 2TB with Heatsink ($309.99)
Just noticed the link to FPS's article from August, which lists the basic specifications of the drive: https://www.thefpsreview.com/2022/0...ies-pcie-4-0-nvme-m-2-ssds-with-rgb-heatsink/
 
Tempest said:
"The 990 PRO with Heatsink has a futuristic design and RGB lights to fit the style of any gaming setup, and Samsung Magician Software allows users to customize the RGB lighting color and effects."
*sigh*

Pricing:
  • 990 PRO 1TB ($169.99)
  • 990 PRO 1TB with Heatsink ($189.99)
  • 990 PRO 2TB ($289.99)
  • 990 PRO 2TB with Heatsink ($309.99)
Just noticed the link to FPS's article from August, which lists the basic specifications of the drive: https://www.thefpsreview.com/2022/0...ies-pcie-4-0-nvme-m-2-ssds-with-rgb-heatsink/
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More RGB trash... :p

I'm curious what the 4TB model will cost.

If I ever bite on the "two PC's in one case" thought I've had bouncing around my head, and install a MiniITX board dedicated to games, I'm probably only going to have one M.2 slot, so I am going to have to make it count :p
 
Zarathustra said:
More RGB trash... :p

I'm curious what the 4TB model will cost.

If I ever bite on the "two PC's in one case" thought I've had bouncing around my head, and install a MiniITX board dedicated to games, I'm probably only going to have one M.2 slot, so I am going to have to make it count :p
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My 2 tb m2 feels plenty thick but once games start hitting 200 plus gig per install a larger drive might be called for.
 
Grimlakin said:
My 2 tb m2 feels plenty thick but once games start hitting 200 plus gig per install a larger drive might be called for.
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Do you leave games installed after you're done with them? I've got a 2TB drive as well, but I've got plenty of free space because generally just uninstall games I'm done with them.
 
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